The Pyramid Read Online Free PDF Page B

begun by chance, like most great disasters, from an apparently innocuous event: a block of basalt that had been forgotten—quite fortuitously, it appeared—in the desert of Saqqara. But it was the night of the full moon, and the basalt emitted a terrifying glow in an evil direction. As it was later discovered, all that had been planned. The block was intended to receive and then be in a position to transmit nefarious rays so that, once in the pyramid, it would draw an ill fate upon it.
    Suspicion fell immediately on the magician Horemheb, but while he was waiting to be arrested, the vizier of the warehouses, Sahathor, was put in chains. However, that was just the beginning. The authorities flung into jail, in turn, two counselors, Hotep and Didoumesiou, then, for good measure, the man who was on the face of it the least likely to have been involved in this affair, Reneferef, the guardian of the harem. Moreover, it was only after the arrest of the ministers Antef and Mineptah that it became clear that the affair was not just a matter of a clutch of saboteurs, but a veritable conspiracy against the State.
    The entire country trembled in terror, Cheops was dissatisfied with the results of the investigation and demanded that the plot’s full ramifications be brought to light, to their furthest extent. Inspectors and spies were dispatched throughout Egypt and even abroad, especially to the enemy kingdom of Sumer, with which the conspirators were suspected of parleying.
    For a fairly long while it seemed as if every other preoccupation had been forgotten, for the plot alone absorbed everyone’s mind. Some opinions went so far as to stress that all the rumors about the pyramid had only been feints, a kind of trap or bluff, as people said nowadays. In fact, Cheops was still young and had no intention of having any pyramid whatsoever built so soon, and the purpose of these tall stories was quite different: they had been a way of rooting out the conspiracy.
    “Are you are in your right mind, numskull, are you mad, or only pretending? What about all these stones being placed, the road that’s being built, all that money and that labor? All that, you say, is just bluff?”
    “Yes, bluff, and worse still, upon my word! You’re the one who’s lost his wits, not I. Think a bit and remember: everyone shouted from the rooftops that a pyramid was to built, but where do we see this pyramid? Nowhere! So you think that’s all just by chance? Well, listen to me, you old dimwit. If the pyramid has not yet begun to rise from the ground, that’s because no one is bothering about it any longer. They may all be shouting pyramid, but in their minds they are thinking plot! ”
    Those were the rumors that were going about before Cheops decided to make a speech. Even if it means turning Egypt upside down, he declared, I shall uncover every last root of this conspiracy!
    Courtrooms and torture chambers were overflowing. The first sentences had already been passed, and the quarterings and stonings had begun in public places. So you wanted to sabotage the pyramid, did you? the fanatics screamed, still not satisfied at the sight of the piles of stones beneath which the culprit was expiring. Sometimes these heaps looked much like little pyramids, which prompted various macabre jokes, especially when the last twitches of the dying man made the pebbles move.
    Most people lived in anguish. Thousands expected to be arrested, while others asked to be sent to the quarries or to join the road-building gangs. Until then they had found every possible pretext for avoiding hard labor—ill health, family commitments, and so on—but now they volunteered, without a word of complaint, in the hope that down there, in those baking and desolate places, they would be forgotten. In fact it took hardly any time at all for the dust, sweat, and terror to alter their faces so profoundly that they did indeed become unrecognizable, even to the investigators.
    Who can say how