As he spoke his language had become very simple, very direct, almost without accent, and he spoke slowly, picking his way with that lack of inflection, of emotion characteristic of a child reading a new reader.

“The column had fallen from its base, eastward, and with its base it had upheaved another buried base, laying bare a sort of cellar and a flight of stone steps descending into darkness.

“Into this excavation the sand was still running in tiny rivulets.  Listening, I could hear it pattering far, far down into the shadows.

“Sitting there in the saddle, the thing explained itself as I looked.  The fallen pillar had been built upon older ruins; all Egypt is that way, ruin founded on the ruin of ruins—­like human hopes.

“The stone steps, descending into the shadow of remote ages, invited me.  I dismounted, walked to the edge of the excavation, and, kneeling, peered downward.  And I saw a wall and the lotus-carved rim of a vast stone-framed pool; and as I looked I heard the tinkle of water.  For the pillar, falling, had unbottled the ancient spring, and now the stone-framed lagoon was slowly filling after its drought of centuries.

“There was light enough to see by, but, not knowing how far I might penetrate, I returned to my horse, pocketed matches and candles from the saddlebags, and, returning, started straight down the steps of stone.

“Fountain, wall, lagoon, steps, terraces half buried—­all showed what the place had been:  a water garden of ancient Egypt—­probably royal—­because, although I am not able to decipher hieroglyphics, I have heard somewhere that these picture inscriptions, when inclosed in a cartouch like this”—­he drew rapidly—­

[Illustration:  Glyph]

“or this

[Illustration:  Glyph]

indicate that the subject of the inscription was once a king.

“And on every wall, every column, I saw the insignia of ancient royalty, and I saw strange hawk-headed figures bearing symbols engraved on stone—­beasts, birds, fishes, unknown signs and symbols; and everywhere the lotus carved in stone—­the bud, the blossom half-inclosed, the perfect flower.”

His dreamy eyes met the gaze of the Tracer, unseeing; he rested his sunburned face between both palms, speaking in the same vague monotone: 

“Everywhere dust, ashes, decay, the death of life, the utter annihilation of the living—­save only the sparkle of reborn waters slowly covering the baked bed of the stone-edged pool—­strange, luminous water, lacking the vital sky tint, enameled with a film of dust, yet, for all that, quickening with imprisoned brilliancy like an opal.

“The slow filling of the pool fascinated me; I stood I know not how long watching the thin film of water spreading away into the dimness beyond.  At last I turned and passed curiously along the wall where, at its base, mounds of dust marked what may have been trees.  Into these I probed with my riding crop, but discovered nothing except the depths of the dust.