“now for the tombs, fellows,” cried ned, after the party had gazed at the sphinx, climbed the great pyramid and enjoyed the fine view of the desert and the verdant nile valley.
“the tombs! what’s the use of seeing a lot of moldy old tombs?” protested some of the sailors.
“oh, all right. but herc and i want to pay our respects to a few mummies before we leave egypt,” responded ned. “you fellows wait for us.”
“all right,” agreed meadows. “i’m plumb worn out with sight-seeing.”
“where’s that guide? oh, here he is. now then, ‘lead on, mcduff,’” cried ned, and the two boys followed the guide up to a height of fifty[268] feet or more above the desert. then they paused at a black hole.
“do we go in there?” demanded herc, as the guide paused to light candles.
“certainly, why not?”
“it looks like the subway. first time i ever heard of burying kings in the subway.”
into the dark recesses of the tombs they plunged after the guide. it was almost insufferably hot and smelled musty and mouldy. in places the ceiling was low and they had to crawl on their hands and knees on the dusty floor.
“my uniform will be a fine sight when we get out of here,” grumbled herc. “just after i had all that sticky stuff cleaned off it, too!”
“never mind. that dust will brush off,” declared ned, and they went forward once more.
“look out where you go,” said the guide.
“why, are there holes one can fall down?” asked herc.
“many. lot of things not known about[269] tombs. nobody know everything about them.”
they finally came to a high-domed chamber. the walls were covered with queer hieroglyphics and writings. the guide explained that this was the king’s chamber. he showed them some stone coffins in which lay the mummified forms of dead and gone rulers. ned was much impressed, but herc, as usual, did not take the situation seriously.
“maybe they are just a lot of fakes,” he remarked. but presently he tugged ned’s sleeve.
“i guess they’re not, either,” he said.
“not what?”
“fakes. i just saw the ghosts of two of them.”
“what in the name of time are you talking about?”
“look back there yourself. there, among the shadows. don’t you see anything?”
“why, yes. i do see somebody.”
“don’t you think it might be the spooks of[270] some of those old kings snooping about to find out what we want in here?”
“no, i’ll tell you what i think it is.”
“what?”
“some of our fellows who think they’ll put up a trick on us.”
“oh, ho! that’s it, eh? what do you know about that? let’s turn the tables on them.”
“good, we’ll slip away from the guide and hide off in that corridor there. when they come along we’ll give them a scare they won’t forget in a hurry.”
the guide was in another part of the tomb chamber and the boys made a noiseless exit in the direction ned had indicated. they crept into the shadows, chuckling in low tones over the scare they were going to give their fun-loving ship-mates. at last it grew quite dark. the boys decided to halt. before long they heard something to confirm their theory. whisperings began to draw near to them.
[271]
“hush!” hissed ned warningly.
“s-s-s-s-say, those fellows aren’t talking in english!”
“no; what do you suppose it means?”
“i think we ought to go out and reconnoiter.”
“same here.”
the boys made their way back along the passage. suddenly ned gave an amazed and rather alarmed exclamation.
“the light has gone!”
“which one?”
“why, the one in the tomb chamber. where’s that guide?”
“he’s vamoosed. maybe he thought we’d gone out of our own accord. say, ned, i kind of wish we’d stayed with him.”
“so do i now. well, we’ve got to make the best of it. light up your candle, herc, and then we’ll holler as loud as we can. if that does no good, we’ll have to try to get out of this place by ourselves.”
[272]
the boys began shouting at the top of their voices. but hollow echoes coming weirdly back from the stone walls of the burial chamber were the only response to their shouts. suddenly herc grabbed ned’s arm.
“i saw them again,” he gasped.
“saw who?”
“those spooks. they are right back of us.”
“i’m glad you did. it’s some of our boys, for sure. hullo, fellows!” hailed ned. but no answer was vouchsafed. ned began not to like the look of things a little bit.
for a long time the boys tried to find their way out of the pyramid, but without success. finally they came to a halt and exchanged dismayed glances.
“we might as well face the truth,” said ned in sober tones; “we’re lost.”
“that’s right,” agreed herc in melancholy fashion. “i wish we’d stayed outside.”
“maybe we can get back to the burial chamber,”[273] suggested ned, after a while. the boys were then standing in a passageway into which they had blundered in the hope that it might lead to daylight.
“i doubt it. i’ve not the remotest idea of where it is, and this pyramid is simply honeycombed with passages.”
“the guide said nobody knew all about it. maybe we are in one of those passages that haven’t been explored yet.”
“in that case, we stand a mighty poor chance of being found.”
“hark!” herc grabbed ned nervously.
“what’s the trouble?”
“what’s up?”
“i heard whispering.”
“where?”
“back there in the darkness. there it is again,” said herc, whispering himself.
“i hear it, too, now. what on earth is it? i wish we had some weapon. it may be thieves.”
[274]
“look!” cried herc suddenly. “it is thieves! i saw two men just for an instant.”
“who were they?”
“two of those beggars that we charged in cairo last night. they slunk off when they saw i’d spotted them.”
“gracious, that’s nice! look out, herc! now, you’ve done it.”
in his agitation, herc had allowed the candle that he was carrying to slip from his fingers. the boys were plunged in total darkness. to make matters worse, they couldn’t, although they groped in every direction, recover the candle.
“strike a match, herc.”
“yes, it’s a good thing i’ve got some.”
the light flared up and the boys looked down for the candle. but at the same instant something totally unexpected happened. they felt themselves seized from behind in such a manner that they were powerless to resist. then they were rushed rapidly along by their captors.
“let go!” roared herc. “let——”
[275]
that sentence was never finished. the earth appeared to drop from under herc’s feet and he felt himself plunging into unknown, unlit space. suddenly he struck something and knew that he was sliding at express speed down an almost perpendicular wall of rock as smooth as glass.
“wow! i’m going fully sixty miles an hour! where will all this end?” exclaimed the boy.
hardly had the words left his lips when he landed with a crash at the foot of the slope and lay still. he didn’t dare to move for some minutes, thinking that he must be seriously injured.
“where’s ned, i wonder?” he thought.
then he cried out softly.
“ned! oh, ned!”
the next minute he gave a jump. almost in his ear he heard his comrade’s reply.
“hello, herc, all right?”
“yes, how about you?”
“o. k., although i don’t see how we escaped injury. gracious, that was a ride!”
“yes, a kind of chute the chutes that i don’t[276] care to tackle again. those rascals must have followed us out to the pyramids to get revenge. i recognized one of them as the fellow i cracked in the eye. i reckon they ran us into one of those holes that the guide warned us about, and had hard work to save themselves!”
“well, the question now is, how are we going to get out of here?”
“yes, and that’s some question, too. wait; i’ll strike a match and maybe we can get some bearings.”
the match flared up and showed them that they were in a chamber not unlike the great burial tomb, but smaller. dust lay thick, and showed that it was many years since human footsteps had trodden its floor.
“this is nice,” snorted herc. “we might stay here as long as those mummies have, and never be found.”
“it looks that way,” said ned in a musing voice, as if he were thinking of something else. suddenly he gave a whoop.
[277]
“i’ve got it.”
“got what?”
“an idea.”
“good for you. let’s hear it.”
“why, those fellows couldn’t have come into the pyramid the same way we did. our boys would have seen them and recognized their ugly mugs, especially that one with the black eye. they must have come in some other way. maybe we can find that way.”
“and then, again, maybe we can’t.”
“let’s try.”
“no harm in that.”
striking matches sparingly, the boys set off. soon they found themselves in another passage. on and on they went till their feet ached. they began to think that they never would get out of the place. suddenly, just as herc struck one of the few remaining matches, ned leaned over with a sharp exclamation. he picked up something. it was a small, cheap ornament of egyptian manufacture. but it was precious to him, for it[278] showed that the passage they were traversing was a traveled one. herc received the news with shining eyes.
“good; never say die. we’ll be out of here in two shakes of a duck’s tail. see if we’re not.”
they negotiated a sharp turn and then, to their astonishment, found that they were confronting a door of wood. from within came voices filtering out through a chink, for the door was not fully closed.
“be ready for trouble,” said ned, and then he shoved the door open.
as it swung back, the boys got the surprise of their lives. within was a chamber illumined by a smoky lamp and containing a divan and a few bits of oriental furniture. on the divan were seated two men whom they recognized at once as the rascally beggars who had followed them to the pyramids and trailed them in the dark.
both men leaped to their feet as the boys confronted them. they dashed for two revolvers that lay in a niche in the wall.
