"There is no one here!"  
Sime looked about the place excitedly.
 
"Fortunately for us!" answered Dr. Cairn.
 
He breathed rather heavily yet with his exertions, and, moreover, the air of the chamber was disgusting. But otherwise he was perfectly calm, although his face was pale and bathed in perspiration.
 
"Make as little noise as possible."
 
Sime, who, now that the place proved to be empty, began to cast off that dread which had possessed him in the passage-way, found something ominous in the words.
 
Dr. Cairn, stepping carefully over the rubbish of the floor, advanced to the east corner of the chamber, waving his companion to follow. Side by side they stood there.
 
"Do you notice that the abominable smell of the incense is more overpowering here than anywhere?"
 
Sime nodded.
 
"You are right. What does that mean?"
 
Dr. Cairn directed the ray of light down behind a little mound of rubbish into a corner of the wall.
 
"It means," he said, with a subdued expression of excitement, "that we have got to crawl in there!"
 
Sime stifled an exclamation.
 
One of the blocks of the bottom tier was missing, a fact which he had not detected before by reason of the presence of the mound of rubbish before the opening.
 
"Silence again!" whispered Dr. Cairn.
 
He lay down flat, and, without hesitation, crept into the gap. As his feet disappeared, Sime followed. Here it was possible to crawl upon hands and knees. The passage was formed of square stone blocks. It was
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but three yards or so in length; then it suddenly turned upward at a tremendous angle of about one in four. Square foot-holds were cut in the lower face. The smell of incense was almost unbearable.
 
Dr. Cairn bent to Sime's ear.
 
"Not a word, now," he said. "No light—pistol ready!"
 
He began to mount. Sime, following, counted the steps. When they had mounted sixty he knew that they must have come close to the top of the original mastabah, and close to the first stage of the pyramid. Despite the shaft beneath, there was little danger of falling, for one could lean back against the wall while seeking for the foothold above.
 
Dr. Cairn mounted very slowly, fearful of striking his head upon some obstacle. Then on the seventieth step, he found that he could thrust his foot forward and that no obstruction met his knee. They had reached a horizontal passage.
 
Very softly he whispered back to Sime:
 
"Take my hand. I have reached the top."
 
They entered the passage. The heavy, sickly sweet odour almost overpowered them, but, grimly set upon their purpose, they, after one moment of hesitancy, crept on.
 
A fitful light rose and fell ahead of them. It gleamed upon the polished walls of the corridor in which they now found themselves—that inexplicable light burning in a place which had known no light since the dim ages of the early Pharaohs!
 
The events of that incredible night had afforded no such emotion as this. This was the crowning wonder, and, in its dreadful mystery, the crowning terror of Méydûm.
 
When first that lambent light played upon the walls of the passage both stopped, stricken motionless with fear and amazement. Sime, who would have been prepared to swear that the Méydûm Pyramid contained no apartment other than the King's Chamber, now was past mere wonder, past conjecture. But he could still fear. Dr. Cairn, although he had anticipated this,
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temporarily also fell a victim to the supernatural character of the phenomenon.
 
They advanced.
 
They looked into a square chamber of about the same size as the King's Chamber. In fact, although they did not realise it until later, this second apartment, no doubt was situated directly above the first.
 
The only light was that of a fire burning in a tripod, and by means of this illumination, which rose and fell in a strange manner, it was possible to perceive the details of the place. But, indeed, at the moment they were not concerned with these; they had eyes only for the black-robed figure beside the tripod.
 
It was that of a man, who stood with his back towards them, and he chanted monotonously in a tongue unfamiliar to Sime. At certain points in his chant he would raise his arms in such a way that, clad in the black robe, he assumed the appearance of a gigantic bat. Each time that he acted thus the fire in the tripod, as if fanned into new life, would leap up, casting a hellish glare about the place. Then, as the chanter dropped his arms again, the flame would drop also.
 
A cloud of reddish vapour floated low in the apartment. There were a number of curiously-shaped vessels upon the floor, and against the farther wall, only rendered visible when the flames leapt high, was some motionless white object, apparently hung from the roof.
 
Dr. Cairn drew a hissing breath and grasped Sime's wrist.
 
"We are too late!" he said strangely.
 
He spoke at a moment when his companion, peering through the ruddy gloom of the place, had been endeavouring more clearly to perceive that ominous shape which hung, horrible, in the shadow. He spoke, too, at a moment when the man in the black robe, raised his arms—when, as if obedient to his will, the flames leapt up fitfully.
 
Although Sime could not be sure of what he saw, the recollection came to him of words recently spoken by Dr. Cairn. He remembered the story of Julian the Apostate, Julian the Emperor—the Necromancer.
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He remembered what had been found in the Temple of the Moon after Julian's death. He remembered that Lady Lashmore—
 
And thereupon he experienced such a nausea that but for the fact that Dr. Cairn gripped him he must have fallen.
 
Tutored in a materialistic school, he could not even now admit that such monstrous things could be. With a necromantic operation taking place before his eyes; with the unholy perfume of the secret incense all but suffocating him; with the dreadful Oracle dully gleaming in the shadows of that temple of evil—his reason would not accept the evidences. Any man of the ancient world—of the middle ages—would have known that he looked............