The Pyramid Chapter 10

THE UNDERGROUND PALACE

Menni, governor of the Royal Palace, still distraught, still more or less sick at heart, despite his well-known courage and resourcefulness, had accompanied the royal party back from the pyramid and, as usual when feeling like that, resolved to find comfort in work. There was plenty to do. Not since the days of the “great ones of Abydos,” the founders of the empire, had the activities of “the one who lives at Memphis” achieved such a scale of magnificence.

The double palace of the double throne—symbolizing the upper and the lower kingdoms—had become a far-flung park in the very midst of the great city. It was a city within a city—a government within a government over which he ruled absolutely, under the life-giving radiance of the queen.

In spite of the internal jealousies and treason which had led to the assassination of young Metemsa—a state of affairs which still continued, and would continue to last, no doubt, until the conspirators were put out of the way or otherwise pacified—the country was enjoying remarkable prosperity. Good crops at home, successful campaigns abroad. Grain, gold, spices, slaves pouring in.

Any one would have a hard time to convince the shopkeepers of Memphis that all this was not due to the rule of a virtuous queen.

It was this period of prosperity which had caused Metemsa to begin one of the most notable works of his reign. This was the great underground treasure-house. It was to be another wonder of the world. A pity, indeed, that the poor fellow didn’t live to see its completion.

Down deep under the temple of Ptah, there in the midst of the “City of the White Wall,” he had seen it in his imagination and given orders for its immediate building. A stupendous task! A huge hall to be dug from what had been the ancient bed of the Nile itself, under the enormous building already standing there.

There had been sacrificed the lives of almost a thousand slaves in the preliminary work before Menni took charge, for the water kept seeping through and drowning the unfortunates every time there was a moment’s delay at the pumps.

Menni wasn’t an engineer. He was merely a student, then, interested in thoughts and dreams—even of slaves. And Menni had dreamed a dream one night of a race of men who pushed back water with air, just as the wind-god does on the sea.

That was how Menni came to be governor of the palace—not for having discovered a way to save the lives of slaves, but for having made the underground treasure-palace a possibility at all.

Almost completed!

Long, broad, and lofty. No one would have guessed, merely to look at it, that it was far below the level of the Nile, that it had been dug out of the alluvial mud. The grosser work had been finished. The masons were gone. Only the sculptors, the gilders, and the painters remained.

They worked by the light of a hundred lamps and torches—silently and at top speed, for the most part, as a dozen overseers paced up and down with sticks and an eye for shirkers.

Now and then a stick thwacked down on a bare back, and there would be a subdued snicker. The artist who was struck would work with sullen speed for the next ten minutes: but if his feelings had been hurt he failed to give a sign of it. As soon as the overseer was at a safe distance the victim would be grinning and whispering again with the rest.

It was into this great man-made grotto that Menni came on his daily visit, not long after his return from the pyramid. For a long time he stood near the entrance surveying all that had been done. In spite of its magnitude and growing beauty, the place somehow filled him with foreboding. It was solemn enough, in that flickering light.

This vast hall, a hundred feet wide, a hundred feet high, two hundred feet in length; two mammoth statues, ten feet apart, occupying the middle space of each wall from floor to ceiling—Isis and Osiris, Osiris and Isis, each statue nearly sixty feet high, Osiris with the face of the murdered Metemsa, Isis with the face of Netokris, no less.

And, between these statues on the four sides of the room, flights of stairs leading to an upper level, but blocked instantly—at the will of any one who knew—by massive monoliths which could slide into place as softly as a lady’s foot into her sandal. But it was of another marvel of the place that Menni thought as he stood there.

One of these colossi had been so arranged by Metemsa’s chief engineer that by a mere touch of a certain lever it would swing outward from the wall and let the flood of the Nile rush in. A most ingenious idea! Royal treasuries had been looted rather often in the past. Would they ever be looted again?

One by one the overseers came forward and saluted him cringingly. More than once an overseer had had his stick snatched from him and had felt it over his own back. Menni had never done such a thing. But you could never tell.

“How about it, Pshadou?”

“In another week, my lord, and the south wall will be ready.”

“How about it, Nibamon?”

“In another ten days, my lord, and the east wall—”

“Too long! She who dwells in the palace must have this place in seven days. Draft twenty more artisans, if necessary.”

“Your breath is my life, my lord.”

Menni had come to the center of the great chamber, had again fallen into melancholy brooding. It was unlike him thus to give himself up to melancholy, however great the provocation.

He wished that Berenice was home from that trip she had taken with her old benefactress up the Nile. He felt that she had a very large part in his concern. Netokris did not amuse herself by making empty threats. The queen was more likely to find her amusement in carrying her threats into execution.

Netokris!

He felt as though her eyes were upon him now. The feeling grew stronger and stronger, made him feel increasingly depressed and restless.

Once or twice he had lifted his eyes to a certain point in the roof of the chamber where there was a small opening, invisible to eyes unfamiliar with its whereabouts. He had seen nothing there. Yet, still that impression of being looked at.

He passed up and out from the chamber by the flight of steps nearest him and found himself in the corridor which completely surrounded the treasure-house at a higher level. It was all familiar ground to him.

Scarcely remarking his direction, but bent on a thorough investigation, he came to that other and lesser statue which likewise moved to the will of those who understood.

It swung back, and he stood there hesitant, realizing that his forebodings had not deceived him.

He had caught a breath of perfume, had heard a whispered word, and knew that, for the second time within the last few hours, he was in the presence of the queen.