He is not so
volatile a man as I am, prone to ups and downs of hope and despair; but
he has a fixed purpose which crystallises hope into belief. At times I
had feared that there might have been two such stones, or that the
adventures of Van Huyn were traveller’s fictions, based on some
ordinary acquisition of the curio in Alexandria or Cairo, or London or
Amsterdam. But Mr. Trelawny never faltered in his belief. We had many
things to distract our minds from belief or disbelief. This was soon
after Arabi Pasha, and Egypt was no safe place for travellers,
especially if they were English. But Mr. Trelawny is a fearless man;
and I almost come to think at times that I am not a coward myself. We
got together a band of Arabs whom one or other of us had known in
former trips to the desert, and whom we could trust; that is, we did
not distrust them as much as others. We were numerous enough to
protect ourselves from chance marauding bands, and we took with us
large impedimenta. We had secured the consent and passive co-operation
of the officials still friendly to Britain; in the acquiring of which
consent I need hardly say that Mr. Trelawny’s riches were of chief
importance. We found our way in dhahabiyehs to Aswan; whence, having
got some Arabs from the Sheik and having given our usual backsheesh, we
set out on our journey through the desert. “Well, after much wandering and trying every winding in the
interminable jumble of hills, we came at last at nightfall on just such
a valley as Van Huyn had described. A valley with high, steep cliffs;
narrowing in the centre, and widening out to the eastern and western
ends. At daylight we were opposite the cliff and could easily note the
opening high up in the rock, and the hieroglyphic figures which were
evidently intended originally to conceal it. “But the signs which had baffled Van Huyn and those of his time—and
later, were no secrets to us. The host of scholars who have given
their brains and their lives to this work, had wrested open the
mysterious prison-house of Egyptian language. On the hewn face of the
rocky cliff we, who had learned the secrets, could read what the Theban
priesthood had had there inscribed nearly fifty centuries before. “For that the external inscription was the work of the priesthood—and
a hostile priesthood at that—there could be no living doubt. The
inscription on the rock, written in hieroglyphic, ran thus:

“‘Hither the Gods come not at any summons. The “Nameless One” has
insulted them and is for ever alone. Go not nigh, lest their vengeance
wither you away!’

“The warning must have been a terribly potent one at the time it was
written and for thousands of years afterwards; even when the language
in which it was given had become a dead mystery to the people of the
land. The tradition of such a terror lasts longer than its cause. Even
in the symbols used there was an added significance of alliteration. ‘For ever’ is given in the hieroglyphics as ‘millions of years’. This
symbol was repeated nine times, in three groups of three; and after
each group a symbol of the Upper World, the Under World, and the Sky. So that for this Lonely One there could be, through the vengeance of
all the Gods, resurrection in neither the World of Sunlight, in the
World of the Dead, or for the soul in the region of the Gods. “Neither Mr. Trelawny nor I dared to tell any of our people what the
writing meant. For though they did not believe in the religion whence
the curse came, or in the Gods whose vengeance was threatened, yet they
were so superstitious that they would probably, had they known of it,
have thrown up the whole task and run away. “Their ignorance, however, and our discretion preserved us. We made an
encampment close at hand, but behind a jutting rock a little further
along the valley, so that they might not have the inscription always
before them. For even that traditional name of the place:  ‘The Valley
of the Sorcerer’, had a fear for them; and for us through them. With
the timber which we had brought, we made a ladder up the face of the
rock. We hung a pulley on a beam fixed to project from the top of the
cliff. We found the great slab of rock, which formed the door, placed
clumsily in its place and secured by a few stones. Its own weight kept
it in safe position. In order to enter, we had to push it in; and we
passed over it. We found the great coil of chain which Van Huyn had
described fastened into the rock. There were, however, abundant
evidences amid the wreckage of the great stone door, which had revolved
on iron hinges at top and bottom, that ample provision had been
originally made for closing and fastening it from within. “Mr. Trelawny and I went alone into the tomb. We had brought plenty of
lights with us; and we fixed them as we went along. We wished to get a
complete survey at first, and then make examination of all in detail. As we went on, we were filled with ever-increasing wonder and delight. The tomb was one of the most magnificent and beautiful which either of
us had ever seen. From the elaborate nature of the sculpture and
painting, and the perfection of the workmanship, it was evident that
the tomb was prepared during the lifetime of her for whose
resting-place it was intended. The drawing of the hieroglyphic
pictures was fine, and the colouring superb; and in that high cavern,
far away from even the damp of the Nile-flood, all was as fresh as when
the artists had laid down their palettes. There was one thing which we
could not avoid seeing. That although the cutting on the outside rock
was the work of the priesthood, the smoothing of the cliff face was
probably a part of the tomb-builder’s original design. The symbolism
of the painting and cutting within all gave the same idea. The outer
cavern, partly natural and partly hewn, was regarded architecturally as
only an ante-chamber. At the end of it, so that it would face the east,
was a pillared portico, hewn out of the solid rock. The pillars were
massive and were seven-sided, a thing which we had not come across in
any other tomb. Sculptured on the architrave was the Boat of the Moon,
containing Hathor, cow-headed and bearing the disk and plumes, and the
dog-headed Hapi, the God of the North. It was steered by Harpocrates
towards the north, represented by the Pole Star surrounded by Draco and
Ursa Major. In the latter the stars that form what we call the ‘Plough’
were cut larger than any of the other stars; and were filled with gold
so that, in the light of torches, they seemed to flame with a special
significance. Passing within the portico, we found two of the
architectural features of a rock tomb, the Chamber, or Chapel, and the
Pit, all complete as Van Huyn had noticed, though in his day the names
given to these parts by the Egyptians of old were unknown.