Accordingly I followed her into the
next chamber, which we had not yet entered, where I found Job, who had
also, to his great embarrassment, been conducted thither by a fair mute.
Job never got over the advances the former lady had made towards him,
and suspected every girl who came near to him of similar designs.
"These young parties have a way of looking at one, sir," he would say
apologetically, "which I don't call respectable."
This chamber was twice the size of the sleeping caves, and I saw at once
that it had originally served as a refectory, and also probably as an
embalming room for the Priests of the Dead; for I may as well say at
once that these hollowed-out caves were nothing more nor less than vast
catacombs, in which for tens of ages the mortal remains of the great
extinct race whose monuments surrounded us had been first preserved,
with an art and a completeness that has never since been equalled,
and then hidden away for all time. On each side of this particular
rock-chamber was a long and solid stone table, about three feet wide by
three feet six in height, hewn out of the living rock, of which it had
formed part, and was still attached to at the base.
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