He crept in between them and
the boat and laid himself down.
Presumably, being altogether tired out, Smith did ultimately fall
asleep, for how long he never knew. At any rate, it is certain that, if
so, he woke up again. He could not tell the time, because his watch
was not a repeater, and the place was as black as the pit. He had some
matches in his pocket, and might have struck one and even have lit his
pipe. To his credit be it said, however, he remembered that he was the
sole tenant of one of the most valuable museums in the world, and his
responsibilities with reference to fire. So he refrained from striking
that match under the keel of a boat which had become very dry in the
course of five thousand years.
Smith found himself very wide awake indeed. Never in all his life did he
remember being more so, not even in the hour of its great catastrophe,
or when his godfather, Ebenezer, after much hesitation, had promised him
a clerkship in the bank of which he was a director. His nerves seemed
strung tight as harp-strings, and his every sense was painfully acute.
Thus he could even smell the odour of mummies that floated down from the
upper galleries and the earthy scent of the boat which had been buried
for thousands of years in sand at the foot of the pyramid of one of the
fifth dynasty kings.
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