"May it please the strong man to rest here quietly, aye! and to slumber if he feel the need, until my master, the worshipful Zaphnath, be risen?" sneered the leader in polite irony, as the soldiers, having unbound my arms, proceeded to tie each hand securely to one of the wooden rings. Then with jeers they left me, pointing the fire-arms and swords at me as they went. I heard them bar the doors on the outside and try them with a severe shake; then their footsteps receded and all was still.
As I lay on my back looking up at the vaulted stone roof, I had my first leisure to reflect on the desperate condition into which we had at last fallen. The arms, which had meant our supremacy, were in the hands of our enemies; Hotep, our only friend in the palace, had mysteriously disappeared; the doctor was taken, perhaps killed by this time; and I could hardly outlast the day, for Zaphnath would reserve but one fate for a conspirator who sought his place. How soon would he come, and how would he dispose of me? I remembered having seen the punishment for treason of a noble personage, with whom I had once eaten at the Pharaoh's table. He was confined at the bottom of a tight stone pit, and a heavy, poisonous gas was slowly poured into it. He could see it slowly fill the pit, and as it gradually rose toward his nostrils, he could feel his death gradually measured out to him by inches. When he had breathed it in a little, his face swelled a livid purple, he choked and strangled, staggered and fell beneath the murky surface to die out of sight. The terror of such a slowly creeping danger! the horror of such a repulsive death! I remember saying at the time that in his place I would have snatched a quick respite from the lingering agonies by strangling myself, or tearing my wrist open with my teeth. Now, as I thought of it, I suddenly remembered my dream of being similarly smothered in the Gnomons by slowly inpouring grain. A superstitious mind would have feared that dream foretold my fate, but I was rational enough to perceive that it must have been suggested to me by a vagrant memory of the poisoning I had seen.
As I lay thinking thus, I shifted my position a little on the pillows for better comfort, and my eyes wandered slowly from the vaulted roof to the daylight at the two little high windows. I started in terror at what I saw, but blinked my eyes to make sure I was awake, and then looked more intently. There was no dreaming this time! I saw clearly, and at both windows, a curling, purple stream of dense, noxious gas pouring down into the room! It was much heavier than the air, and trickled slowly down like the ghost of murky waters gradually filling up a great well. Then I turned to look at the floor, the stones were no longer visible, but a coat of muddy purple covered them to a depth of several inches, and the noisome gas already reached almost to the tops of my cushions! All this had trickled in within ten minutes, and twice as much more would rise and cover me completely. Then an awful but silent death would creep into my lungs, and my only friends, the common people of Kem, would never know how I had perished.