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All of these things suggested the burial of an ancient king

I left these things a little reluctantly

I caarhts in the earth in Cairo, and put on fresh clothes I felt rather absurd standing in this timeless place in a violet blue frock coat with pearl buttons and the usual lace shirt and diamond buckle satin shoes, but these were the only clothes I had I tied back entleman and went in search of the master of the house

Chapter 2

2

Torches had been lighted throughout the house Doors lay open Windoere uncovered as they looked out over the firmament and the sea

And as I left the barren little stairs that led down fro I was truly in the safe refuge of an is that an iht want

Magnificent Grecian urns stood on pedestals in the corridors, great bronze statues from the Orient in their various niches, exquisite plants bloos from India, Persia, China covered the marble floors wherever I walked

I caiant stuffed beasts mounted in lifelike attitudes -- the brown bear, the lion, the tiger, even the elephant standing in his own ions, birds of prey clutching dried branches made to look like the limbs of real trees

But the brilliantly coloreddominated all

In one cha of the sunburnt Arabian desert complete with an exquisitely detailed caravan of ca over the sand In another roo with delicately rendered tropical blossoms, vines, carefully drawn leaves

The perfection of the illusion startled me, enticed me, but the more I peered into the pictures the more I saw

There were creatures everywhere in the texture of the jungle-insects, birds, worave , finally, that I had slipped out of ti Yet it was all quite flat upon the wall

I was getting dizzy Everywhere I turned walls gave out on new vistas I couldn't name some of the tints and hues I saw

As for the style of all this painting, it baffled htedthe classical proportions and skills that one sees in all the later Renaissance painters: da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, as well as the painters of ht was spectacular Living creatures seemed to breathe as I looked on