Entering, we found ourselves in a crumbling passage where the bones of dilapidated skeletons were scattered amid the rubble that had fallen from the sides and roof. A choking stench of stagnant air and of age-old corruption made me pause for a moment; but Tomeron scarcely appeared to perceive it, for he strode onward, lifting his torch and beckoning me to follow. We traversed many vaults in which mouldy bones and verdigris-eaten sarcophagi were piled about the walls or strewn where desecrating thieves had left them in bygone years. The air was increasingly dank, chill and miasmal; and mephitic shadows crouched or swayed before our torches in every niche and corner. Also, as we went onward, the walls became more ruinous and the bones we saw on every hand were greener with the mould of time. At last we rounded a sudden angle of the low cavern we were following. Here we came to vaults that evidently belonged to some noble family, for they were quite spacious and there was but one sarcophagus in each vault. "My ancestors and my family lie here," said Tomeron. We reached the end of the cavern and were confronted by a blank wall. At one side, was the final vault, in which an empty sarcophagus stood open. The sarcophagus was wrought of the finest bronze and was richly carven. Tomeron paused before the vault and turned to me. By the flickering uncertain light, I thought that I saw a look of strange and unaccountable distress on his features. "I must beg you to withdraw for a moment," he said, in a low and sorrowful voice. "Afterwards, you can return." Surprised and puzzled, I obeyed his request and went slowly back along the cavern for some distance. Then I returned to the place where I had left him. My surprize was heightened when I found that he had extinguished his torch and had dropped it on the threshold of the final vault. Also, Tomeron himself was not visible anywhere. Entering the vault, since there was no other place where he could have hidden himself, I looked about for him, but the room was empty. At least, I deemed it empty till I looked again at the richly carven sarcophagus and saw that it was now tenanted, for a cadaver lay within, shrouded in a winding sheet of a sort that has not been used for centuries in Ptolemides. I drew nigh to the sarcophagus, and peering into the face of the cadaver, I saw that it bore a fearful and strange resemblance to the face of Tomeron, though it was bloated and puffed with the adipocere of death and was purple with the shadows of decay, as after long ages in a charnel air. And looking again, I saw that it was indeed Tomeron.