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"Why are the men so noisy to-night?" Merritt wished to know.
"Ney pray for well-luck, saar," Ibraheem said, answering Merritt's Arabic with proud English, fluent and execrable, and an accent all his own. "Nis defunct citee is not good to be disturbed. Lord-God, He curse it in way back sometimes, and ne men are grief-ful and fearing of—um—ghos'. Ghos', yaas. Vurry ignorunt men."
"Oh, that's it, is it?" Merritt, losing interest, settled again to the ground. "Well, tell them they need not be afraid of ghosts. The last one died of old age a good thousand years ago."
"Vurry good, saar!" Ibraheem said, conceiving this the most correct and English response to make. Merritt and his men were the first Americans he had met, otherwise he would have said "All right." He fell back into the shadows; and by degrees the chant died to a whimper and a whine, and ceased.
"We'll get to the east wing of the palace to-morrow, don't you think?" Deane inquired.
Merritt stretched comfortably on the warm ground and cast his hat aside.
"I should think so." His voice became slow, hushed to accord with the quiet of the night. "The palace where those old people lived and died two thousand years ago. Fancy what this place must have looked like then, the centre and heart of a civilisation that throbbed with pulses as keen as ours. Tell you what, Deane, it gives me a queer feeling at the roots of my hair every time I come to a closed door or open a buried tomb. 'Think of it, old man; take it home to you and live on it! Yours is the first foot to cross that threshold, the first hand to pick up tablet or jar or potsherd since those old folks left it.' That's what I say to myself every time. They died, or were killed off somehow, and they left their city behind them, deserted." Merritt's voice grew slower, with long pauses between his sentences. He seemed not talking to Deane at all. "Then the courtyards began to fill with dust and sand, just a thin layer at first, you know, with all the colours good and bright, and the walls standing. Then weeds began to grow between the stones, and the gardens went to jungle and the layer of dust deepened. By and by a wall fell … out here in the loneliness, a dead city left to its fate … Wild beasts made the halls their lair, and monkeys chattered in this very palace we are going to see to-morrow, and lizards slept on the steps in the sun … And more walls fell, and the sand crept up around them, and there was never a voice to break the stillness, nor a sound except the dropping of a stone. Then by degrees the face of the world changed, and the earth, like an ocean wave, rose until the city was covered, and there were only misshapen mounds to show that life had been there. And the city was dead and buried, waiting for us, just us three from the other end of the world, to lay it open to the light once more."