第91章

Straight before us stretched away what had evidently been the main thoroughfare of the city, for it was very wide, wider than the Thames Embankment, and regular.Being, as we afterwards discovered, paved, or rather built, throughout of blocks of dressed stone, such as were employed in the walls, it was but little overgrown even now with grass and shrubs, that could get no depth of soil to live in.What had been the parks and gardens, on the contrary, were now dense jungle.Indeed, it was easy even from a distance to trace the course of the various roads by the burned-up appearance of the scanty grass that grew upon them.On either side of this great thoroughfare were vast blocks of ruins, each block, generally speaking, being separated.from its neighbor by a space of what had once, I suppose, been garden-ground, but was now dense and tangled bush.They were all built of the same colored stone, and most of them had pillars, which was as much as we could make out in the fading light as we passed swiftly up the main road, that I believe I am right in saying no living foot had pressed for thousands of years.

Presently we came to an enormous pile, which we rightly took to be a temple covering at least four acres of ground, and apparently arranged in a series of courts, each one enclosing another of smaller size, on a principle of a Chinese nest of boxes, which were separated one from the other by rows of huge columns.

And, while I think of it, I may as well state a remarkable thing about the shape of these columns, which resembled none that I have ever seen or heard of, being fashioned with a kind of waist in the centre, and swelling out above and below.At first we thought that this shape was meant to roughly symbolize or suggest the female form, as was a common habit among the ancient religious architects of many creeds.

On the following day, however, as we went up the slopes of the mountain, we discovered a large quantity of the most stately looking palms, of which the trunks grew exactly in this shape, and I have now no doubt but that the first designer of those columns drew his inspiration from the graceful bends of those very palms, or rather of their ancestors, which then, some eight or ten thousand years ago, as now, beautified the slopes of the mountain that had once formed the shores of the volcanic lake.

At the facade of this huge temple, which, I should imagine, is almost as large as that of El-Karnac, at Thebes, some of the largest columns, which I measured, being between eighteen to twenty feet in diameter at the base, by about seventy feet in height, our little procession was halted, and Ayesha descended from her litter.

"There used to be a spot here, Kallikrates," she said to Leo, who had run up to help her down, "where one might sleep.Two thousand years ago did thou and I and that Egyptian asp rest therein, but since then have Inot set foot here, nor any man, and perchance it has fallen," and.followed by the rest of us, she passed up a vast flight of broken and ruined steps into the outer court, and looked round into the gloom, Presently she seemed to recollect, and, walking a few paces along the wall to the left, halted.

"It is here," she said, and at the same time beckoned to the two mutes, who were loaded with provisions and our little belongings, to advance.One of them came forward, and, producing a lamp, lit it from his brazier (for the Amahagger when on a journey nearly always carried with them a little lighted brazier from which to provide fire).The tinder of this brazier was made of broken fragments of mummy carefully damped, and, if the admixture of moisture was properly managed, this unholy compound would smoulder away for hours.As soon as the lamp was lit we entered the place before which Ayesha had halted.It turned out to be a chamber hollowed in the thickness of the wall, and, from the fact of there still being a massive stone table in it, I should think that it had probably served as a living-room, perhaps for one of the door-keepers of the great temple.

Here we stopped, and after cleaning the place out and making it as comfortable as circumstances and the darkness would permit, we ate some cold meat, at least Leo, Job, and I did, for Ayesha, as I think I have said elsewhere, never touched anything except cakes of flour, fruit, and water.While we were still eating, the moon, which was at her full, rose above the mountain-wall, and began to flood the place with silver.

"Wot ye why I have brought you here to-night, my Holly?" said Ayesha, leaning her head upon her hand and watching the great orb as she rose, like some heavenly queen, above the solemn pillars of the temple."I brought younay, it is strange, but knowest thou, Kallikrates, that thou liest at this moment upon the very spot where thy dead body lay when I bore thee back to those caves of Ko^r so many years ago? It all returns to my mind now.I can see it, and horrible is it to my sight!" and she shuddered.

Here Leo jumped up and hastily changed his seat.

However the reminiscence might affect Ayesha, it clearly had few charms for him.

"I brought you," went on Ayesha, presently, "that ye might look upon the most wonderful sight that ever the eye of man beheldthe full moon shining over ruined Ko^r.When ye have done your eatingI would that Icould teach thee to eat naught but fruit, Kallikrates, but that will come after thou hast laved in the fire.