T
hen Shabako breathed deeply, drew himself up and with kingly dignity faced the ranks of his people, sword again held imperiously aloft.
"Thou hast seen!" he cried. "Thou hast heard! Here is the guilty Taia—and here am I, returned to thee, still with the strength of my prime! As I was about to slay the rash Inaros, the ice entrapped us, and for twenty years we lay thus, while my spirit pursued those two guilty ones across the River of Death. Then Aten aided me, filled my veins with His holy fire and melted the ice from our bodies. We lived and breathed again. With His divine help I slew Inaros and brought the transgressing virgin back to the Temple. Twenty years have passed—but of years Aten thinks nothing. Give praise to our God!"
A breathless silence swallowed his shout. Then a mighty roar burst out, an exultant roar that soared up past the impassive image of the god and rolled in thunderous echoes along the roof. "Praise to Aten! Praise to Aten!"
Wesley Craig smiled wryly. He could hardly credit the Kundrenaline's power in wiping twenty years away; but it was evidently true. Shabako, he saw, really believed the superstition-conceived story he had just spun, so—now what?
The High Priest was staring at him malevolently, his slanted eyes fastened on his garb of furs. His weedy voice pierced through the echoes.
"O divine Shabako," he questioned shrilly, "who is this stranger?"
The Pharaoh's glance was contemptuous. "A blasphemer," he said harshly. "One who dares claim—"
But Wes had understood the question. He stepped forward. Frankly and simply, he told his story.
"I found thy ruler and the maid and her lover in the ice, entrapped," he concluded. "I cut them out and, with a fluid which is of common knowledge in my country, restored them to life. I told this to Shabako, but he overpowered me and—"
"Hear thou!" bawled the Pharaoh, furiously breaking in. "Blasphemy! He claims the might of the God! Back, dog, lest I kill thee here myself!"
Wes saw how hopeless it was; he shrugged and stepped back. He read all too plainly thehatred in Shabako's eyes; his frank story had also apparently inflamed the High Priest against him. There was not a friend in the whole Temple, save the girl—and the next moment Hrihor walked to her.
His slanted eyes ran over her figure. A sneering smile appeared. "So!" he observed mockingly. "Taia is returned to the Temple! Yes, well do I remember thee now—the scornful cast of thy mouth, the proud bearing of thy head. Even Aten thou were scornful of, I remember. Aten remembers too!" He turned slightly. "Listen, O Shabako. Three days ago thy elected successor, Siptah, died. We had met to choose a new ruler. But, by the will of the God, thou art returned and art again Pharaoh. Thy people are grateful to Aten. In twelve hours a sacrifice shall proclaim our gratitude." His crafty eyes again swung to the girl. "There!" he shrilled, "—she pays for her sin. She is the sacrifice!"
There was a great shout from the crowd, but the words that Shabako then cried savagely were plainly audible to Wes Craig.
"Aye. Taia. O High Priest—and the blasphemous stranger, too! Both shall die in the hands of Aten!"
The priest nodded, smiling cruelly. "'Tis well, Shabako. Both shall die!"
Taia's frightened eyes met Craig's, then lifted to the form of the idol. He too peered up at it, and for the first time its hideousness and the cold-blooded cruelty of its design struck him.
The rudely carved figure was a full forty feet high. The impassive face, horrible in the lifelessness of rock, stared unseeingly down on its worshippers. One gross black hand was held some ten feet above the palm of the other, and, inserted in its palm, was a long, keen-pointed blade. The living sacrifice would be tied to the lower palm; the upper, by some trickery, would be made to slowly descend....
A
surge of panic swept over Craig. In his mind he saw the slight, helpless form of the girl strapped to that grim paw, saw the knife inch down, saw it touch and prick and finally drive through her heart. And it would be the same for him! A flame of blind fury burst in him, making him reckless; mad.
"The hell we die!" he yelled, in English, and with a great bound he was at Taia's side. A priest leaped for him, but Craig shot a foot out and sent him sprawling. Then, with eyes flaming and legs outthrust, he stood in front of the girl, facing the worshippers.
"Fools!" he roared. "Listen to me! My words are truthful! I do not lie, as does thy Pharaoh! I can prove that which I say! I can—"
"Take him!" the High Priest shrieked. "Forward! Take him!"
Craig could handle one or two, but not a dozen. A mass of men, women, soldiers, priests, swept at him. There was a brief moment of struggle, of oaths and shouts and excited yells from the crowd in the Temple, till something thudded into the American's head and he went down. Feet trampled him; men surged over him; then blessed unconsciousness en-wrapped him, and he knew no more.
He did not hear, as did Taia, Shabako's command:
"To a chamber with them! Guard them well, till the time of sacrifice!"
A
small party, led by the stocky figure of the captain of the Pharaoh's guard, wound its way through a network of corridors, past jagged walls down which water slowly dripped, across a swaying bridge of hides that spanned an awful chasm in the volcano's very heart, and came at last to a large dark hole in the rock.
The captain turned. "In there!" he commanded harshly. The two figures, man and girl, were dumped like sacks of flour into the gloomychamber. The men who had carried them turned and tramped away; the captain faced one who had stayed.
"Guard them with thy life, Sitah. Thou knowest the payment for carelessness."
Sitah nodded grimly. He was fully armed, with spear and sword. He sat down outside the dark hole, and the captain retraced his steps. The pad of his feet on the floor died away, and then, for a long time, there was silence.
Perhaps every five minutes Sitah turned and stared down into the hole behind, ears craned for the slightest sound. But none came. The two inside, no doubt, were asleep.
It was very hot, down in the deep-buried corridor, and though Sitah was accustomed to the heat, he soon found his eyelids drooping and his whole body crying out for sleep. But he did not go to sleep. He knew too well what would befall him in Aten's hands if he did. He had seen many old men and women die in those hands, on ceremony days—old people who croaked in helpless agony as the keen knife blade dropped slowly down toward them, paused a second, inches from their hearts, and then plunged in with a rush. Old men and women, useless, their years of service gone. Yes, and many unwanted girl children....
That was what the Sun God demanded. His hands reached ever for human bodies. It was cruel, but he was a god; and who was to question the will of a god?
S
itah was very glad when, after six hours of lonely vigil, another guard relieved him and took his place outside the dark hole. Sitah spoke humorously to him, a grim kind of humor, as befitting one who has seen much death.
"They sleep, Hapu," he said, nodding into the prison. "But soon a longer sleep will come for them—the sleep of the knife!" He chuckled as he made his way far below, to his bed. A few hours of rest and he would be in fine fettle for the ceremony.
The relieving guard grunted and peered into the cell. He saw two dark figures outstretched, mere blobs of black, a little blacker than the shadows. Yes, they slept....
He sat down on the bench Sitah had just vacated. He had four hours to wait. Then the priests, led by Hrihor, would come, and the ceremony would begin, and the god's hands would move together. It would be a fine show! He looked forward to it keenly. It would be delicious to see that girl Taia bared to the knife. It would please the god: seldom did his hands hold such a beautiful sacrifice. And the queer stranger, too—he would probably die very noisily. When he saw the knife sliding down, he would regret his blasphemy and shriek for forgiveness!
For along time Hapu sat quite motionless. He was a good watchdog. Hours passed; his vigil was nearing its end; the priests would soon come. Soon—
A slight noise came from the cell behind him.
He whirled around. The noise came again, louder. A voice cried out.
"Water! Water! I am dying!"
Hapu grunted. It was the stranger's voice. The stranger must not die; it would spoil the ceremony; Aten would be wroth. He stared into the hole.
One of the figures was tossing, writhing painfully. The agonized cry echoed again. "Water! Please! I am dying!"
Hapu strode into the cell.
For a moment he stood still, peering down at the tossing figure. His brain suddenly shouted alarm. This was no human body! "What—" he began.
But the question was never finished. Something hard crashed into the back of his skull; his spear dropped with a clank, and he slumped to the floor.
O
ut of the shadows, behind, a man emerged and bent down over the outstretched figure of the guard. A smile appeared on the man's lean face: the guard was out—cold. It took Wes Craig just a moment to ascertain this; then he tiptoed over to a dark form that lay on the floor—the girl, whose pale, anxious face peered up out of the shadows. Craig cut her bonds with the guard's sword and raised her to her feet. She stood close to him, clinging to him, trembling, almost not believing she was free.
Her eyes were filled with awe as she looked up into the American's eyes. "First thou didst restore me to life," she whispered, "and now thou hast broken thy bonds. Surely, thou must be a god!"
Wes smiled. "It was simple, Taia. Look! This buckle on my belt—'tis sharp. I edged it round and cut the rope. It was slow work, else we would have been free long before."
"But I saw thee toss and writhe on the floor, and cry out for water!"
Craig kicked a pile of furs that had been heaped one on top of the other, and tied together with thread from an unraveled woolen mitten. "This was my body," he said coolly. "Furs. The cell must be a storeroom for them—lucky for us. I was standing with a rock in my hand near the door, when I cried out for water.... We shall not die in Aten's hands, Taia! See—I have a sword. With luck—"
There was a warmer quality than reverence in Taia's eyes when she spoke—though she did not realize it. "Then come quickly, O Stranger!" she said. "The guard has been changed once; the time for sacrifice nears!"
Craig nodded. Only a sword was in his hand; his automatic, he found, had been taken from him while he lay unconscious in the Temple, probably desired as a curious heathen object. The discovery, made when he had cut his bonds, had been a serious blow to his hopes: with a sword, he was only a human being, but with a gun he might have passed as supernatural to this primitive race.
But it could not be helped. He peered to each side, gestured to the girl, and together they started up the sloping incline of the corridor.
T
he heat of the earth was great, down where they were, and it made the passageway muggy and odorous. Fitful shadows were flung by widely separated oil lamps as they pressed forward—grotesque splotches of black that half a dozen times tightened the American's grasp on his sword, sure that a guard had come upon them. He knew that their margin of time in which to effect escape was small, and he gradually quickened their pace, sacrificing caution for speed. Taia's hand was in his left; and he had just turned to her to ask if they were taking the best course up to the surface, when suddenly she stopped short.
"Hearken!" she whispered, frightened.
Wes craned his ears. For a moment there was nothing but silence. Then a faint sound trembled through the shadows. It could only have been that of many approaching footsteps.
"The priests!" Taia murmured, tightening her grip on his hand. "They come!"
There was a sharp bend in the corridor fifty feet ahead; from behind it a growing clatter of sandals echoed through the rock-walled passageway. Craig paused, irresolute. "Are we blocked, ahead?" he asked.
"Yes," her low voice hurriedly told him. "But we can go back, cross the bridge of the chasm and go up theother side. But others may be there, and—"
A shout cut her words short. Dim figures appeared around the bend in the passage. They were discovered!
Wes Craig's face set grimly; he worked his hand into a good grip on the sword handle, looked levelly at the gathering crowd ahead and said:
"I think it best to face them now, Taia. I can hold them for minutes at least; thou canst perhaps escape. Rest assured I shall take that High Priest with me, when I cross thy River of Death!"
"But where can I go?" cried the girl. "Nay, Divine One—I shall stay at thy side!"
T
he excited yells of Hrihor, urging the others forward, came plainly to their ears. Swords glittered in the gloom of the corridor, and like a foam-tipped wave that slowly gathers speed the group of priests and soldiers charged down on the man and girl. Craig saw that she would not run.
"Then come!" he shouted, and swung her around. With desperate speed they retraced their steps. They soon passed their cell, and recklessly leaped through the deceptive shadows on the far side, on down the corridor.
The High Priest and the others followed close behind. His crafty face was distorted with rage, and he kept screaming to his men: "The wrath of the God on thee if they escape!" Craig's ears caught that, and he found time for a bitter smile.If!If only they had left him his automatic! A few bullets flung into them would even matters a trifle.
The corridor twisted and slanted ever downward. They panted around a corner and came to the brink of a dark pit. "Down!" cried the girl. She led the way, nimbly dropping down the fifteen-foot rawhide ladder that was there. Halfway down the ladder Wes reached up with his sword and cut it from where it was fastened. He fell to the bottom of the hole with a grunt. As he extricated himself from the ladder's entangling meshes be yelled up, "Come and get us, you cutthroats—if you can!" and was off after the lithe form of the girl.
B
ut the action helped them but little, and added only a few feet to the distance between them and their pursuers, for they boldly made the deep drop without sending for another ladder. Taia was sobbing for air, and Wes himself beginning to feel the bitter pang of hopelessness when they rounded a corner and came to a great chasm—a wide cleft in the very heart of the volcano. A terrific heat came from its maw of unbroken black, and a peculiar, choking odor, sulphurous. Across it was a slender framework of hides and thongs—a mere catwalk over the terrible depths below.
"You first!" Craig snapped, and as Taia started across a spear came hurtling from the mob behind, and clanked against the rocky wall on the far side. Nimbly Taia sped over the bridge, and Wes, the yells of Hrihor and his men loud in his ears, followed.
Midway a long spear snaked after him. It missed by inches, and went pitching into the gulf. In his haste he caught his foot on the interlaced thongs, stumbled and almost fell—which saved his life, for another spear streaked through the very spot he had been a second before. Then he was across, and his sword was flashing in vicious hacks at one of the two main supporting thongs of the bridge.
The hide was tough, but Craig's strength was that of a desperate man, and in several mighty strokes he severed it. The framework slumped to one side, held only by one thong. Hrihor, half across, croaked in sudden horror and sprang back as hesaw the stranger raise his blade to carve through the other support. But even as the sword swept down a spear streamed from a warrior's hand and thudded against Wes's right shoulder.
His sword jarred loose. It fell into the chasm.
"Thou art hurt!" cried the girl. Wes grinned wryly.
"Nay," he said, "but weaponless. Lead on!"
T
hey were now on the other side of the chasm in the tunneled volcano. The priests had hesitated a moment when the bridge had slackened; but now, seeing the weaponless man and girl disappear in a tortuous corridor ahead, they sidled across the damaged catwalk after their fierce leader.
"They will go past the Temple!" Hrihor shrilled. "It is Taia who leads him: again she tries to escape to the land of ice! Follow—up here!"
His words were true. The corridor that led by the Temple was the one which led to the only other passage up to the crater of the volcano.
But Taia had guided Craig only a few steps past the place of worship, now a silent vault of impenetrable blackness when, turning a corner, the American felt her shrink back.
"Shabako comes!" she told him faintly.
Quickly he verified it. Led by the Pharaoh himself, a party of soldiers was coming down the corridor some thirty yards away. Even as Wes saw them, they saw him—and Shabako's roar of sudden alarm tingled his ears.
Priests behind, soldiers and the blood-lustful Pharaoh ahead. They were cut off, blocked, trapped. There was no nearby branch passage to run down; there was no way to turn. It was the end of the game.... But no, not quite, Craig told himself grimly. His sword was gone, but his fists would tell on them before he went down, before the paws of the idol finally claimed him....
He stepped before Taia, clenched his fists, and waited the shock of the charge.
H
e could see the fury in Shabako's narrowed eyes, so close were they, when a soft hand pulled him back. It was Taia's.
"Come!" she whispered, and darted swiftly back to the gloomy, shadow-filled entrance of the Temple. And wondering, Wes Craig followed.
She glided through the pillared portal and was immediately swallowed up by a shroud of silent, velvety darkness. Wes could not see her, but her soft hand touched his arm lightly to guide him forward, and he sensed the girl's warm body close to his. Where was she going? Inevitably they would be trapped in the far end of the Temple, beneath the very hands of the idol—or so he thought. But he trusted her, and went on.
A shout came from the entrance. "They went in here!" someone cried, and the two heard Shabako detailing swift instructions to his men—instructions which were cut short by another clatter of feet and the approaching voice of Hrihor. Priests and soldiers had joined, a confusion of men, most of them hanging back, half afraid to venture into the well of blackness that was Aten's abode on earth.
But the Pharaoh whipped them into discipline with the harsh tones of his voice, and strung them into a close line, to advance slowly through the Temple. "Have thy blades ready!" he added. "They cannot escape us now: they are trapped. Forward!"
N
othing could get through that line. It was like a fine-toothed comb, with every tooth aman. Craig saw it coming, and knew that he and the girl could not go much farther back, for already he sensed himself directly beneath the looming figure of Aten. Yet the gentle touch led him on—around and past the idol into the furthermost corner of the Temple. It was then that Taia paused, felt around, and placed Craig's right hand upon some unseen knob in the wall. Her faint whisper hurriedly explained the purpose of the knob as Wes drank in her words eagerly.
"There is a secret room behind the idol, from whence the priests ape the God's voice and move his hands at sacrifice. A priest should be there e'en now, ready for the ceremony. Thou must overcome him, Divine One, and we too can hide therein. Hrihor dare not search for us there while others are present, for e'en Shabako knows not of the room. Quick, then—they come! Thy hand is on the latch of the secret panel. I follow thee!"
Wes pressed the girl's hand tightly and his body tensed. Then, without hesitation, he jerked the secret panel back. A faint glow of light lay ahead, and he plunged into the tiny room that lay revealed.
An alarmed face stared up—the priest! Wes leaped at him, his steely fingers thumbing into the man's throat and throttling its scream to a gasping choke. All the American's pent-up fury went into a lunge that the priest could not begin to stand against. He was bowled sharply over and went down. Craig on top, and there the fight ended as suddenly as it had begun. The priest's head thudded into the smooth rock floor; a convulsion quivered his body; he moaned and lay still.
A grim flicker in his eyes, Craig got up and looked around for Taia. Then astonishment and cold fear swept through him.
The secret door was closed—but she was not inside!
N
ow what—" Wesley Craig gasped.
He did not dare finish the thought. He glared around, much as a trapped tiger does, his brain a turmoil. His eyes fell on a ladder that led up from the floor to a niche in the left wall—a slit about forty feet high, a pool of darkness, shadowed from the thin tongue of flame that lit the room. Only half realizing what the slit was, Wes sprang forward and leaped up the ladder. A platform was built high up inside the niche, a place for a man to stand on. The American reached it, pressed himself forward, and peered through a tiny hole that was in the rock ahead. He knew it ought to command a view of the Temple.
But if it did, Craig could see nothing, for there was no light in the huge vault outside. For minutes the brooding silence was not broken, save by an occasional scraping sound made by one of the searching line of men. There was no hint of the girl who waited beside the hideous figure of the god, nor of the network that gradually closed in on her.
But suddenly the silence was shattered by a shout.
"I have her!" someone yelled. Then came a multitude of sounds. The piercing voice of Hrihor was audible above them all.
"Light the lamps! Hast thou the other, too?"
"Nay—he is not here."
"Not here? What—"
A
spark of light made an erratic course from the Temple door: someone was bringing a flame to light the lamps. A moment later there was a flare of yellow light as the oil in a large wall lamp caught fire, and then the darkness melted further before a wave of light from the opposite wall. Now could be seen the warriors who, with gleaming outdrawn swords, were clustered around the girl. Shabako was gripping herarm and shaking her roughly: the High Priest was drawing to a stop before her, to stand glaring at her with hate-inflamed eyes.
"Tell us!" roared the Pharaoh. "Where is the man?"
She looked at him levelly. Her eyes were quite calm, and she breathed evenly. There was a glorious light in her eyes as she replied.
"I will tell thee," she said; "though thou wilt not comprehend. He vanished. Vanished, even as a god. He was here beside me, in the darkness and then suddenly he was gone. But why not? For he was a god...."
The soldiers gaped at her. Silence came down in the Temple. The High Priest did not break it, but only stared closely at the girl with eyes that suddenly had something more than hate in them—comprehension, and a trace of fear....
But the Pharaoh Shabako's eyes were only wrathful, and he shouted:
"A god? Vanished, sayest thou? Lies! Lies! But thou canst not lie to Aten! The God knows of a way to loosen thy tongue!"
Despite herself, Taia shuddered. She knew that way.
G
radually the Temple was filling with other worshippers come to see the sacrifice, and soon there were sixty or seventy of them. The men outnumbered the women two to one, and none of them was very old. Fifty was about their age limit—and those who were near this age were reluctant to let their eyes rest on the hands of the idol. When they did glance at them, and at the cruel knife blade in the upper one, fear showed on their faces. There were also very few children....
Hrihor's thin features grew unreadable in the coldness that settled upon them. He was now in the role of High Priest: apart, separate from the common mob before him; interpreter of Aten's divine mysteries: playing his part of one who listened to a god's awful whisperings. Impassively he superintended the binding of Taia by a priestess, who tightened the cords around the girl's slim body with claw-like hands, a gleam of unholy anticipation on her fleshless, soured face. Then the High Priest turned from the altar and faced the crowd of people.
"Silence!" he commanded. "Silence, before thy God Aten!"
A hush fell instantly. Their eyes centered on the bound figure of the girl, standing just beside the lowermost hand of the idol that would presently claim her. Her face was very pale, but none could detect fear in it. There was an uneasy stir, a shifting of feet, a mumbling, as her fresh young beauty struck the watchers. Somewhere a man muttered that she was very young to die. Aten had returned her once: perhaps the God did not wish her to perish.... His neighbor demurred. And the ceremony went on.
Ornate but crude censers were in the hands of two priests; the incense was lit by long tapers, and its acrid odor wound up in wavering purple spirals of smoke. On each side of Hrihor were five under-priests, eyes stiffly on their superior's impassive face. The soldiers had retreated from the altar and now were massed in the rear of the Temple, their spear blades glittering dully above their heads.
The High Priest raised his hands slowly, and stared with glazed eyes into the gloom of the ceiling, high above. "Praise!" he shrilled. "Praise to Aten!"
T
he assembled worshippers joined him in the chant of sacrifice. It was low and soft, and, at first, almost drowsy, like the slow stir of a tropical wind through palm leaves. But soon it quickened with rising tones from perfectly concerted voices; it soared up; its tenor changed; it became fierce, lustful, eager for blood, eager for the sacrifice, a heathen chant shrilling for sight of a girl's body in the god's, awful hands.
And it died in a sad, discordant moan on an expectant note....
Hrihor's body, stiff and rigid in its ceremonial robes, did not seem human as he stretched his arms straight forward and wheeled silently to the huge idol of stone. A full two minutes he stood without so much as flicking an eyelash; then, not shifting his glazed stare, he harshly intoned:
"Ages ago our ancestors set out from the homeland of Egypt in a great galley, bound for the barbarian countries of the north in quest of metal. But storms seized upon them, drove them far from their course, till at last, weak from hunger, they came to this land of ice, where their galley was wrecked and they were cast ashore. At first all was dark; then came the Sun God Aten's life giving rays, leading them to this mountain, which they inhabited and in which they carved this Temple wherein to worship the God who had saved them. The lord of the galley was the first Pharaoh; the priest of the galley was called High Priest; the Pharaoh took a concubine to wife—and thus was our civilization begun.
"There were virgins of the Temple, holy, set apart from man, sacred to Aten. Never did one betray her sacred trust—never, until Taia fled to the land of ice with the sacrilegious Inaros. Our mighty Pharaoh pursued them, and after twenty years, by Aten's special grace, slew the man and brought the maid back to pay for her transgression. Never before has this happened."
He paused, waiting. An under-priest spoke; evidently following some ritual.
"Here is the priestess, O High Priest of Aten! What penalty must she pay?"
"Death in Aten's hands!" the cold voice shrilled instantly. "The God wills it!"
B
ut now came an interruption, unexpected and disconcerting to the well-laid plans of Hrihor. The voice of Pharaoh Shabako cried out:
"Another came with this priestess—a blasphemous stranger! He lies concealed; the maid will not tell where! High Priest, let her be tortured in Aten's hands until she reveals where he is!"
For a moment Hrihor lost his mask-like rigidity, of expression. His eyes shifted nervously. But Shabako was not to be denied. Again be repeated his demand.
"We must pray to Aten to make his hand descend on her, prick and gash her, till she divulges!"
A murmur arose from the people in the Temple: they approved the torture. Hrihor, obviously reluctant, was forced to comply.
"O mighty Aten," he cried, turning to the idol, "thou hast heard our Pharaoh. We pray to thee to lay thy hand on the priestess Taia, till she tells where the stranger lies concealed!"
Shabako nodded in approval. While a mumbled prayer rose, four priests strode to the girl, lifted her slight form and flung it on the upturned lower band of the idol. They strapped her there securely, her breast but ten feet below the waiting knife. Even then she did not struggle or cry out.
She did not know who had won the fight inside the secret room, but her heart told her it was the mysterious stranger, for was he not a god?—She would not be afraid, for he would surely reveal his divinity, and save her, even as he had from her twenty-year death, and from her bonds in the cell where they had been imprisoned....
The softly chanted prayer surged through the Temple. Hrihor's slitted eyes were on the knife in the upper palm of the idol. Suddenly he flung up his arms, and cried:
"Now, O Aten!"
The prayer stopped. With fearful interest the people stared at the dagger, at the inert figure of the girl—the more elderly seeing in her a hint of what was to come to them when their days of service were ended.
The knife started downward.
T
aia's eyes were closed. Her breathing was even and regular. She did not seem at all aware of the shaft of steel that slowly, in the hushed gasp from the audience, stirred with the stone hand that held it and moved deliberately downward.
To the silent crowd of worshippers it was a religious phenomenon, and well calculated to strike fear and awe into their hearts. The moving idol seemed to be a living thing, motivated by the unseen spirit of the god it represented, who caused the massive upper hand to execute his will. Its movement was slow and clumsy, and close listeners would have heard a slight creaking noise from somewhere behind it—but the ears of the worshippers were deaf from the fear and the horror in which they were vicariously participating.
Slowly the hands came together, until the long, wicked shear was but a foot above the bound girl.... It dropped to within inches of her flesh....
And there it stopped.
Then, before the amazed crowd could realize what was happening, before even Hrihor could control the surprise that raised his brows incredulously, the palm in which the blade was implanted slowly retraced its course and returned to its original position.
A breathless silence reigned in the Temple. The hand was motionless. It did not stir again.
"The God will not touch his priestess!"
It was a faint, awed whisper that came from someone amongst the worshippers. But Hrihor heard it, and so did the other priests. While they stared at each other, utterly at a loss, the whisper was taken up and repeated on all sides.
"The God will not touch his priestess!"
T
he High Priest sensed the crowd's conviction, and sensed them turning against him. His beady eyes glanced around nervously. His lips a thin line, he called to his second ranking priest in a tense whisper, and, when the other came to him, muttered in his ear:
"'Tis the stranger, hiding in the secret chamber, who does this! He has overcome our brother there, and now controls the levers! And Taia knows it; and if she reveals it to the people our hold will be broken! She must be killed!"
"Yes! But how? We must be quick!"
Hrihor's crafty face set cruelly. "I know a way. Watch thou...."
He strode to the fore of the altar and flung his hands high. A shrill shout from his thin lips cut the uneasy murmuring short.
"Hearken! Aten will not torture His own priestess! He will not maim those who have sworn their lives to Him!"
The silent crowd waited for his next words. He screamed savagely.
"His High Priest must perform the rite! Aten has appointed me to be His instrument of vengeance!"
A gleam of unholy exultation was in his narrowed eyes. His face worked: he thrust a hand inside his ornate ceremonial vestment.
"By Divine Will," he cried, "this knife in my hand is the knife in the God's hand!"
And he whipped a long blade from the robe.
Never before had such a ceremony been held in the Temple of Aten, the Sun God. Never before had the hand of the god paused above the living sacrifice and deliberately risen again without tasting blood. It was miracle upon miracle; half-bewildered, Pharaoh Shabako and the herd of common people alike waited for what would come next, their High Priest's savage words somewhat reassuring them that all was correct.
They saw him clench his dagger tightly and with slow steps advance to the side of the helpless girl. Glaring down at her, he swung the blade high. It poised directly over her heart. It would not torture her, Taia knew: it was death that she read in the High Priest's eyes. She closed her own, and thought of the stranger; she breathed a silent prayer to him. She waited.
"In Aten's name!" screamed Hrihor, and brought the dagger down.
A
t that second the sharp roar of a sudden explosion thundered through the Temple, and the startled worshippers saw, slowly trickling from the right eye of Aten, a curling streamer of gray smoke. They did not know what had happened. And not until, after a moment of fearful silence, they saw the expression on Hrihor's face change to great surprise, and saw his right hand relax and drop the dagger to the floor, did they comprehend that he had been struck down.
He clutched at his side, staggered, twisted round, and fell full length before the feet of the god whose representative he was.
A frightened woman close to the altar saw a dark red stain on his robe, and a scream from her lips pierced out:
"He is dead! Killed by Aten—whose eyes have looked death! Oh!"
She flung herself flat on the floor, and the others, back to the soldiers in the rear, did likewise. The priests clustered together in a scared group, staring fearfully at the right eye of the idol, from which a wisp of smoke was still trailing. None dared approach the outstretched figure of the High Priest. Only Shabako dared look at him.
The Pharaoh clutched his sword tightly, muttering uneasily to himself. Not a sound came from the prostrate multitude. The slow echoes of the explosion died away; again the heavy silence fell. Then Shabako suddenly stared around, and peered up at the stone image of the god.
H
is ears had caught a sound. It was a panting and scuffling noise, as if men were fighting. It grew, even though muffled by apparently intervening rock. The beginning of a scream, cut short into a choke, added to its volume. The worshippers far back in the Temple heard it, and looked up. There was a muffled crash—then another crash of thundering noise, similar to the one that had come from the god's eye.
But this time no smoke eddied from the eye. The explosion echoed through the Temple and died away, while all the time Pharaoh Shabako stared at the idol. Slow comprehension broke through the bewilderment on his face. Suddenly he swung around and gripped the cowering form of the second ranking priest, who stood near him.
"From whence came those sounds, Priest?" he hissed. "Tell me!"
The frightened priest gibbered unintelligibly, but there was a guilty look on his face which spurred Shabako on. He shook the man and roared the question again. Then the priest spoke.
"They came—from—the secret chamber," he stammered.
A gasp rose from the crowd behind. But before they could master their astonishment, Shabako had whipped his sword from its sheath and sprung up the altar.
"Show me this chamber!" he cried.
U
p on the platform in the secret room, his eye glued to the hole that was the eye of Aten, Wes Craig had seen and heard everything that had transpired. He had been shocked to see the brave thing Taia had submitted to, rather than divulge where he was hidden. Sacrificing herself, so that he, a stranger, might have a few more minutes of life! It hurt.
He had climbed down from the platform and glared around the lower floor of the secret room again, scanning shelves that were crowded with scores of curious objects, sacred relics, properties to aid in the manipulation of the idol and other unidentifiable things—looking for a potential weapon. If the girl had to die—and he—it would be better to go out and meet his enemies, taking some of them with him in full fight.
And then his heart leaped madly at the sight of something lying on one of the shelves.
A stumpy black shape, it was, with a short barrel of cold blue steel, and it looked as much out of place in that chamber as did the fur-clad man who stared half-unbelievingly at it. It was a foreigner, as he was, in the gloomy corridors and chambers of the race that worshipped Aten. It too was American. It was a friend—his automatic!
To Wes Craig, bewildered and tired and sadly without hope, it almost seemed to be alive, smiling at him with its wicked round mouth. He picked it up, and it bolstered his courage, his hope and his energy enormously. At once he leaped to the closed entrance-door and felt for the lever that opened it. But there he paused a moment to think.
There was only the faintest chance of fighting free with Taia now. There were at least thirty men outside, and he had only seven bullets. And then he remembered where he was, and what the purpose of the secret room was. He remembered, also, a certain nervous expression on the High Priest's face that he had just seen....
He swung around and inspected the levers and crude wheels of wood that led to a handle up in the niche, shoulder-high to whoever might stand on the platform there. He had had experience with certain idols in Egypt. He remembered particularly one that had been worshipped in a degenerate age—its hands, its eyes. And then he stepped over the sprawling body of the still unconscious priest and climbed to the platform and his peep-hole again.
As he pressed himself forward in the niche, and applied his eye to the slit, he gently fingered the handle of the large lever right beside him. And he also measured the size of the slit in the right eye of the god....
C
raig had not minded shooting the murderous High Priest Hrihor, but he did not want to kill the under-priest in the secret room. He had had no choice in the matter. At the tensest moment in the dramatic scene in the Temple, just when he had been hoping that the mysterious death he had sent to Hrihor would frighten the worshippers away, he had heard a slight rustling sound behind him, and had turned just in time to see a hate-distorted face within feet of him, and a short curved-knife upraised to strike him in the back. It was the priest, whom he had left unconscious below, now revived and coming to kill him.
Wes could have shot the man then and there, but he knew the thunder of his gun would betray his presence; so, using the weapon as a club he had struck out at his attacker andtried to block the thrust of the knife. For a moment he was successful; but the knife proved the better weapon in the close rough and tumble scuffle that ensued and, with its point at his very throat, Wes had been forced to shoot.
He had killed the man instantly, but he felt no slightest relief. Like a tiger—even before the crashing echoes had died away in the little room—he sprang back to his peep-hole to see what the effect was outside. And just what he feared most was happening. The frightened priest in the Temple was telling the suspicious Shabako about the hidden chamber—and even then was leading him to the secret entrance!