At first the circumstances of the room, and the fear lest Miss Trelawny should return unexpectedly and find me reading the book, disturbed me somewhat.  For we had arranged amongst us, before Doctor Winchester had gone home, that she was not to be brought into the range of the coming investigation.  We considered that there might be some shock to a woman’s mind in matters of apparent mystery; and further, that she, being Mr. Trelawny’s daughter, might be placed in a difficult position with him afterward if she took part in, or even had a personal knowledge of, the disregarding of his expressed wishes.  But when I remembered that she did not come on nursing duty till two o’clock, the fear of interruption passed away.  I had still nearly three house before me.  Nurse Kennedy sat in her chair by the bedside, patient and alert.  A clock ticked on the landing; other clocks in the house ticked; the life of the city without manifested itself in the distant hum, now and again swelling into a roar as a breeze floating westward took the concourse of sounds with it.  But still the dominant idea was of silence.  The light on my book, and the soothing fringe of green silk round the shade intensified, whenever I looked up, the gloom of the sick-room.  With every line I read, this seemed to grow deeper and deeper; so that when my eyes came back to the page the light seemed to dazzle me.  I stuck to my work, however, and presently began to get sufficiently into the subject to become interested in it.

The book was by one Nicholas van Huyn of Hoorn.  In the preface he told how, attracted by the work of John Greaves of Merton College, Pyramidographia, he himself visited Egypt, where he became so interested in its wonders that he devoted some years of his life to visiting strange places, and exploring the ruins of many temples and tombs.  He had come across many variants of the story of the building of the Pyramids as told by the Arabian historian, Ibn Abd Alhokin, some of which he set down.  These I did not stop to read, but went on to the marked pages.

As soon as I began to read these, however, there grew on me some sense of a disturbing influence.  Once or twice I looked to see if the Nurse had moved, for there was a feeling as though some one were near me.  Nurse Kennedy sat in her place, as steady and alert as ever; and I came back to my book again.

The narrative went on to tell how, after passing for several days through the mountains to the east of Aswan, the explorer came to a certain place.  Here I give his own words, simply putting the translation into modern English: