Don Sturdy in the tombs of gold by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER XII The Night Prowler

“I’m glad you are so interested,” said Professor Bruce innocently. “Many of the people who come here have no real appreciation of what they see or hear. Their souls don’t rise above material things.”

Don gave Teddy a vigorous poke in the ribs that luckily passed unnoticed.

There were other tombs in the vicinity, that of Seti I and Amenophis II, the latter lying extended on his sarcophagus in the full glare of an electric light that seemed altogether too modern to be in harmony with a dwelling of the dead.

It was singular that the scene should have left no sense of depression on the spectators, such as they would have felt had they been in a modern cemetery. But so many centuries had elapsed that the tombs and their contents seemed to them merely historical relics. The haze of ages enveloped them. It was hard for them to think that the dried up mummies had once been breathing living figures, that before these kings, whom the superstitious people regarded as gods, thousands had bowed in

adoration, that upon their word hung the issues of life and death.

So it was with the feeling of being in a great museum that they passed from one to the other of the great monuments of antiquity adding momentarily to their knowledge of the mighty civilization that had flourished there in the dawn of recorded history, thousands of years before America had been discovered.

“Seems to me that the Egyptians thought more about dying than they did about living,” commented Don.

“It would seem so at first sight,” conceded the professor. “As a matter of fact, they got a good deal of enjoyment out of life. That is, the wealthier classes did. It must be admitted that the life of the poorer people was hard, much like that of the coolies of China to-day. But those with more money seemed to have indulged in all the pleasures that money could buy. The paintings on the walls of the palaces and temples show them at banquets, at races, engaged in hunting, and in all manner of sports.”

“Why did they pay so much attention to their tombs, then?” asked Don.

“That was a result of their religion,” replied his Uncle Amos. “It was of the greatest importance that the body should he preserved after death. The Egyptians believed that every human being possessed a double that was a perfect duplicate of himself, and that the life of the double depended upon having a body to return to after its journey to the other world. If the double came back and found the body gone, it would perish. And the loss of immortality was too dreadful a thing to contemplate. That’s why they took so much pains to embalm the body.”

“Why did they have statues of the dead man in the tomb?” asked Don.

“That was to ‘play safe,’ as you would call it,” answered the professor, with a smile. “There was always a chance that the body might be destroyed.

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