Having learned from the experience of the preceding night, the inconvenience of encountering those labyrinths without a light, I now hastened to provide myself with a lamp from my boat. Tracking my way back with some difficulty to the shore, I there found, not only my lamp, but some dates and dried fruits, with a store of which, for my roving life upon the waters, I was always supplied,—and which now, after so many hours of abstinence, were a welcome and necessary relief. Thus prepared, I again ascended the pyramid, and was proceeding to search out the secret spring, when a loud, dismal noise was heard at a distance, to which all the echoes of the cemetery answered. It came, I knew, from the Great Temple on the shore of the Lake, and was the shriek which its gates—the Gates of Oblivion, as they were called—sent forth from their hinges, in opening at night, to receive within their precincts the newly‐ landed dead. I had heard that sound before, and always with sadness; but, at this moment, it thrilled through me, like a voice of ill omen, and I almost doubted whether I should not abandon my enterprise. The hesitation, however, was but momentary;—even while it passed through my mind, I had touched the spring of the portal. In a few seconds more, I was again in the passage beneath the pyramid, and being enabled by my lamp to follow the windings of the way more rapidly, soon found myself at the door of the small chapel in the gallery. I entered, still awed, though there was now nothing living within. The young Priestess had fled—had vanished, like a spirit, into the darkness. All the rest was as I had left it on the preceding night. The lamp still stood burning upon the crystal shrine—the cross lay where the hands of the young mourner had placed it, and the cold image beneath wore the same tranquil look, as if resigned to the solitude of death—of all lone things the loneliest. Remembering the lips that I had seen kiss that cross, and kindling with the recollection, I raised it passionately to my own;—but, at the same moment, I fancied the dead eyes met mine, and, saddened in the midst of my ardour, I replaced the cross upon the shrine. I had now lost all clue to the object of my pursuit, and was preparing slowly to retrace my steps to earth, with that gloomy satisfaction which certainty, even when unwelcome, brings,—when, as I held forth my lamp, on leaving the chapel, I could perceive that the gallery, instead of terminating here, took a sudden bend to the left, which had before eluded my eye, and which gave a promise of leading still further into those recesses. Re‐animated by this discovery, which opened a new source of hope to my heart, I cast but one hesitating look at my lamp, as if to ask whether it would be faithful through the gloom I was about to encounter, and, without further thought, rushed eagerly forward. CHAP. VII.