“Enter. Here dwells the holy Tanofir. He tended this god during its life-days in his youth, and now that the god is dead he prays above its bones.”
“Prays to the bones of a dead bull in the dark! Well, give me a live grasshopper in the light; he is more cheerful,” muttered Bes.
“O Dwarf,” cried a deep and resounding voice from within the chapel, “talk no more of things you do not understand. I do not pray to the bones of a dead bull, as you in your ignorance suppose. I pray to the spirit whereof this sacred beast was but one of the fleshly symbols, which in this haunted place you will do well not to offend.”
Then for once I saw Bes grow afraid, for his great jaw dropped and he trembled.
“Master,” he said to me, “when next you visit tombs where maidens look into your heart and hermits hear your very thoughts, I pray you leave me behind. The holy Tanofir I love, if from afar, but I like not his house, or his——” Here he looked at Karema who was regarding him with a sweet smile over the lamp flame, and added, “There is something the matter with me, Master; I cannot even lie.”
“Cease from talking follies, O Shabaka and Bes, and enter,” said the tremendous voice from within.
So we entered and saw a strange sight. Against the back wall of the chapel which was lit with lamps, stood a life-sized statue of Maat, goddess of Law and Truth, fashioned of alabaster. On her head was a tall feather, her hair was covered with a wig, on her neck lay a collar of blue stones; on her arms and wrists were bracelets of gold. A tight robe draped her body. In her right hand that hung down by her side, she held the looped Cross of Life, and in her left which was advanced, a long, lotus-headed sceptre, while her painted eyes stared fixedly at the darkness. Crouched upon the ground, at the feet of the statue, scribe fashion, sat my great-uncle Tanofir, a very aged man with sightless eyes and long hands, so thin that one might see through them against the lamp-flame. His head was shaven, his beard was long and white; white too was his robe. In front of him was a low altar, on which stood a shallow silver vessel filled with pure water, and on either side of it a burning lamp.
We knelt down before him, or rather I knelt, for Bes threw himself flat upon his face.