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Shrugging his shoulders, he drew his haick closer about his narrow chest, replying, “If thou hadst full knowledge of our affairs, thou wouldst be aware that circumstances had combined to render it imperative that my people should leave this spot, and proceed by a certain route, of which thou must remain in ignorance. In order, however, that thou shouldst not be left to starve in this vast region of the Great Death, I am here to guide thee onward to a spot where we may in two days rejoin our friends.”

Of all men he was the last I should have chosen as travelling companion, for treachery lurked in his curling lip, and in his black eye there beamed the villainous cunning of one whose callous hands were stained by many crimes. To refuse meant to remain there without food, and quickly perish, therefore I was compelled, when he had carefully removed all traces of the tent, to mount the camel, and submit to his obnoxious companionship. He had his own camel tethered near, and as he straddled across the saddle the animal rose, and together we started out upon our journey.

Chapter Thirty.
The Hall of the Great Death

Labakan’s appearance was just as unkempt, his burnouse just as ragged, as on the day he snatched from me the box containing the horrible souvenir. As we rode side by side into the shadowless plain, he addressed many ingenious questions to me about my past. His thinly-veiled curiosity, however, I steadfastly refused to satisfy. That he knew more of me than I had imagined was quite apparent, otherwise he would not have taken such infinite pains to secure my escape from the palace of the Sultan. Puzzled over his strange conduct, I journeyed with him throughout the greater part of the day. Conversing pleasantly, and making many observations that contained a certain amount of dry humour, he never for a moment acted in a manner to cause me further misgivings. With the craftiness characteristic of his piratical tribe, he was endeavouring to disarm any suspicions I might perchance entertain, if – as to him seemed impossible – I recognised him as the man who followed me into the little kahoua in the far-distant city.

After nearly five hours on the level, sandy plain, under the torrid rays of a leaden sun, we passed along a valley, desolate and barren, until we had on our left a broad mount, rising first with gradual ascent, but in its upper part forming a steep and lofty wall. Then, having passed a small defile and crossed another valley, we gained the open, stony hamada (plateau) again, and travelled on until, in the far distance, I detected a great, gaunt ruin. Plodding onward wearily through the furnace-heat of sunshine, we reached it about two hours later, and halted under its crumbling walls.

Like a solitary beacon of civilisation, the ruined arches of a great stronghold rose over the sea-like level of desolation which spread out to an immense distance south and west. The rugged, uneven valley below, with its green strip of herbage, continued far into the stony level, and beyond, northwards, the desolate waste stretched towards a great dark mountain.

Astonished, I stood gazing at the spacious dimensions of this time-worn relic of the power of the ancients. It seemed half a castle, half a temple, built of hewn stone, without cement, and ornamented with Corinthian columns. Apparently the place had suffered considerably by the depredations of the Arabs, who, during succeeding centuries, had carried away most of the sculptures; nevertheless, there was much about this relic of a bygone age to excite curiosity, and to cause one to recollect the fact that years before our era the Romans had penetrated as far as that place. That their dominion was not of a mere transitory nature the ruin seemed clearly to show, for it had nearly two thousand years ago been a great castle, and, no doubt, a centre of a departed and forgotten civilisation. Yet to-day this region is unknown to European geographers, and upon both English and French maps of the Great Sahara it is left a wide blank marked “Desert.”

Of Labakan I learnt that it was known to his people as the Hall of the Great Death. According to the Arab legend he related, a Christian ruler called the White Sultan, who lived there ages ago, once made war upon the Sultan of the Tsâd, defeating him, and capturing his daughter, a girl of wondrous beauty. Intoxicated by success, and heavily laden with booty, the White Sultan returned to his own stronghold, followed, however, by the defeated monarch, who travelled alone and in disguise. Attired as a magician, he obtained audience of his enemy, then suddenly threw off his disguise and demanded the return of his daughter. But the White Sultan jeered at him, refused to part with the pearl of his harem, and ordered the sorrowing father to leave his presence, or be consigned to a dungeon. He withdrew, but as he went he cast his ring of graven jacinths upon the ground, and prophesied that ere two moons had run their course, a disaster, terrible and crushing, would fall upon his Infidel foe. Then, retiring to a cavern, he lived as a hermit, and through the months of Choubát and Adâr, for fifty-nine nights and fifty-nine days, he invoked continuously the wrath of the Wrathful upon his enemy. On the sixtieth day his prophecy was fulfilled, for a terrible fire from heaven smote the palace of the White Ruler, and the poisonous fumes from the burning pile spread death and desolation throughout the land. Through the whole of the White Sultan’s broad domains the death-dealing vapours wafted, and the people, the wise men, ministers, and the Sultan himself, all fell victims to the awful visitation. The only person spared an agonising death was the daughter of the Sultan of the Tsâd, who, after the fire was subdued, found the treasure stolen from her father untouched, and carried it back with her to the shores of the Great Lake. Thus was she avenged.

“Since that day,” added the pirate of the desert, “the Hall of the Great Death, with its courtyards and gardens, has been tenantless, the wealthy city that once surrounded it has been swallowed up by the shifting sand, and so completely did Allah sweep away the dogs of Infidels, that even their name is now unknown.”

Much interested in this magnificent monument of the Roman occupation, I left Labakan squatting and smoking in its shadow to wander through the ruins. Upon the centre stone of the arched gateway that gave entrance to the great hall I deciphered the inscription “PBO. AFR. ILL.,” (Provincia Africae illustris.) encircled by a coronal, while below was a trace of a chariot and a person in curious attire following it on foot. Besides a representation of an eagle and a few Berber names roughly graven, I could, however, find no other inscription on the portals, so proceeded to examine the grey walls of the inner courts.

While thus engaged, a stealthy movement behind me caused me to start suddenly, and as I did so, I beheld my enemy!

Silently, with his long, bright knife ready in his hand, he had crept up, and at the very instant I turned he sprang upon me. Ere I could unsheath my poignard, he held my throat in iron grip, and his eyes, flashing like those of some wild animal, were fixed with murderous hatred upon mine.

“Thou art at last in the Hall of the Great Death, which is the Grave of the Infidels, and thou shalt die!” he cried, holding his knife uplifted ready to strike.

I was held to the spot, stricken by a sudden dread.

“So this is how thou treatest the stranger who falleth into thy merciless clutches!” I gasped, scarcely able to articulate, but struggling desperately.

“Thou, dog of hell, art no stranger!” he said, with a string of blasphemies. “Thou hast escaped from our camp and brought upon us disaster, defeat, and dishonour. Thou hast obtained actual possession of the Crescent of Glorious Wonders, and even at this moment there is concealed upon thy person a secret message to the Hadj Mohammed ben Ishak, of Agadez. Confess where thou hast hidden the Crescent, or thou shalt assuredly die!” His knife was poised aloft; his hand trembled, impatient to strike me down. Yet I was powerless in his grasp!

“I cannot tell thee!” I answered.

“Thou liest!” he cried. “Dost thou deny also that thou hast any secret message addressed to the imam, upon thee?”

“I deny nothing,” I gasped. “It was thee, paltry pilferer, who stole the box from me in the kahoua in Algiers; thee who offered Gajére a bag of gold to assist in my murder! I know thee, Labakan! Rest assured, that if thou killest me, my assassination will speedily be avenged.”

His fierce, brutal countenance, hideously distorted by uncontrollable anger, broadened into a fiendish grin as, with a loud, defiant laugh, he cried —

“Hadj Absalam is Sultan of the Desert, and Labakan his Grand Vizier. We care naught for Infidels who seek to avenge thee, nor for the homards who bear arms against us. Speak! Dost thou still refuse to disclose the hiding-place of the Crescent of Glorious Wonders, or to deliver unto me thy secret message?”

“I do,” I gasped.

“Too long then have I tarried and wasted words upon thee, courier of evil!” he shrieked, shaking me in his rage and tightening his painful grip upon my throat. At that moment, however, I succeeded in wrenching free my right hand from the outlaw’s grasp, and, desperately clutching the hilt of my thin, curved blade, unsheathed it. It was a struggle for life. Again he grasped my wrist and held it immovable.

“Cur of a Christian! thou who hast sought to bring ill-luck, disaster, and destruction upon us, shalt no longer pollute True Believers with thy baneful presence!” he roared furiously, adding, “Die! rot in the grave of the Infidels that is called the Hall of the Great Death! Curse thee! May Eblis condemn thee and all thine accursed race to the horrible tortures that are eternal, and may Allah burn thy vitals!”

“Thou hast brought me here to murder me!” I cried. “Yet I am willing to explain to thee the whereabouts of the Crescent, if thou wilt tell me of the fate of Zoraida, Daughter of the Sun.”

“The Lalla Zoraida?” he cried, in surprise. “Then it is true thou knowest her! We have not been mistaken! Thy dog’s eyes have rested upon her unveiled face; her beauty hath been defiled by thy curious gaze, and she hath spoken with thee, telling thee of wonders the secret of which she was charged to preserve under penalty of death!”

“She hath told me nothing,” I answered, still helpless in his murderous grasp. “For many moons have I journeyed over oasis and desert, hamada and dune, in search of the truth, but nothing, alas! hath been revealed.”

“She entrusted to thy keeping the Crescent of Glorious Wonders; she unveiled before thee, an Infidel; therefore the punishment to which she was condemned is just.”

“What was her punishment?” I gasped breathlessly. “At least tell me whether she still lives.”

“The hand that wrought treacherous deeds was sent thee, so that thou mightest gaze upon the result of thy gallant adventure,” he answered sternly.

“Yes, yes, I know. Its sight was horrible!” I said, shuddering, his words bringing back to my memory the cold, dead, bejewelled lingers in all their sickening hideousness.

“Disgraced in the eyes of the people of Al-Islâm, untrue to her creed, faithless to her people, she hath already received the just reward of spies and those who play us false. The vengeance of the Ennitra shall also fall upon thee!”

“Was she murdered?” I demanded. “Tell me.”

“She, the One of Beauty, who was possessed of powers strange and inexplicable, exhibited to thee wonders that none have seen, marvels that she alone was able to work,” he continued, murder lurking in every line of his dark, forbidding countenance. “The Great Secret that hath for generations been so zealously-guarded by our people she gave into thine unscrupulous hands. To thee, a dog of a Christian – upon whom may the wrath of Allah descend – she transferred her power, thus allowing her people to be ignominiously defeated and slaughtered by the homards. Of the disasters that have fallen upon us, of the misfortune that ever dogs the footprints of those of our men who set out upon expeditions, of all the discomforture that hath been experienced by us; nay, of the terrible doom that hath overtaken the perfidious Daughter of the Sun who entranced thee, thou art the author.”

“Merciful Allah!” I cried loudly. “I have been unconscious of having brought catastrophe upon thee. True, I am not of thy creed, but – ”

“Silence, thou bringer of evil! Let not the name of the One of Might pass thy polluted lips,” he cried, glaring into my face with fierce, passionate anger. “To thee we owe the loss of the Marvellous Crescent. With it our good fortune hath departed. Crushed by defeat, the downfall of Hadj Absalam seemeth imminent, owing to the false, fickle sorceress Zoraida – may Allah burn the hell-vixen! – having fallen under thine amorous glances. Upon thee her power hath fallen, and as thou refusest to give back to us that which is our own, thou shalt not live to witness the rising of to-morrow’s sun.”

“Doth thy Korân teach thee to murder those who are innocent?” I shouted in a tone of reproach, struggling strenuously, but in vain, to free my hand.

“The Book of the Everlasting Will saith that those who fight against the True Believers and study to act corruptly shall be slain, or shall have their hands and feet cut off, and that the Infidel shall have none to help him.”

“Loosen thine hold!” I cried again, vainly exerting every muscle. “Felon and outlaw! thou hast seized me by coward stealth, fearing to fight in open combat. If thine hand strikest me, my blood will swiftly be avenged!”

“Spawn of a worm! I have brought thee hither to kill thee!” he hissed between his firmly-set teeth. “Christian dog! Son of a dungheap! Thou, whose ill-favoured white features so fascinated the One of Beauty as to cause her to forsake her people and leave them powerless in the hands of their hated enemies – thou hast uttered thy last word! To-morrow thou wilt be carrion for the vultures!”

“Curse thee, cut-throat!” I shrieked, turning my dagger upon him, but only succeeding in inflicting a gash upon his brown wrist. “Thou, brigand of bloody deeds, hast followed me here into the distant desert to assassinate me secretly, to satisfy thy craving for the shedding of blood, but I prophesy that thou wilt – ”

In the terrible death-embrace the words froze on my parched lips. His brown, sinewy arm fell swiftly between my aching eyes and the golden blaze of sunlight. A sharp twinge in the breast told me the horrible truth, and the hideous, dirty, repulsive face glaring into mine seemed slowly to fade into the dark red mist by which everything was suddenly overspread.

I felt myself falling, and clutched frantically for support, but with a nauseating giddiness reeled backwards upon the sand.

A rough hand searched the inner pocket of my gandoura, and tore from my breast my little leathern charm-case, without which no Arab travels. Upon my ears, harsh and discordant, a short, exultant laugh sounded hollow and distant.

Next second a grim shadow fell, enveloping me in a darkness that blotted out all consciousness.

Chapter Thirty One.
Kaylúlah

Insanity had seized me. Dimly conscious of the horrible truth, I longed for release by death from the awful torture racking me.

The pain was excruciating. In my agony every nerve seemed lacerated, every muscle paralysed, every joint dislocated. My brain was on fire. My lips dry and cracking, my throat parched and contracted, my eyes burning in their sockets, my tongue so swollen that my mouth seemed too small to contain it, and my fevered forehead throbbing, as strange scenes, grim and terrifying, flitted before me. Pursued by hideously-distorted phantoms of the past, I seemed to have been plunged into a veritable Hâwiyat. Forms and faces, incidents and scenes that were familiar rose shadowy and unreal before my pain-racked eyes, only to dissolve in rapid succession. My closest friends mocked and jeered at my discomforture, and those I had known in my brighter youthful days renewed their acquaintance in a manner grotesquely chaotic. In this awful nightmare of delirium scenes were conjured up before me vividly tragical, sometimes actually revolting. Bereft of reason, I was enduring an agony every horror of which still remains graven on the tablets of my memory.

Over me blank despair had cast her sable pall, and, reviewing my career, I saw my fond hopes, once so buoyant, crushed and shattered, and the future only a grey, impenetrable mist. My skull seemed filled with molten metal that boiled and bubbled, causing me the most frightful nauseating torment which nothing could relieve, yet with appalling vividness sights, strange and startling, passed in panorama before my unbalanced vision. By turns I witnessed incidents picturesque, grotesque, and ghastly, and struggled to articulate the aimless, incoherent chatter of an idiot.

Once I had a vision of the green fields, the ploughed land, the tall poplars and stately elms that surrounded my far-off English home. The old Norman tower of the church, grey and lichen-covered, under the shadow of which rested my ancestors, the old-fashioned windmill that formed so prominent a feature in the landscape, the long, straggling village street, with its ivy-covered parsonage and its homely cottages with tiny dormer windows peeping forth from under the thatch, were all before my eyes, and, notwithstanding the acute pain that racked me, I became entranced by the rural peace of the typical English scene to which I had, as if by magic, been transported. Years had passed since I had last trodden that quaint old street; indeed, amid the Bohemian gaieties of the Quartier Latin, the ease and idleness of life beyond the Pyrenees, and the perpetual excitement consequent on “roughing it” among the Arabs and Moors, its remembrance had become almost obliterated. Yet in a few brief seconds I lived again my childhood days, days when that ancient village constituted my world; a world in which Society was represented by a jovial but occasionally-resident city merchant, an energetic parson, a merry and popular doctor, and a tall, stately, white-haired gentleman who lived in a house which somebody had nicknamed “Spy-corner,” and who, on account of his commanding presence, was known to his intimates as “The Sultan.”

I fancied myself moving again among friends I had known from my birth, amid surroundings that were peaceful, refreshing, and altogether charming. But the chimera faded all too quickly. Green fields were succeeded by desolate stretches of shifting sand, where there was not a blade of grass, not a tree, not a living thing, and where I stood alone and unsheltered from the fierce, merciless rays of the African sun. Fine sand whirled up by the hot, stifling wind filled my eyes, mouth, and nostrils, and I was faint with hunger and consumed by an unquenchable thirst. Abnormal incidents, full of horror, crowded themselves upon my disordered intellect. I thought myself again in the hands of the brutal Pirates of the Desert, condemned by Hadj Absalam to all the frightful tortures his ingenious mind could devise. Black writhing asps played before my face, scorpions were about me, and vultures, hovering above, flapped their great wings impatient to devour the carrion. I cried out, I shouted, I raved, in the hope that someone would release me from the ever-increasing horrors, but I was alone in that great barren wilderness, with life fast ebbing. The agonies were awful! My brain was aflame, my head throbbed, feeling as if every moment it must burst, and upon me hung a terrible weight that crushed my senses, rendering me powerless.

Visions, confused and unintelligible, passed in rapid succession before my aching eyes, and I became awestricken by their revolting hideousness. The dark, villainous face of Labakan grinned at me exultingly, and the scarred, sinister visage of Hadj Absalam, the mighty Ruler of the Desert, regarded my agonies with a fierce, horrible expression, in which the spirit of murder was vividly delineated. Suddenly despair gave place to joy. Demented and rambling, I imagined that my hand was grasping the Crescent of Glorious Wonders, the lost talisman that would restore me to happiness with the woman I loved. But, alas! it was only for a brief second, for next moment in a sudden pang of excruciating pain a darkness fell, and everything, even my physical torment, suddenly faded.

I think I must have slept.

Of time I had no idea, my mind having lost its balance. My lapse into unconsciousness may have lasted for minutes or for days, for aught I knew. At last, however, I found myself again wrestling with the terrible calenture of the brain. My temples throbbed painfully, my throat was so contracted that I scarce could swallow, and across my breast acute pains shot like knife-stabs.

Dazed and half conscious, I lay in a kind of stupor. In the red mist before my heavy, fevered eyes a woman’s countenance gradually assumed shape. The pale, beautiful face of Zoraida, every feature of which was distinct and vivid, gazed upon me with dark, wide-open, serious eyes. Across her white brow hung the golden sequins and roughly-cut gems, and upon her bare breast jewels seemed to flash with brilliant fires that blinded me. Nearer she bent towards me, and her bare arm slid around my neck in affectionate embrace.

Almost beside myself with joy, I tried to speak, to greet her, to tell her of the treachery of the outlaw who had struck me down; but my lips refused to utter sound. Again I exerted every effort to articulate one word – her name – but could not. A spell of dumbness seemed to have fallen upon me! Her lips moved; she spoke, but her words were unintelligible. Again I tried to speak, yet, alas! only a dull rattle proceeded from my parched throat. Upon her face, flawless in its beauty, there was an expression of unutterable sorrow, a woeful look of blank despair, as slowly and solemnly she shook her head. Her arm rose, and its sight shocked me. The hand had been lopped off at the wrist! Then, with her beautiful eyes still fixed upon mine, she bent still closer, until I felt her lips press softly upon my cheek.

Her passionate kiss electrified me. From my brain the weight seemed suddenly lifted, as the phantom of the woman I loved faded slowly from my entranced gaze. So distinctly had I seen her that I could have sworn she was by my side. Her warm caress that I had been unable to return, was still fresh upon my cheek, the tinkle of her sequins sounded in my ears. The sweet breath of attar of rose and geranium filled my nostrils, and the fair face, full of a poignant, ever-present sorrow, lived in my memory.

Thus, slowly and painfully, I struggled back to consciousness.

It was sunset when the villain Labakan struck me down, but, judging from the brilliance of the bar of sunlight that fell across me when at last I opened my eyes, it was about noon. At least twenty hours must have elapsed since I had fallen under the assassin’s knife; perhaps, indeed, two whole days had run their course!

As I stretched my cramped, aching limbs, a sudden spasm shot through my breast, causing me to place my hand involuntarily there, and I was amazed to discover that my gandoura had been torn open and my wound hastily but skilfully bandaged with strips torn from a clean white burnouse. Who could have thus rendered me aid? Labakan certainly had not, therefore it was equally apparent that some other person had discovered and befriended me. Again I glanced at the bandages in which I was swathed, and found they were fastened by large jewelled pins that were essentially articles of feminine adornment. It seemed cool and dimly-lit where I was lying, and presently, when full consciousness returned, I made out that I was in a subterranean chamber built of stone and lighted from the top by a crevice through which the ray of sunlight strayed. Let into the dark walls were iron rings. They showed that the place was a dungeon!

With some of my clothing removed and my body covered by a coarse rug, I was lying upon a broad stone bench, and when presently I felt sufficiently strong to investigate, I was astonished to discover that my couch had been rendered comfortable by a pile of silken and woollen garments – evidently the contents of a woman’s wardrobe – which had been placed on the stone before I had been laid thereon. Upon the floor beside me lay a small skin of water, some dates, Moorish biscuits, and sweetmeats. Whoever had brought me there had done all in their power to secure my bodily comfort, and it seemed evident that I owed it all to a woman. Apparently she had emptied the contents of her camel’s bags in order to make me a bed, for my head was pillowed on one of the soft silken cushions of a jakfi, and the blanket that covered me bore a crude representation of Fathma’s hand in order to avert the evil eye.

(Jakfi: A kind of cage mounted on a camel in which the wealthier Arabs carry their wives across the desert. Sometimes called a shugduf.)

Who, I wondered, had snatched me from the grave and placed me in that silent underground tomb?

The painful throbbing in my head that had caused my temporary madness was now gradually abating, and after considerable difficulty I succeeded in raising myself upon my elbow, gazing anxiously on all sides with calm consciousness. The opposite end of the curious stone chamber was plunged in cavernous darkness, and I strained my eyes to ascertain what mystery might there be hidden. While doing so, my gaze fell upon a piece of paper which lay upon the water-skin close to my hand. Taking it up eagerly, I held it in the golden streak of sunshine, and saw upon it Arabic characters that had been rudely traced, apparently with a piece of charred wood. After considerable difficulty, on account of the hurried manner in which the words had been scrawled, I deciphered it to be a message which read as follows: —

“Praise be to Allah, opener of locks with His name and withdrawer of veils of hidden things with His beneficence. Upon thee, O stranger from beyond seas, be the best of blessings, and salutation, and perfect peace. O Elucidator of the Great Mystery, know thou that a friend hath given thee succour and will not forsake thee, even though the vials of murderous wrath have been poured out upon thee. If thou readest these words, hope for thou mayest yet confound the plots of thine enemies and discover that which thou seekest. Though strange things may meet thine eyes, fear not, for in the darkness there is yet light. Thy presence will be demanded ere long. Therefore rest and recover, in the knowledge that thou art under the secret protection of an unknown friend. Praise be upon thee, and may Allah’s wrath fall heavily upon those who seek thy destruction!”

A sudden faintness again seized me. The paper fell from my nerveless grasp, as with a strange, sinking feeling I lapsed again into unconsciousness. Hours must have passed; how many I know not, but when I again awoke, the grey light of early dawn was struggling through the small crevice. My wound felt easier, and, supporting myself upon one arm, I drank a few drops of water from the skin. Close to my hand I found a tiny paper packet bearing the label of a French pharmacy in Constantine which showed it to contain quinine. The drug would, I thought, prove beneficial to me, so I swallowed some of the powder, and ate two or three dates to remove the bitter taste. As the light increased, and I found myself in full possession of my faculties, I re-read the mysterious message, and commenced a minute examination of my bandages. The latter had been skilfully adjusted, evidently by a woman. With the exception of a dull soreness in my chest, the pain had left me, and my temperature had fallen considerably. The fever had abated, and I felt confident that the drug that had so frequently been of benefit to me in the past would once more prove serviceable. I tried to rise, but could not, therefore I lay throughout that day, vaguely wondering where I was and how I came to be there alone, yet not uncared for. My eyes fixed themselves upon the impenetrable darkness of the opposite end of the mysterious chamber, vainly striving to pierce the gloom. Now and then a lizard or some other reptile would emerge from the crevices and scuttle along over the stones in search of food, otherwise there prevailed the dead silence of the tomb.

I desired to rise, in order to ascertain whether I was actually a prisoner. The entrance to the strange chamber was apparently at the opposite end, hidden in the darkness. As the light grew stronger, I examined the walls, finding they were constructed of huge blocks of stone now black with age. Indeed, my surroundings were decidedly uncanny, and although the place was cool, yet light and air would have been preferable. Satisfying my hunger with some ajwah (dates stoned and pressed into a paste) and kahk, (a kind of bread), I spent the day in alternate dozing and silent thoughtfulness until the single ray of sunlight disappeared, and night crept slowly on. For hours I slept, and when I awoke refreshed, it was again day. My wound seemed even less painful, and, having eaten and drawn some water from the skin, I succeeded, after some difficulty, in rising. The woman’s dresses of silk and gauze that had formed my couch were sadly creased and tumbled, and upon some of them were dark, ugly stains where blood had flowed from my breast.

But it was my intention to explore thoroughly and without delay the sepulchral place into which I had been so mysteriously introduced. I had not the slightest knowledge of where I was; and could only suppose that some persons, having found me, had taken me to that chamber, and, being compelled to continue their way, had left all they could devise for my comfort. Yet, whoever had done this knew me, and was well aware of the object of my journey, facts which were plainly proved by the message traced in charcoal.