[image]His lips moved, and in spite of themselves they started as they heard his first words: "What brings you striplings here?"The face was Chinese, beyond possibility of error; but the words were English, slowly spoken, with only a faint trace of a foreign accent. The tone was authoritative, compelling, that of one who would not be gainsaid. Forrester, always the readiest of the three, felt instinctively that no prevarication would avail, that the best chance of coming safely through whatever ordeal was before them lay in perfect frankness. Steadying his voice, and looking up into the old man's face, he explained, so rapidly that his words as it were tumbled over one another, that he had come with his comrades for the purpose of liberating a fellow countryman whom they believed to be held captive in this region, and he begged that the prisoner might be surrendered, and that all might be suffered to depart in peace.The old man's countenance was utterly expressionless. It gave as little sign as a mask of what was passing through his mind. Forrester having ended, somewhat breathlessly, the low mellow voice spoke again."All are welcome to the Temple of the Eye. I repel none, I invite none. Those who come by their own choice, or are led hither by the hand of Fate, must abide by their choice, or by Fate's decree. The rest of their lives hereafter must they spend in the service of the Temple, fulfilling such offices as they may be best fitted to undertake. That is the Law of the Eye."His utterance was slow and deliberate, like that of a man searching for words at one time familiar, but now half forgotten. The cold dispassionate tones struck a chill upon the listeners' hearts. They had in them the ring of finality, of inexorableness: the old man might have been the very mouthpiece of Fate pronouncing doom.The three men felt the utter hopelessness of argument or protest. Their spirits, under the spell of that calm silvery voice, died within them. When Wen Shih came again to them to lead them back to their former station, they accompanied him with the tranced meekness of men drugged for the gallows.A few moments after they reached the end of the hall they were roused from their stupor by the appearance of a small black man, led between two bald white-clad Chinamen like those in the first rank. His limbs were quivering, his teeth chattered; his staring eyes regarded the awful Presence on the throne with the same helpless terror as a bird fascinated by the baleful eye of a snake. The priests of the Eye lifted him on to the pedestal in a line with the gap, and fastened his collapsing form upright to a light framework which they slid up from the base. Then they placed themselves on either side, and made three low obeisances to the venerable figure on the throne.The man on the left uttered a few sentences in Chinese, and bowed again. His fellow followed with a word or two. It seemed to the Englishmen that they were giving testimony against the quivering figure on the pedestal above them. The second man ceased, and made his obeisance; then both took places quietly at the ends of the front row near the gap.The Englishmen expected that the criminal, if such he was, would be called on for his answer to the charges made against him. But the old man said never a word. Amid a breathless stillness he arose slowly and majestically to his feet. Was he about to pronounce judgment? The Englishmen wondered what the punishment was to be. Recollections of the horrors of Chinese torture made them quake; but there was no sign of instruments of torture, no movement in the silent ranks, except that they turned and faced the victim. Their garments rustled, then all was still as before.The old man moved his head from side to side, the movements being so slight that they might have passed unnoticed by any one observing him less closely than the three Englishmen. Presently all motion ceased. The silence seemed even deeper than before. Then, with startling suddenness, from a point in the old man's head-dress, immediately above the centre of his brow, a swift thin beam of bright green light flashed along the hall, over the gap, past the pedestal, and on to the wall. It was gone in a moment. A low sound like the indrawing of breath ran through the assembly. A flicker of emotion stirred the stolid faces of the Chinamen; a look of horror distorted the more expressive faces of the negrito guards. And the Englishmen were suddenly aware that the pedestal was vacant. The limp shrinking form had vanished; only a little dust hung in the air.While the Englishmen were still in their amazement, the ranks faced about again, and the two priests who had led the victim to the spot drew near to it with the solemn gait of acolytes. One carried a golden trowel, the other a small gold-handled brush. Standing on either side of the pedestal, the one swept a quantity of dust on its surface into the trowel held by the other. The latter, holding the trowel at arm's length in front of him, bore it slowly towards the throne, and after a profound obeisance offered it to the old man, and withdrew. Lifting his skinny right arm, the old man extended the trowel towards the assembled priests, moved it from side to side, lightly sprinkling the dust on the floor, and in his cold clear voice spoke with impressive deliberateness a single sentence. Once more the assembly fell prostrate, the air above the throne quivered, and the mist gradually rose before it, blotting it and its motionless occupant from sight.CHAPTER IXTHE MONSTER ON THE WALLThe three friends scarcely noticed what followed on the disappearance of the old man. The priests filed out quietly, each rank by a separate door. Only Wen Shih remained. He came slowly to the end of the hall, threw a contemptuous glance on the young lad his late companion, who had fallen swooning to the floor, and signed to the Englishmen to follow him. Accompanied by the negrito guards, they quitted the hall, and marched back through the vaulted corridors. They were not, however, taken to the room which they had lately left. Mackenzie was led off by himself to a somewhat smaller cell, and locked in there, Jackson and Forrester being left, meanwhile, under charge of the guards. They in their turn were separately incarcerated. None of them knew anything of the fate of Sher Jang and Hamid Gul. The scene which they had just witnessed, the climax of the series of mysterious happenings of the past few hours, had completely overwhelmed them. They were incapable of resistance, of protest, even of thought: everything was subdued to a shuddering horror.Mackenzie found himself in a chamber differing from that which all three had previously occupied in two respects: its size, and the ornamentation of one of its walls. At first he was hardly aware of this; but recovering his composure by and by in the quiet of his solitary cell, he noticed that the wall opposite the window slit bore a representation of the strange monster which was depicted on the walls of the hall. But here again there was a difference. The hideous creature had, in addition to two eyes normally placed, a third, in the centre of the forehead, in the same position as the spot on the old man's head-dress from which the annihilating beam of light had sped. The cell was dimly illuminated by the mysterious green light, but the monster's third eye glowed brilliantly, a lozenge of vivid green.Here, at last, Mackenzie thought, was the explanation, or rather the confirmation, of the villagers' vague statements about the Eye. It was a symbol of the power presiding over this mountain community. He remembered having noticed a lozenge-shaped ornament on the head-dress of the Old Man of the Mountain; it was from this ornament that the beam of light had appeared to shoot. But what was the origin of this mysterious light? What was the secret of its tremendous devastating force, which in a single moment had shattered the little black man into a few handfuls of dust?Mackenzie shuddered as he recalled the scene. This wizened old man, who appeared in a mist, and into a mist vanished, who was revered as a deity, who was judge and executioner in one--who was he? The sound of his clear silvery voice rang still in Mackenzie's ears. He remembered the cold remorseless words of his speech. All who came to the Temple of the Eye were doomed to spend the rest of their lives in its service! What did that mean? What service was exacted of the hapless wretches enthralled to such a master?He remembered too that the Old Man had wholly ignored Forrester's reference to the Englishman who, it was suggested, had fallen into his hands. Had the dust of Beresford's destroyed body been already scattered on the floor of this horrible temple, or had he too been preserved for a lifelong servitude? Was he perhaps at this moment lying in a cell, alone, crushed in spirit, asking himself the same unanswerable questions?Agitated beyond endurance, Mackenzie got up and paced the floor. As he walked, he found himself glancing more and more frequently, and each time for a longer period, at the monster's green eye. It exercised a basilisk attraction: by and by he was unable to withdraw his gaze from it. He tried to look elsewhere, to think of other things; but always his eyes wandered back to the one spot. It glowed upon him with a sort of hypnotic fascination, leering, as it seemed, mocking him, a mute unwinking witness of his despair. Unable to endure the torment, he turned his back upon it, threw himself on the floor, and buried his face in his folded arms. And there at last, worn out in body and mind, he fell into a sleep broken by frightful dreams.When he awoke his hand moved by force of habit to his pocket for his watch. It was gone. He felt in all his pockets: they had been emptied. Nothing but his clothes was left to him. Looking up at the window slit, he saw sunlight streaming in; the greenish hue had almost disappeared. He rose, and with a strong effort of will forced himself to turn towards the wall on which the monster was painted. He almost shouted with relief when he discovered that the third eye, though still aglow, was much dimmer than it had been in the night. The sun had conquered; the eye's baleful attraction was gone.Presently the negrito guards brought him his breakfast of water and the same glutinous porridge as on the previous day. He spoke to them, first in English, then in Hindustani, but they answered nothing; if they understood him, they gave no sign of it. An hour or two later they returned, accompanied by one of the shaven priests, who indicated that he was to follow them. To refuse, he knew, would be vain; but he shivered with dread lest he were summoned to witness another scene like that of the night. He found, however, that his fears were not justified. His guards took him through miles, as it seemed, of narrow corridors hewn in the rock, always ascending, and brought him presently to an arch through which the sunlight poured. Passing out into the open air, he saw with surprise that he was at the foot of a steep stairway cut in the face of the rift. The steps, about a foot wide, led to the summit, perhaps a hundred feet above. A rope, carried down a kind of handrail, intervened between the passenger and the abyss yawning more than a thousand feet below.The guards signified that he was at liberty to ascend the stairs, and left him. At first he shrank from attempting the climb; his experiences, and his restless night, ill fitted him for any task that demanded steady nerves. But Mackenzie was a man of grit; freedom, the fresh air, the pure sunshine braced him; his curiosity was keen; and at length, steadfastly averting his eyes from the dizzy depth below, and clinging firmly to the rope, he began to mount the stairway.He gained the top, and an unexpected sight met his wondering eyes. Before him, and on either side, stretched a broad plateau, rising in the far distance to the mountains of the snowy range, whose peaks, miles high, glistened dazzlingly in the sunlight. That which surprised him most of all was that the plateau was cultivated. It was divided into many rectangular fields, on which crops of all kinds were growing, and herds of cattle grazing. The fresh green of the vegetation was refreshing to his eyes after the greyness of the barren rock on which they had rested of late. He saw now why the community required supplies of wood from the outside. There were no timber trees. At his right hand lay an extensive orchard, but nowhere were to be seen trees that could be felled for fuel or building.In three directions there were groups of huts, and people were moving about in the fields. They were evidently of many races. There were dwarfish negritos like the Temple guards, Chinese, Tibetans, Nagas and other hillmen. There were women and children, but these seemed to be all negritos or hill-folk: no Chinese women were among them.Mackenzie remained for several minutes at the top of the rock stairway, scanning the whole prospect. He was quite alone, apparently free to move in any direction he pleased. No one took notice of him. When he moved a few paces towards the nearest group of huts, he looked around, expecting to find that someone had been told off to watch him. The fact that such was not the case induced a sense of utter hopelessness. If he was not guarded, the reason must be that escape was impossible. But he promised himself that, granted his liberty thus, he would not rest until he had thoroughly explored the plateau, and assured himself that there was not in one direction or another an outlet into the larger world.The sight of Sher Jang approaching him, spade in hand, recalled him to the present, and he hurried to meet the shikari, whose usually expressionless countenance lit up at sight of him."It is good to see that you are alive," he said. "What did they do with you?""They locked me up, sahib, in a warm room, and this morning brought me here. A shorn-pate put this spade into my hand, and bade me dig. I have lost caste; it were better to die: but he told me I am a slave, and shall remain a slave while life lasts.""And Hamid Gul?""I know nothing of him, sahib. I have not seen him since we left the pit below. There are many of my countrymen here; they are all in bondage; and they quake and shiver when they speak of the Eye.""I don't wonder," Mackenzie murmured. "What do they say of the Eye?""They speak of it as of some unknown horror, sahib. No one has seen it: they say that no man sees it and lives. They declare that the one-armed stranger had both his arms, like you and me; one day he had two, the next, when he came up, he had but one. They tell also that men have gone from this place down into the depths yonder, and have never been seen again. It is Fate: who can stand against it?"At this moment a Chinaman dressed like those who had formed the second rank in the Temple came up to Mackenzie, held out a spade, and signed that he was to join a group of men who were digging in a neighbouring field. Mackenzie thrust his hands into his pockets and turned his back upon the man. To his surprise there was no insistence, no attempt at compulsion: the priest, as he supposed him to be, went away without a word. And then he saw Forrester hurrying towards him from the head of the stairway."Where's Bob?" were Forrester's first words."I was going to ask you that," Mackenzie replied. "I haven't seen him.""They locked me up alone," Forrester went on, "and I never passed a more awful night. That eye!""The monster's on the wall?""Yes. Had you one too? I couldn't look away from it: try as I might, the frightful thing seemed to draw my eyes to it against my will. What unnameable devilry are they playing on us?""Making good!" Mackenzie replied with a grim tightening of his mouth. "The Old Man of the Mountain said we were to stay here for the rest of our lives: he means to terrify us into knuckling under. But I vow----""For any sake say nothing," Forrester implored earnestly. "I feel as if the very air were spying on us; and who knows, if we say anything against him, he won't burn us to powder as he did that poor trembling wretch!""An easy death: better than lifelong slavery. All these folk you see about are slaves.""But why have they let us come up here?""To prove we can't escape, no doubt. But I'll not----""Hush! Look at that fellow slinking by!" Forrester cried in an urgent whisper.It was one of the shaven priests walking towards the orchard."Let's follow him," said Mackenzie. "There's no check upon us; we are free men still."Sher Jang had returned to his digging. The two friends set off pace for pace after the priest. He did not enter the orchard, which was in no way railed off, but skirting its upper end, he drew near to a long low building of stone, with open doorways a few feet apart. It reminded Mackenzie of the rank of connected cottages often seen near engineering works in his own country, except that it was characteristically Chinese in form and decoration. The priest entered one of the doorways and disappeared. As they passed, they heard a dull incessant hammering from within the building."Sounds like a smithy," said Forrester. "I wonder what goes on there?"A little beyond the building, rose a sort of pagoda, three stories high, but not so truly pyramidal in shape as the memorials frequently seen in China. It was surrounded by a walled enclosure, the wall being too high for them to see over."It's not big enough to be the Temple," Mackenzie remarked. "I guess it's the residence of the August and Venerable. We'll go on; maybe we'll see the Temple later.""I don't want to see it," Forrester said with a shudder. "I never want to see it again.""Eh, but I do," Mackenzie returned. "I wish to know all I can about this place. The look of the outside can't do us any harm."But no such building came in sight. The only thing that attracted their attention was a stream flowing from north to south across the plateau. It passed through the walled enclosure of the pagoda, and flowed away between embankments in what they supposed to be the direction of the falls. They were thinking of following its course, when a horn sounded stridently in the distance. At the signal the priests emerged from their dwellings, and marched in file towards the stairway. Mackenzie and Forrester followed them, out of curiosity. They descended the stairway one by one. Soon afterwards another file, the moustachioed priests, came up from the opposite direction. None of them so much as glanced at the two young men standing aside to watch them. When all had gone down, Sher Jang came up to his masters, and told them that the horn blast was the signal for the midday meal. If they wished to eat, they must descend, for no food was given on the plateau to the men from below."I'll not go down till I must," said Mackenzie firmly. "To exchange this fresh air and sunshine for the close atmosphere below--no, I'll fast for the day rather."The two remained foodless for the rest of the day. No one interfered with them. They rambled where they pleased. Every now and then they spoke to one or other of the Indians in the community, asking them how they had come to the place and what their experiences had been. A few had stumbled upon the rift by accident; most had been entrapped, kidnapped, or inveigled by the priests. All were utterly broken in spirit, and lived in hourly terror of the Eye, the mysterious and dreadful something of which rumour spoke, but which none had seen.Among those whom the Englishmen addressed was an old Indian, who told them that he had been captured with his little daughter several years before on the outskirts of his village. He was a zamindar, a man of substance and of some education. He invited the two men into his hut."Lilavanti!" he called as they entered.From behind a curtain that divided the apartment a tall beautiful girl of sixteen or seventeen years came forth. She wore no veil. A white dhoti was wound about her body. Her raven-black hair was bound with a fillet of pearls, and a string of pearls depended from her neck. She bowed deeply as her father introduced the visitors as English sahibs, placed cushions for them, and then seated herself modestly in a corner."I have no hope for myself, but I still dream that my daughter may even yet be released from bondage," said the zamindar, looking with pride at the girl. "We are not ill-treated, you perceive; we make no complaints on that score. So long as the slaves fulfil their appointed tasks they suffer nothing at the hands of the priests. But our life is overshadowed by a cloud of uncertainty as to what the future may bring forth.""What is the meaning of it all?" Forrester asked."No man knows, but I will tell you, sahibs, some conclusions I have come to. The negritos, the original inhabitants of this plateau, are a dwindling race. Fresh blood is required in order to maintain a sufficient population for the cultivation of the soil. Prisoners are brought here for that purpose, and for another which I know not. At irregular intervals men are taken down the steps yonder: we never see them again. The strange thing is that no Indians are thus removed, but only Chinese and negritos. And there is another strange thing: the Chinese prisoners of humble rank are set to work on the fields and are never taken underground; but at intervals, sometimes long, sometimes short, young men of noble birth and high education are brought here. At first they spend their days here above, as you are doing to-day, and descend at sunset; but a time comes, sooner or later, when they descend for the last time and are no more seen. And from the first they are listless, dazed, scarcely sane. If they speak, it is as though they were the mouthpiece of others. Some of them have conversed with me in my own tongue; but I have never been able to learn from them any particulars of their past life, or of the nature of the place underground where they pass the nights. Always they speak with the utmost reverence of the priests, whom they profess to be their kind friends.""Like our young Chinaman," Forrester remarked to Mackenzie."Ay; he is the latest victim, it seems. Have you ever seen one of our countrymen here?" Mackenzie asked."One only. I shrank from telling you. He came up daily for eight or ten days: I had many conversations with him. It is four days since I saw him: I shall never see him again.""Do you know his name?""It was never mentioned: he was simply the Sahib to us.""Beresford, there's hardly a doubt," Forrester said to his friend. "And is there no means of escape from this plateau?""None. If you think of attempting it, you may spare your labour. I have traversed the plateau from corner to corner. Behind are the mountains; if you could climb them you would only die of cold and hunger. In the centre is a mighty river, that pours over the edge of the precipice. To cross it is impossible. In the other direction the plateau ends in a sheer precipice thousands of feet deep. The rift you have seen. That is the only entrance and exit. How its floor is reached from above I know not: I was made insensible there below, and when I revived I was here.""And has no one, absolutely no one, at any time escaped from the regions below and returned here?" Mackenzie asked.The zamindar looked round apprehensively, as if he feared that the walls might hear him. When he spoke it was in little more than a whisper."You are an Englishman," he said. "I can trust you. One man escaped; one only: a negrito: it was five days ago. He came to my hut one night for shelter. I knew him. When he left here a year before he was young, plump and bright-eyed; when he returned he was like an old man. He was mad. I had learnt something of his language, but I understood little of what he said, so wild and broken were his words. It was clear that he had lived among unspeakable horrors.""What became of him?" asked Forrester."When my daughter and I were absent in the fields the priests came and took him. He is gone: we shall never see him again, and I am in constant fear that I shall suffer for harbouring him. In his ravings he spoke of the Eye, and shook like a man in ague."The two Englishmen looked at each other. The same thought had occurred to them both: this was the negrito whom they had seen suffer the punishment of the Eye."Shall we tell him?" Forrester asked."No, no: don't let us terrify the old chap," his friend answered. "His dread of the unknown is depressing enough as it is: if we told him about the Eye, every moment of his life would be an agony."They were still conversing when a horn sounded thrice. The zamindar rose from his seat."That is the signal for returning below," he said. "The sun is setting. I hope that I may see you to-morrow, sahibs."His visitors rose to leave the hut, and bowed to the young girl. The zamindar politely escorted them to the doorway. Forrester was a pace or two in the rear. He felt a touch on his arm, a small object was slipped into his hand, and the Indian girl whispered in Hindustani:--"It saves from the Eye, sahib. The little black man gave it to me."[image]"It saves from the Eye, sahib."She stole away behind the curtain, and Forrester, after a momentary pause, put the gift into his pocket and followed his friend into the open air."Shall we refuse to go down?" he said."We shall get no food if we do. Besides, we must find out what has become of Bob and Hamid. At present my brain is in a whirl; everything is so bewildering; maybe light will dawn by and by."At the head of the stairway two priests were awaiting them. One signed to Mackenzie to descend, and followed him. When they were out of sight, the other indicated that Forrester was to go down. Singly they passed through the silent corridors, and were locked in their cells, each alone.CHAPTER XTHE UNDERWORLDMeanwhile, what of Jackson and Hamid Gul?The former, more nervous and highly-strung than either of his friends, had suffered still more poignantly the malignant influence of the monster's eye. Like them, he had been taken that morning to the foot of the stairway, but the sight of the dizzy ascent had proved too much for him. He could not bring himself to face it, and returned to his cell, where he had remained all day in miserable solitude, his meals being brought to him at intervals.Hamid Gul, the first to fall into unconsciousness, was also the first to revive. He came to himself as he was being carried along the corridor to the cell allotted him, and immediately began to plead for mercy on the ground that he was only a servant, only the humble cook. One of the priests, who understood Hindustani, had reasons of his own for testing the man's skill. Accordingly Hamid, after a night of solitude, was conducted to the kitchen attached to the priestly buildings on the plateau, and ordered to prepare one of his most appetising dishes. The man was as quick-witted as he was timorous. Like many native servants, he cherished a dog-like devotion for his master, and instantly made up his mind to employ his utmost art in the hope of ingratiating himself with his captors to the advantage of the whole party. He concocted one of Forrester's favourite dishes, under the eye of the priest, who, having made him eat a portion, as a precaution against poison, carried the rest away. Returning presently, he said "It is well," and informed Hamid that he was to consider himself attached, at any rate temporarily, to the kitchen staff. Hamid was delighted with his success, and would have been wondrously elated if he could have foreseen the remarkable events that were to spring from his clever cooking.Forrester had dreaded the approach of night, when he would again have to encounter the unwinking glare of the eye. As soon as he had finished the meal brought to him by two negritos, as before, and was locked in, he took from his pocket the small article given him by the Indian girl. It looked like a tightly folded sheet of paper, greyish in colour. It crackled slightly in his hand. Opening it, he found it to be a thin sheet of some unfamiliar substance, about eighteen inches square. The only material to which he could compare it was mica; but on holding it between his eyes and the window, through which came the reflected glow of the setting sun, he discovered that it was more transparent than mica, but less than glass. From the first he had felt little confidence in the statement of the Indian girl. If this strange substance was a defence against the Eye, why had not the little negrito kept it for himself? Now that its transparency was proved, he lost even the slight hope which the girl's words had inspired. If pervious to daylight, how could this flimsy sheet give any protection against the incalculable force that must emanate from the Eye?When darkness fell, and the green glow from the eye of the monster on the wall dominated the little apartment, Forrester, rather from curiosity than with any belief in the efficacy of the screen, held it before his eyes. To his amazement, it was absolutely effective. The glow diminished to a faint luminosity. All its searching brilliance, its compelling power, was gone. He moved the screen aside to make sure that the light was still there, that it was not eclipsed by some other agency. He was immediately undeceived, and again held the screen between his eyes and the monster. What appeared to him still more remarkable was that, protected as he was now from the light, he felt little of that terrible depression of spirits which had tortured him on the previous night.Mackenzie's suggestion recurred to his mind. The monster's eye was part of the fell machinery employed by the Old Man of the Mountain to crush the spirits of his victims. He relied upon its influence sooner or later to terrorise their minds into utter subjection to his own. From his one night's experience, Forrester felt that the desired effect would supervene soon rather than late: no mortal man could long withstand the mysterious force which the glaring eye exercised upon him. He instantly resolved to divide the screen next day into three portions, if that were practicable, and give one secretly to each of his comrades, supposing that Jackson appeared on the plateau. The fragments might avail to arrest the gradual breaking down of their will-power.Early next morning, before he could attempt to carry out his design, the door was opened, and the guards made signs that he was to follow them. Expecting to be led again to the stairway, he rose with alacrity. But his guides soon turned off into a passage branching from the corridor he had traversed on the previous day, and his heart sank with misgiving as he recognised presently the ante-chamber giving access to the Temple.He was detained there for a few minutes until joined by Mackenzie and Jackson. The aspect of the latter struck him with anxious foreboding. Jackson was deathly pale: his features were pinched, his eyes dull and ringed with dark shadows."The Eye!" he murmured, and a shudder shook him.There was no time for speech between them. They were led into the Temple, where the priests were already assembled, ranged in two rows as before. There was the same period of silent waiting; the same prostration to the floor when the mist ascended before the throne; the same gradual revelation of the August and Venerable. Again they chanted the solemn litany, and during the performance the Englishmen grew faint with apprehension lest it were to be followed by a ghastly scene like that which they had formerly witnessed.The last response was uttered; an ominous silence brooded over the place; then Mackenzie and Forrester saw with a shiver of horror, between two priests advancing, the shrinking form of Lilavanti. She was lifted on to the pedestal, and silently bound to the framework; then the shaven figure on her left made his genuflexions and began to declare her crime. The Englishmen, of course, understood not a word of his recital; they were indeed as though frozen stiff to the floor. But when the first accuser had come to an end, and his colleague had bowed thrice to the awful figure on the throne before taking up the tale, the girl turned her head slightly and threw upon Forrester a glance in which he read a last anguished plea for help. A hot thrill surged through him; he felt his cheeks flush; and, clenching his fists, he sprang forward, into the gap between the ranks of the priests, and strode swiftly up the floor towards the throne."Stop! Stop!" he cried, raising his hands aloft.There was not a movement among the priests. So well disciplined were they, or so terrified at what might ensue upon any infraction of the customary order, that each man remained steadfast in his place. If any looked at the profane audacious stranger, it must have been from the corners of his eyes.At Forrester's impulsive movement Mackenzie took a step or two forward, under the instinctive prompting to support his friend. But reflection brought him to a standstill. He could do nothing at present: the prudent part was to await the issue of Forrester's intervention: perhaps his aid would be more valuable later on.Forrester had started almost at a run, looking straight at the immobile countenance of the Old Man on the throne. But the nearer he drew to it, the slower he went. Under the steady gaze of those piercing eyes he felt his courage oozing away; he almost forgot his purpose. He struggled against the paralysis that seemed to be creeping over him; but when, standing immediately beneath the throne, he tried to raise his arms, they fell limp to his sides; when he tried to utter the burning words of entreaty on his lips, he could only mutter and mumble. And when the August and Venerable rose slowly in his place, and Forrester saw more clearly than before the lozenge-shaped ornament on his head-dress, from which the destructive beam had appeared to flash forth, he felt within his soul that he was about to share with the Indian girl the same annihilating doom.A breathless stillness filled the Temple. Then the Old Man spoke, and his words seemed to Forrester like drops of ice-cold water falling on his head."You offer yourself to judgment in place of the girl?"Unknown to Forrester, such substitution was frequently practised in China. He scarcely understood the meaning of what he had heard. Commanding his voice with an effort, he whispered:--"Spare her! Do her no harm!"The blazing eyes pierced him through and through; but the Old Man's voice, when he spoke again, was cold and emotionless as ever. Mackenzie, at the end of the Temple, wondered whether the wizened figure on the throne retained the least drop of warm blood in his veins, the least remnant of humanity."You oppose your puny strength to the Law of the Eye?""No, no," Forrester whispered. "She is a young girl; have mercy upon her!""The Law of the Eye knows no mercy," the calm voice went on. "Whoso transgresses, shall he not be cut off, even in the flower of his youth? In ignorance you have profaned this holy place: the Law ordains that the ignorant shall be chastised until he becomes wise. Its ordinances shall be fulfilled from generation to generation, even until the world dissolves. You shall be made wise, and when wisdom is yours, you shall once more, and once only, behold the Power of the Eye. You shall see that fair flower of maidenhood wither and become dust; then shall you yourself suffer the selfsame penalty, and your dust shall mingle with hers."Speechless, fascinated, Forrester stood as though transfixed, scarcely conscious that Lilavanti was reprieved. The quivering screen rose before his eyes; the figure of the Old Man seemed to flicker and dissolve into it. He was unaware of what went on behind him--that the girl had been released from the pedestal and taken out; that Mackenzie, his joy at his friend's respite swallowed up by dismay and dread of the future, was led away to his cell; that Jackson had been carried out in a swoon; that the priests had passed out in silent procession--all but one.Presently he rose at the touch of a hand. Staggering to his feet, he saw that the vast chamber was empty save for the priest at his side. Unresisting he allowed himself to be led through the hall into the ante-chamber, where the negrito guards, trembling in every limb, were awaiting him. They filed out before him into the corridor, and he followed them, supposing that they were leading him back to his cell. Unheeding, he did not know that they passed his bolted door. Only when they stood back, and he saw, in the dim green light, a stairway descending in the rock before him, did he become aware that he was in a part strange to him. Turning round, he asked the priest where he was. The mute immobile figure merely raised an arm and pointed downwards at the stairway.[image]The mute immobile figure merely raised an arm and pointed downwards at the stairway.Forrester was incapable of resistance, protest, expostulation. He felt helpless as a child, compelled to obey the behest of a stronger will. Slowly he began to descend the stairs. The negritos followed in a line, their spears slanted on their shoulders, and the priest in his wide flowing robes brought up the rear. Forrester, if he had been able to think, might have remembered that he had seen just such a procession passing like shades across the wall of the rift.Down, always down, they went, until, after treading perhaps a hundred steps, they came to a long smooth stairless slope, steep enough to demand an effort lest the walking pace became an involuntary run. Presently there were more steps. At the foot of this second stairway the narrow, shallow tunnel--for it was no more--turned sharply to the left, and the floor again sloped, but this time upwards. Another series of stairs appeared. On ascending this Forrester, at length becoming awake to his surroundings, noticed that the greenish light was growing perceptibly brighter. He went on, up another incline, the floor of which was covered with a yielding deposit, apparently of dust that had fallen from the roof. Yet another flight of steps had to be mounted. Then the tunnel broke abruptly to the right, and a few paces more brought Forrester, more and more bewildered as he more completely recovered his wits, to the opening of a large cave on his left.He glanced into the entrance, and was amazed to see a sheet of water, rippling a little in the greenish glow, and extending beyond eyeshot. The water washed the walls; but there was a narrow ledge of rock that lay uncovered, skirting the wall on the left. Forrester turned about to enquire whether he was to proceed along this ledge, and discovered that the negritos had halted some twenty paces in his rear, blocking up the tunnel. Behind them the taller figure of the priest stood with arm outstretched towards the cave.Taking this as a command to go on, Forrester wheeled round, and walked towards the ledge, wondering with sickly apprehension what lay in the dim greenish mist beyond, and why his escort had not accompanied him. Glancing to the right as he reached the ledge, he saw, in a recess commanding the entrance to the cavern, a group of armed negritos and a priest standing behind them. There could be no doubt that they were placed there as a guard: the recess was a sort of wardroom.He proceeded along the ledge, and came in about twenty yards to a gap, bridged by a broad plank with a handrail on the side towards the lake. He crossed this, went along the continuation of the ledge on the farther side, and arrived suddenly at the entrance of another cave, larger and more lofty than the first, rising to a vaulted roof like the nave of a cathedral. Its floor of rock was a foot or two above the level of the lake. Entering it, he saw a number of human figures, seated at the further end. One of them rose on seeing a stranger, and after a brief hesitation, stepped hastily forward to meet him. With a gulp and a half articulate cry, Forrester quickened his step, and in a few moments was grasping a firm hand, and looking amazedly into an English face.CHAPTER XIALCHEMY"Redfern got through?"The eager question was like a knife in Forrester's heart."Yes, Redfern got through," he repeated wearily. "Your name is Beresford?""It is. Where is Redfern? Have you disposed of that ancient scarecrow above?""I am a prisoner like yourself."The elder man gasped."Has he cast his spell over all of you?" he cried. "A British force conquered by a conjuring trick? For heaven's sake explain yourself.""There is no British force. It is a long story I have to tell you.""Come along over here, then. There's only one poor idiot whocanunderstand you besides myself, and he's so desperately cowed that I doubt whether hewill. Now, sit here: you won't catch cold: the whole place is warm, as I daresay you have discovered."Beresford's brusque manner, quick speech, and robust personality acted as a tonic upon Forrester. Already he felt invigorated. The mystery of the place evidently had no terror for this sturdy Englishman. Forrester had vaguely expected that the archaeologist would be old, dry, bent, and spectacled: the actual man was of middle height, athletic in build, under forty years of age, with a heavy brown beard and moustache, and the large deep eyes that are the index to a mind at once eager and reflective.They squatted side by side on the rocky floor. Beyond them, Forrester caught sight of the drooping figure of the young Chinaman, Wen Shih's companion, and several older Chinamen, clearly prisoners. Near the entrance to the cave were two negritos with spears, and, in a pagoda-shaped sentry-box, a priest of the second order."I didn't choose my company," said Beresford with a laugh. "Now, forge ahead; I won't interrupt you if I can help it."It was soon evident that to listen long without interrupting was impossible to this impetuous spirit. He was patient enough while Forrester related the strange manner of his meeting Redfern, only ejaculating "Poor dear old chap!" when he heard of the captain's illness. But as Forrester was recounting the preliminary stages of the expedition, he broke in:--"Cut that, if you don't mind. Hitch on again at your discovery of the rift.""Yes; there's a good deal in between, but--well, the people here were warned of our coming by Wen Shih, who----""Wen Shih! Who is he? I suppose he comes into the part you've skipped. Wait though: I know the name. Of course; that broken-hearted young fellow over there mentioned him; seemed in two minds whether to hate or love him. But he has only been here since yesterday: he's young, and I hope to make a man of him yet. But I'm interrupting: do go on."Forrester was too much pleased with this cheery being to resent being hustled. He went on to relate the closing scenes of the party's journey through the rift, their awaking in the rock chamber above, and the dreadful ceremony in the Temple. His voice faltered as he spoke of the beam of light and its effect."Ah! That's new to me," said Beresford more gravely than he had yet spoken. "That's dashed bad. You're sure it wasn't a Maskelyne and Devant trick?""Quite sure. There could be no possible doubt about it.""That's what they really mean by the Eye, then. I took it to be the eye of that ridiculous creature on the wall. That old villain above is more ingenious than I fancied him. I regarded him as a mere clever bag-of-bones togged up--a sort of music-hall comedian with a straight face. But please go on."The rest of Forrester's story was soon told."Well, don't be downhearted," Beresford cried, gripping his shoulder with the rough vigour of a friendly bear. "The August and Venerable sent me here too, to learn wisdom: we'll learn it together. I have been here three days----""Did you come down a staircase, with negritos and a priest behind?" asked Forrester, remembering the strange procession across the rift wall."I did. There's no other way. But why did you ask?""Because we saw you--what looked like half-dressed skeletons, slanting down the wall. When we found that the wall was solid, without steps, we were flabbergasted.""I daresay," Beresford rejoined with a smile. "You will learn more wisdom here than our ancient friend upstairs reckons for!""But why didn't you feel the same ghastly creepiness as we did?""I'll tell you. It wasbecause I knew what the old villain was up to. That knowledge was a wonderful talisman against his tricks. And what's more,he didn't know that I knew, or, after what you have told me about his murderous Eye, I should without doubt have been resolved into molecules before this. Like you, I was allowed to go up daily to the plateau--by the way, they employ a marvellously effective system of intensive cultivation there--like you, I refused to dig. Unluckily one day I lost my temper with one of his bald-headed priests: it doesn't matter why; and I knocked the fellow down. They hauled me into the Temple, and tried to lift me on to that pedestal you spoke of, supposing no doubt that the green-eyed monster and the surroundings generally had crumpled me up--that mist, for instance, a magnificent bit of stage management. But I sent one of the fellows spinning with my right and the other with my left, and marched straight up to the throne--it's pure gold, by the way--and shook my fist in the August and Venerable face, telling him what I thought of him and his crew. I am bound to say he stood it well. He didn't blink an eyelid; there wasn't a tremor in his silvery old voice when he reeled off, in surprisingly good English, a rigmarole about the Law of the Eye. I told him I didn't care a tinker's curse for the Law of the Eye. That was enough to rouse him, but the wonderful old creature wouldn't be roused. He simply yarned on about learning wisdom, and the Power of the Eye, shrouded himself in his vapour and disappeared like a dissolving view. Then I was brought here.""I wonder you came!" Forrester exclaimed, envying the speaker's boldness, and burning to hear the secret of it."Well, I wanted to see all there was to be seen," Beresford replied simply. "I didn't know, of course, that I couldn't get back; and I might have acted differently if he had given an exhibition of the Power of the Eye for my benefit: I suppose there was no criminal on hand at the moment. As soon as I got here I saw that his intention was to give me a stronger dose of his horrors; he is a perfect epicure in punishments. But there was no occasion for panic. I've known Redfern for twenty odd years: he was my fag at school: and I would have given long odds that he would worry through somehow, send up a relief party and give the old reprobate what-for. I've every confidence even now that he will--if he lives. We may be here longer than I expected; but we can stand two years of it, perhaps three.""You mean that, even if we are not taken above and pulverised, we are in mortal danger here?" Forrester asked."Certainly; but not of instant death unless we make fools of ourselves. The length of the process depends on your constitution. Not one of those poor wretches yonder has been here more than four years, and that's exceptional. That young fellow, the last-comer--his name is Wing Wu, by the way: did you ever hear such a name?--he will hardly last out a year: he hasn't the stamina for it.""But what is the mystery, then?" asked Forrester, astonished at the calmness with which this intrepid fellow seemed to envisage a certain death. "People have lived much longer than four years underground.""Never in such a dungeon as this. Come with me."He led Forrester across the cave until they came to a spot whence the floor shelved down steeply to the wall. That part of the wall which was below the general level of the floor was brightly luminous, and on its green surface Forrester saw, as on a screen, the shadowy forms of fishes and aquatic reptiles flitting hither and thither. Watching them curiously, he was astonished when, at one and the same moment, they dispersed with a rapidity betokening terror, some to the right, some to the left. For an instant the screen was left blank; then there appeared upon it a monstrous skeletonised form, somewhat resembling the fantastic creatures depicted on the walls of the Temple, and on the wall of his own cell. It combined in one shape all the most hideous features of the alligator, the rhinoceros, and the dog-fish immensely magnified. Involuntarily Forrester started back as the figure came close up to the wall, and seemed to be looking through it, as the fish in an aquarium look through the glass of their tank. But it was a shape only; its eyes could not be seen."What is it?" Forrester asked in a whisper."I don't know," his companion responded. "It is not one of any of the species of ichthyosaurus that I have ever seen; but it is liker that reptile than to any other known creature.""But isn't that extinct? Don't they find merely the fossil remains of it?""Who is to say that any creature is extinct? Scarcely a year passes but some explorer finds, in some remote neglected region, what is to him a new type, but in reality, no doubt, dates back to an antiquity beyond computation. This hideous creature seems to be the last of his kind; I have seen no sign of a mate; and his extinction would not be much of a loss.""How can we see him at all, through the wall--just as we saw you coming down here three days ago?""Does no explanation occur to you?""Well, of course I have heard of X-rays, and things of that kind; but----""Exactly. Excuse my interruption, but I know what you were going to say. You were going to speak of cathodes, and vacuum tubes, and phosphorescent screens, and----""I wasn't," said Forrester: "I never heard of them.""It comes to the same thing," Beresford went on imperturbably; and Forrester felt a little sorry that the man of cheery good fellowship was for the time sunk in the man of science. "Here there is none of the elaborate apparatus of the experimenter; but Nature has been experimenting through ages beyond count. What do our men of science know of the real nature of the X-rays? Next to nothing. They can produce them, that is all. And here, before our eyes, we have phenomena produced, not by man, but by the Great Artificer of the universe. Those creatures are swimming in the lake which you skirted just now. Their images are cast in some marvellous way upon this particular portion of the wall. I know no more than you the explanation, but.... My dear fellow, pardon me: this is not a lecture room. Come, I have something more to show you."They recrossed the cavern, which was as broad as it was high, and turning a corner, were confronted by the arch-like opening of a passage. It was much more brightly illuminated by green light than the cavern out of which it led. Passing under the arch, the two men walked quickly up the passage, which twisted to right and left at every few yards, and inclined gradually upward."I feel very rummy," said Forrester after a while: "the sort of tingling you have before a severe thunderstorm.""I feel it too," his companion responded: "not so intensely as you, perhaps. The thing is to keep as tight a hold on yourself as you can--as you ought to have done when that old sinner above hypnotised you.""But----""Now don't talk. We shall have plenty of opportunities of discussing him, and hypnotism, and a thousand and one things. Take a grip of yourself, andwillthat the mephitic influence shall not affect you. You won't thoroughly succeed, but the effort will be good."The feeling of tenseness increased as they advanced. To Forrester it seemed as though a hot band were tightening round his temples; but he kept silence. Glancing at Beresford, he perceived on his face an expression of grim, almost savage, determination. They went on, the passage becoming lighter moment by moment, until, after they had walked a few hundred yards, it widened out into a cavern, much less spacious than that which they had left, but almost as light as open ground at noonday. At the edge of it Beresford halted."Stand here, and watch," he said.In the centre of the floor there was a large square slab of some greyish substance--the only spot in the cavern through which the green rays did not, as it were, percolate. It was about three feet each way, and stood a few inches above the floor. Upon it lay a coil of thin yellow-green chain, like an immense brass watch-guard tinged with verdigris, and an oblong lump about a foot in length, and of the same colour. A few feet above, a stout bar of yellow metal projected from the wall of the cavern, having at its free end, exactly over the centre of the slab, a wheel over which another chain hung.These objects first caught Forrester's attention, no doubt because they formed a group in the centre of an otherwise bare floor; but they held it only for a moment or two. His eyes were diverted to a living figure. From a hitherto unnoticed recess on his left hand came a bent, decrepit, cadaverous Chinaman, to all appearance very old, carrying a thin square plate, in colour a dirty greenish-grey. He toddled slowly towards the slab, looking neither to right nor left, laid the plate upon it, and passed through a hole in the centre of the plate what seemed to be a small catch in the aforesaid lump of metal. This latter he attached to the chain hanging over the wheel.This done, he moved to one side, and standing at a distance of about ten feet from the slab, pulled at the chain which lay upon it, and which, as Forrester now saw, was fastened to a stout ring in its upper edge. The slab moved on hinges slowly towards the Chinaman, and as it rose from the floor, a shaft of pale green light, blinding in its brilliance, shot up to the roof, fourteen or fifteen feet above, causing the two Englishmen to start back and retreat some paces into the passage. Forrester was conscious of an intensification of his nervous excitement. His ears buzzed; his skin tingled as if he were in an electric bath; his impulse was to cover his eyes and rush headlong to escape the terrible glare and its psychical accompaniment. But seeing Beresford venturing back by degrees, he exerted his will to the utmost, and followed him.
[image]His lips moved, and in spite of themselves they started as they heard his first words: "What brings you striplings here?"
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His lips moved, and in spite of themselves they started as they heard his first words: "What brings you striplings here?"
The face was Chinese, beyond possibility of error; but the words were English, slowly spoken, with only a faint trace of a foreign accent. The tone was authoritative, compelling, that of one who would not be gainsaid. Forrester, always the readiest of the three, felt instinctively that no prevarication would avail, that the best chance of coming safely through whatever ordeal was before them lay in perfect frankness. Steadying his voice, and looking up into the old man's face, he explained, so rapidly that his words as it were tumbled over one another, that he had come with his comrades for the purpose of liberating a fellow countryman whom they believed to be held captive in this region, and he begged that the prisoner might be surrendered, and that all might be suffered to depart in peace.
The old man's countenance was utterly expressionless. It gave as little sign as a mask of what was passing through his mind. Forrester having ended, somewhat breathlessly, the low mellow voice spoke again.
"All are welcome to the Temple of the Eye. I repel none, I invite none. Those who come by their own choice, or are led hither by the hand of Fate, must abide by their choice, or by Fate's decree. The rest of their lives hereafter must they spend in the service of the Temple, fulfilling such offices as they may be best fitted to undertake. That is the Law of the Eye."
His utterance was slow and deliberate, like that of a man searching for words at one time familiar, but now half forgotten. The cold dispassionate tones struck a chill upon the listeners' hearts. They had in them the ring of finality, of inexorableness: the old man might have been the very mouthpiece of Fate pronouncing doom.
The three men felt the utter hopelessness of argument or protest. Their spirits, under the spell of that calm silvery voice, died within them. When Wen Shih came again to them to lead them back to their former station, they accompanied him with the tranced meekness of men drugged for the gallows.
A few moments after they reached the end of the hall they were roused from their stupor by the appearance of a small black man, led between two bald white-clad Chinamen like those in the first rank. His limbs were quivering, his teeth chattered; his staring eyes regarded the awful Presence on the throne with the same helpless terror as a bird fascinated by the baleful eye of a snake. The priests of the Eye lifted him on to the pedestal in a line with the gap, and fastened his collapsing form upright to a light framework which they slid up from the base. Then they placed themselves on either side, and made three low obeisances to the venerable figure on the throne.
The man on the left uttered a few sentences in Chinese, and bowed again. His fellow followed with a word or two. It seemed to the Englishmen that they were giving testimony against the quivering figure on the pedestal above them. The second man ceased, and made his obeisance; then both took places quietly at the ends of the front row near the gap.
The Englishmen expected that the criminal, if such he was, would be called on for his answer to the charges made against him. But the old man said never a word. Amid a breathless stillness he arose slowly and majestically to his feet. Was he about to pronounce judgment? The Englishmen wondered what the punishment was to be. Recollections of the horrors of Chinese torture made them quake; but there was no sign of instruments of torture, no movement in the silent ranks, except that they turned and faced the victim. Their garments rustled, then all was still as before.
The old man moved his head from side to side, the movements being so slight that they might have passed unnoticed by any one observing him less closely than the three Englishmen. Presently all motion ceased. The silence seemed even deeper than before. Then, with startling suddenness, from a point in the old man's head-dress, immediately above the centre of his brow, a swift thin beam of bright green light flashed along the hall, over the gap, past the pedestal, and on to the wall. It was gone in a moment. A low sound like the indrawing of breath ran through the assembly. A flicker of emotion stirred the stolid faces of the Chinamen; a look of horror distorted the more expressive faces of the negrito guards. And the Englishmen were suddenly aware that the pedestal was vacant. The limp shrinking form had vanished; only a little dust hung in the air.
While the Englishmen were still in their amazement, the ranks faced about again, and the two priests who had led the victim to the spot drew near to it with the solemn gait of acolytes. One carried a golden trowel, the other a small gold-handled brush. Standing on either side of the pedestal, the one swept a quantity of dust on its surface into the trowel held by the other. The latter, holding the trowel at arm's length in front of him, bore it slowly towards the throne, and after a profound obeisance offered it to the old man, and withdrew. Lifting his skinny right arm, the old man extended the trowel towards the assembled priests, moved it from side to side, lightly sprinkling the dust on the floor, and in his cold clear voice spoke with impressive deliberateness a single sentence. Once more the assembly fell prostrate, the air above the throne quivered, and the mist gradually rose before it, blotting it and its motionless occupant from sight.
CHAPTER IX
THE MONSTER ON THE WALL
The three friends scarcely noticed what followed on the disappearance of the old man. The priests filed out quietly, each rank by a separate door. Only Wen Shih remained. He came slowly to the end of the hall, threw a contemptuous glance on the young lad his late companion, who had fallen swooning to the floor, and signed to the Englishmen to follow him. Accompanied by the negrito guards, they quitted the hall, and marched back through the vaulted corridors. They were not, however, taken to the room which they had lately left. Mackenzie was led off by himself to a somewhat smaller cell, and locked in there, Jackson and Forrester being left, meanwhile, under charge of the guards. They in their turn were separately incarcerated. None of them knew anything of the fate of Sher Jang and Hamid Gul. The scene which they had just witnessed, the climax of the series of mysterious happenings of the past few hours, had completely overwhelmed them. They were incapable of resistance, of protest, even of thought: everything was subdued to a shuddering horror.
Mackenzie found himself in a chamber differing from that which all three had previously occupied in two respects: its size, and the ornamentation of one of its walls. At first he was hardly aware of this; but recovering his composure by and by in the quiet of his solitary cell, he noticed that the wall opposite the window slit bore a representation of the strange monster which was depicted on the walls of the hall. But here again there was a difference. The hideous creature had, in addition to two eyes normally placed, a third, in the centre of the forehead, in the same position as the spot on the old man's head-dress from which the annihilating beam of light had sped. The cell was dimly illuminated by the mysterious green light, but the monster's third eye glowed brilliantly, a lozenge of vivid green.
Here, at last, Mackenzie thought, was the explanation, or rather the confirmation, of the villagers' vague statements about the Eye. It was a symbol of the power presiding over this mountain community. He remembered having noticed a lozenge-shaped ornament on the head-dress of the Old Man of the Mountain; it was from this ornament that the beam of light had appeared to shoot. But what was the origin of this mysterious light? What was the secret of its tremendous devastating force, which in a single moment had shattered the little black man into a few handfuls of dust?
Mackenzie shuddered as he recalled the scene. This wizened old man, who appeared in a mist, and into a mist vanished, who was revered as a deity, who was judge and executioner in one--who was he? The sound of his clear silvery voice rang still in Mackenzie's ears. He remembered the cold remorseless words of his speech. All who came to the Temple of the Eye were doomed to spend the rest of their lives in its service! What did that mean? What service was exacted of the hapless wretches enthralled to such a master?
He remembered too that the Old Man had wholly ignored Forrester's reference to the Englishman who, it was suggested, had fallen into his hands. Had the dust of Beresford's destroyed body been already scattered on the floor of this horrible temple, or had he too been preserved for a lifelong servitude? Was he perhaps at this moment lying in a cell, alone, crushed in spirit, asking himself the same unanswerable questions?
Agitated beyond endurance, Mackenzie got up and paced the floor. As he walked, he found himself glancing more and more frequently, and each time for a longer period, at the monster's green eye. It exercised a basilisk attraction: by and by he was unable to withdraw his gaze from it. He tried to look elsewhere, to think of other things; but always his eyes wandered back to the one spot. It glowed upon him with a sort of hypnotic fascination, leering, as it seemed, mocking him, a mute unwinking witness of his despair. Unable to endure the torment, he turned his back upon it, threw himself on the floor, and buried his face in his folded arms. And there at last, worn out in body and mind, he fell into a sleep broken by frightful dreams.
When he awoke his hand moved by force of habit to his pocket for his watch. It was gone. He felt in all his pockets: they had been emptied. Nothing but his clothes was left to him. Looking up at the window slit, he saw sunlight streaming in; the greenish hue had almost disappeared. He rose, and with a strong effort of will forced himself to turn towards the wall on which the monster was painted. He almost shouted with relief when he discovered that the third eye, though still aglow, was much dimmer than it had been in the night. The sun had conquered; the eye's baleful attraction was gone.
Presently the negrito guards brought him his breakfast of water and the same glutinous porridge as on the previous day. He spoke to them, first in English, then in Hindustani, but they answered nothing; if they understood him, they gave no sign of it. An hour or two later they returned, accompanied by one of the shaven priests, who indicated that he was to follow them. To refuse, he knew, would be vain; but he shivered with dread lest he were summoned to witness another scene like that of the night. He found, however, that his fears were not justified. His guards took him through miles, as it seemed, of narrow corridors hewn in the rock, always ascending, and brought him presently to an arch through which the sunlight poured. Passing out into the open air, he saw with surprise that he was at the foot of a steep stairway cut in the face of the rift. The steps, about a foot wide, led to the summit, perhaps a hundred feet above. A rope, carried down a kind of handrail, intervened between the passenger and the abyss yawning more than a thousand feet below.
The guards signified that he was at liberty to ascend the stairs, and left him. At first he shrank from attempting the climb; his experiences, and his restless night, ill fitted him for any task that demanded steady nerves. But Mackenzie was a man of grit; freedom, the fresh air, the pure sunshine braced him; his curiosity was keen; and at length, steadfastly averting his eyes from the dizzy depth below, and clinging firmly to the rope, he began to mount the stairway.
He gained the top, and an unexpected sight met his wondering eyes. Before him, and on either side, stretched a broad plateau, rising in the far distance to the mountains of the snowy range, whose peaks, miles high, glistened dazzlingly in the sunlight. That which surprised him most of all was that the plateau was cultivated. It was divided into many rectangular fields, on which crops of all kinds were growing, and herds of cattle grazing. The fresh green of the vegetation was refreshing to his eyes after the greyness of the barren rock on which they had rested of late. He saw now why the community required supplies of wood from the outside. There were no timber trees. At his right hand lay an extensive orchard, but nowhere were to be seen trees that could be felled for fuel or building.
In three directions there were groups of huts, and people were moving about in the fields. They were evidently of many races. There were dwarfish negritos like the Temple guards, Chinese, Tibetans, Nagas and other hillmen. There were women and children, but these seemed to be all negritos or hill-folk: no Chinese women were among them.
Mackenzie remained for several minutes at the top of the rock stairway, scanning the whole prospect. He was quite alone, apparently free to move in any direction he pleased. No one took notice of him. When he moved a few paces towards the nearest group of huts, he looked around, expecting to find that someone had been told off to watch him. The fact that such was not the case induced a sense of utter hopelessness. If he was not guarded, the reason must be that escape was impossible. But he promised himself that, granted his liberty thus, he would not rest until he had thoroughly explored the plateau, and assured himself that there was not in one direction or another an outlet into the larger world.
The sight of Sher Jang approaching him, spade in hand, recalled him to the present, and he hurried to meet the shikari, whose usually expressionless countenance lit up at sight of him.
"It is good to see that you are alive," he said. "What did they do with you?"
"They locked me up, sahib, in a warm room, and this morning brought me here. A shorn-pate put this spade into my hand, and bade me dig. I have lost caste; it were better to die: but he told me I am a slave, and shall remain a slave while life lasts."
"And Hamid Gul?"
"I know nothing of him, sahib. I have not seen him since we left the pit below. There are many of my countrymen here; they are all in bondage; and they quake and shiver when they speak of the Eye."
"I don't wonder," Mackenzie murmured. "What do they say of the Eye?"
"They speak of it as of some unknown horror, sahib. No one has seen it: they say that no man sees it and lives. They declare that the one-armed stranger had both his arms, like you and me; one day he had two, the next, when he came up, he had but one. They tell also that men have gone from this place down into the depths yonder, and have never been seen again. It is Fate: who can stand against it?"
At this moment a Chinaman dressed like those who had formed the second rank in the Temple came up to Mackenzie, held out a spade, and signed that he was to join a group of men who were digging in a neighbouring field. Mackenzie thrust his hands into his pockets and turned his back upon the man. To his surprise there was no insistence, no attempt at compulsion: the priest, as he supposed him to be, went away without a word. And then he saw Forrester hurrying towards him from the head of the stairway.
"Where's Bob?" were Forrester's first words.
"I was going to ask you that," Mackenzie replied. "I haven't seen him."
"They locked me up alone," Forrester went on, "and I never passed a more awful night. That eye!"
"The monster's on the wall?"
"Yes. Had you one too? I couldn't look away from it: try as I might, the frightful thing seemed to draw my eyes to it against my will. What unnameable devilry are they playing on us?"
"Making good!" Mackenzie replied with a grim tightening of his mouth. "The Old Man of the Mountain said we were to stay here for the rest of our lives: he means to terrify us into knuckling under. But I vow----"
"For any sake say nothing," Forrester implored earnestly. "I feel as if the very air were spying on us; and who knows, if we say anything against him, he won't burn us to powder as he did that poor trembling wretch!"
"An easy death: better than lifelong slavery. All these folk you see about are slaves."
"But why have they let us come up here?"
"To prove we can't escape, no doubt. But I'll not----"
"Hush! Look at that fellow slinking by!" Forrester cried in an urgent whisper.
It was one of the shaven priests walking towards the orchard.
"Let's follow him," said Mackenzie. "There's no check upon us; we are free men still."
Sher Jang had returned to his digging. The two friends set off pace for pace after the priest. He did not enter the orchard, which was in no way railed off, but skirting its upper end, he drew near to a long low building of stone, with open doorways a few feet apart. It reminded Mackenzie of the rank of connected cottages often seen near engineering works in his own country, except that it was characteristically Chinese in form and decoration. The priest entered one of the doorways and disappeared. As they passed, they heard a dull incessant hammering from within the building.
"Sounds like a smithy," said Forrester. "I wonder what goes on there?"
A little beyond the building, rose a sort of pagoda, three stories high, but not so truly pyramidal in shape as the memorials frequently seen in China. It was surrounded by a walled enclosure, the wall being too high for them to see over.
"It's not big enough to be the Temple," Mackenzie remarked. "I guess it's the residence of the August and Venerable. We'll go on; maybe we'll see the Temple later."
"I don't want to see it," Forrester said with a shudder. "I never want to see it again."
"Eh, but I do," Mackenzie returned. "I wish to know all I can about this place. The look of the outside can't do us any harm."
But no such building came in sight. The only thing that attracted their attention was a stream flowing from north to south across the plateau. It passed through the walled enclosure of the pagoda, and flowed away between embankments in what they supposed to be the direction of the falls. They were thinking of following its course, when a horn sounded stridently in the distance. At the signal the priests emerged from their dwellings, and marched in file towards the stairway. Mackenzie and Forrester followed them, out of curiosity. They descended the stairway one by one. Soon afterwards another file, the moustachioed priests, came up from the opposite direction. None of them so much as glanced at the two young men standing aside to watch them. When all had gone down, Sher Jang came up to his masters, and told them that the horn blast was the signal for the midday meal. If they wished to eat, they must descend, for no food was given on the plateau to the men from below.
"I'll not go down till I must," said Mackenzie firmly. "To exchange this fresh air and sunshine for the close atmosphere below--no, I'll fast for the day rather."
The two remained foodless for the rest of the day. No one interfered with them. They rambled where they pleased. Every now and then they spoke to one or other of the Indians in the community, asking them how they had come to the place and what their experiences had been. A few had stumbled upon the rift by accident; most had been entrapped, kidnapped, or inveigled by the priests. All were utterly broken in spirit, and lived in hourly terror of the Eye, the mysterious and dreadful something of which rumour spoke, but which none had seen.
Among those whom the Englishmen addressed was an old Indian, who told them that he had been captured with his little daughter several years before on the outskirts of his village. He was a zamindar, a man of substance and of some education. He invited the two men into his hut.
"Lilavanti!" he called as they entered.
From behind a curtain that divided the apartment a tall beautiful girl of sixteen or seventeen years came forth. She wore no veil. A white dhoti was wound about her body. Her raven-black hair was bound with a fillet of pearls, and a string of pearls depended from her neck. She bowed deeply as her father introduced the visitors as English sahibs, placed cushions for them, and then seated herself modestly in a corner.
"I have no hope for myself, but I still dream that my daughter may even yet be released from bondage," said the zamindar, looking with pride at the girl. "We are not ill-treated, you perceive; we make no complaints on that score. So long as the slaves fulfil their appointed tasks they suffer nothing at the hands of the priests. But our life is overshadowed by a cloud of uncertainty as to what the future may bring forth."
"What is the meaning of it all?" Forrester asked.
"No man knows, but I will tell you, sahibs, some conclusions I have come to. The negritos, the original inhabitants of this plateau, are a dwindling race. Fresh blood is required in order to maintain a sufficient population for the cultivation of the soil. Prisoners are brought here for that purpose, and for another which I know not. At irregular intervals men are taken down the steps yonder: we never see them again. The strange thing is that no Indians are thus removed, but only Chinese and negritos. And there is another strange thing: the Chinese prisoners of humble rank are set to work on the fields and are never taken underground; but at intervals, sometimes long, sometimes short, young men of noble birth and high education are brought here. At first they spend their days here above, as you are doing to-day, and descend at sunset; but a time comes, sooner or later, when they descend for the last time and are no more seen. And from the first they are listless, dazed, scarcely sane. If they speak, it is as though they were the mouthpiece of others. Some of them have conversed with me in my own tongue; but I have never been able to learn from them any particulars of their past life, or of the nature of the place underground where they pass the nights. Always they speak with the utmost reverence of the priests, whom they profess to be their kind friends."
"Like our young Chinaman," Forrester remarked to Mackenzie.
"Ay; he is the latest victim, it seems. Have you ever seen one of our countrymen here?" Mackenzie asked.
"One only. I shrank from telling you. He came up daily for eight or ten days: I had many conversations with him. It is four days since I saw him: I shall never see him again."
"Do you know his name?"
"It was never mentioned: he was simply the Sahib to us."
"Beresford, there's hardly a doubt," Forrester said to his friend. "And is there no means of escape from this plateau?"
"None. If you think of attempting it, you may spare your labour. I have traversed the plateau from corner to corner. Behind are the mountains; if you could climb them you would only die of cold and hunger. In the centre is a mighty river, that pours over the edge of the precipice. To cross it is impossible. In the other direction the plateau ends in a sheer precipice thousands of feet deep. The rift you have seen. That is the only entrance and exit. How its floor is reached from above I know not: I was made insensible there below, and when I revived I was here."
"And has no one, absolutely no one, at any time escaped from the regions below and returned here?" Mackenzie asked.
The zamindar looked round apprehensively, as if he feared that the walls might hear him. When he spoke it was in little more than a whisper.
"You are an Englishman," he said. "I can trust you. One man escaped; one only: a negrito: it was five days ago. He came to my hut one night for shelter. I knew him. When he left here a year before he was young, plump and bright-eyed; when he returned he was like an old man. He was mad. I had learnt something of his language, but I understood little of what he said, so wild and broken were his words. It was clear that he had lived among unspeakable horrors."
"What became of him?" asked Forrester.
"When my daughter and I were absent in the fields the priests came and took him. He is gone: we shall never see him again, and I am in constant fear that I shall suffer for harbouring him. In his ravings he spoke of the Eye, and shook like a man in ague."
The two Englishmen looked at each other. The same thought had occurred to them both: this was the negrito whom they had seen suffer the punishment of the Eye.
"Shall we tell him?" Forrester asked.
"No, no: don't let us terrify the old chap," his friend answered. "His dread of the unknown is depressing enough as it is: if we told him about the Eye, every moment of his life would be an agony."
They were still conversing when a horn sounded thrice. The zamindar rose from his seat.
"That is the signal for returning below," he said. "The sun is setting. I hope that I may see you to-morrow, sahibs."
His visitors rose to leave the hut, and bowed to the young girl. The zamindar politely escorted them to the doorway. Forrester was a pace or two in the rear. He felt a touch on his arm, a small object was slipped into his hand, and the Indian girl whispered in Hindustani:--
"It saves from the Eye, sahib. The little black man gave it to me."
[image]"It saves from the Eye, sahib."
[image]
[image]
"It saves from the Eye, sahib."
She stole away behind the curtain, and Forrester, after a momentary pause, put the gift into his pocket and followed his friend into the open air.
"Shall we refuse to go down?" he said.
"We shall get no food if we do. Besides, we must find out what has become of Bob and Hamid. At present my brain is in a whirl; everything is so bewildering; maybe light will dawn by and by."
At the head of the stairway two priests were awaiting them. One signed to Mackenzie to descend, and followed him. When they were out of sight, the other indicated that Forrester was to go down. Singly they passed through the silent corridors, and were locked in their cells, each alone.
CHAPTER X
THE UNDERWORLD
Meanwhile, what of Jackson and Hamid Gul?
The former, more nervous and highly-strung than either of his friends, had suffered still more poignantly the malignant influence of the monster's eye. Like them, he had been taken that morning to the foot of the stairway, but the sight of the dizzy ascent had proved too much for him. He could not bring himself to face it, and returned to his cell, where he had remained all day in miserable solitude, his meals being brought to him at intervals.
Hamid Gul, the first to fall into unconsciousness, was also the first to revive. He came to himself as he was being carried along the corridor to the cell allotted him, and immediately began to plead for mercy on the ground that he was only a servant, only the humble cook. One of the priests, who understood Hindustani, had reasons of his own for testing the man's skill. Accordingly Hamid, after a night of solitude, was conducted to the kitchen attached to the priestly buildings on the plateau, and ordered to prepare one of his most appetising dishes. The man was as quick-witted as he was timorous. Like many native servants, he cherished a dog-like devotion for his master, and instantly made up his mind to employ his utmost art in the hope of ingratiating himself with his captors to the advantage of the whole party. He concocted one of Forrester's favourite dishes, under the eye of the priest, who, having made him eat a portion, as a precaution against poison, carried the rest away. Returning presently, he said "It is well," and informed Hamid that he was to consider himself attached, at any rate temporarily, to the kitchen staff. Hamid was delighted with his success, and would have been wondrously elated if he could have foreseen the remarkable events that were to spring from his clever cooking.
Forrester had dreaded the approach of night, when he would again have to encounter the unwinking glare of the eye. As soon as he had finished the meal brought to him by two negritos, as before, and was locked in, he took from his pocket the small article given him by the Indian girl. It looked like a tightly folded sheet of paper, greyish in colour. It crackled slightly in his hand. Opening it, he found it to be a thin sheet of some unfamiliar substance, about eighteen inches square. The only material to which he could compare it was mica; but on holding it between his eyes and the window, through which came the reflected glow of the setting sun, he discovered that it was more transparent than mica, but less than glass. From the first he had felt little confidence in the statement of the Indian girl. If this strange substance was a defence against the Eye, why had not the little negrito kept it for himself? Now that its transparency was proved, he lost even the slight hope which the girl's words had inspired. If pervious to daylight, how could this flimsy sheet give any protection against the incalculable force that must emanate from the Eye?
When darkness fell, and the green glow from the eye of the monster on the wall dominated the little apartment, Forrester, rather from curiosity than with any belief in the efficacy of the screen, held it before his eyes. To his amazement, it was absolutely effective. The glow diminished to a faint luminosity. All its searching brilliance, its compelling power, was gone. He moved the screen aside to make sure that the light was still there, that it was not eclipsed by some other agency. He was immediately undeceived, and again held the screen between his eyes and the monster. What appeared to him still more remarkable was that, protected as he was now from the light, he felt little of that terrible depression of spirits which had tortured him on the previous night.
Mackenzie's suggestion recurred to his mind. The monster's eye was part of the fell machinery employed by the Old Man of the Mountain to crush the spirits of his victims. He relied upon its influence sooner or later to terrorise their minds into utter subjection to his own. From his one night's experience, Forrester felt that the desired effect would supervene soon rather than late: no mortal man could long withstand the mysterious force which the glaring eye exercised upon him. He instantly resolved to divide the screen next day into three portions, if that were practicable, and give one secretly to each of his comrades, supposing that Jackson appeared on the plateau. The fragments might avail to arrest the gradual breaking down of their will-power.
Early next morning, before he could attempt to carry out his design, the door was opened, and the guards made signs that he was to follow them. Expecting to be led again to the stairway, he rose with alacrity. But his guides soon turned off into a passage branching from the corridor he had traversed on the previous day, and his heart sank with misgiving as he recognised presently the ante-chamber giving access to the Temple.
He was detained there for a few minutes until joined by Mackenzie and Jackson. The aspect of the latter struck him with anxious foreboding. Jackson was deathly pale: his features were pinched, his eyes dull and ringed with dark shadows.
"The Eye!" he murmured, and a shudder shook him.
There was no time for speech between them. They were led into the Temple, where the priests were already assembled, ranged in two rows as before. There was the same period of silent waiting; the same prostration to the floor when the mist ascended before the throne; the same gradual revelation of the August and Venerable. Again they chanted the solemn litany, and during the performance the Englishmen grew faint with apprehension lest it were to be followed by a ghastly scene like that which they had formerly witnessed.
The last response was uttered; an ominous silence brooded over the place; then Mackenzie and Forrester saw with a shiver of horror, between two priests advancing, the shrinking form of Lilavanti. She was lifted on to the pedestal, and silently bound to the framework; then the shaven figure on her left made his genuflexions and began to declare her crime. The Englishmen, of course, understood not a word of his recital; they were indeed as though frozen stiff to the floor. But when the first accuser had come to an end, and his colleague had bowed thrice to the awful figure on the throne before taking up the tale, the girl turned her head slightly and threw upon Forrester a glance in which he read a last anguished plea for help. A hot thrill surged through him; he felt his cheeks flush; and, clenching his fists, he sprang forward, into the gap between the ranks of the priests, and strode swiftly up the floor towards the throne.
"Stop! Stop!" he cried, raising his hands aloft.
There was not a movement among the priests. So well disciplined were they, or so terrified at what might ensue upon any infraction of the customary order, that each man remained steadfast in his place. If any looked at the profane audacious stranger, it must have been from the corners of his eyes.
At Forrester's impulsive movement Mackenzie took a step or two forward, under the instinctive prompting to support his friend. But reflection brought him to a standstill. He could do nothing at present: the prudent part was to await the issue of Forrester's intervention: perhaps his aid would be more valuable later on.
Forrester had started almost at a run, looking straight at the immobile countenance of the Old Man on the throne. But the nearer he drew to it, the slower he went. Under the steady gaze of those piercing eyes he felt his courage oozing away; he almost forgot his purpose. He struggled against the paralysis that seemed to be creeping over him; but when, standing immediately beneath the throne, he tried to raise his arms, they fell limp to his sides; when he tried to utter the burning words of entreaty on his lips, he could only mutter and mumble. And when the August and Venerable rose slowly in his place, and Forrester saw more clearly than before the lozenge-shaped ornament on his head-dress, from which the destructive beam had appeared to flash forth, he felt within his soul that he was about to share with the Indian girl the same annihilating doom.
A breathless stillness filled the Temple. Then the Old Man spoke, and his words seemed to Forrester like drops of ice-cold water falling on his head.
"You offer yourself to judgment in place of the girl?"
Unknown to Forrester, such substitution was frequently practised in China. He scarcely understood the meaning of what he had heard. Commanding his voice with an effort, he whispered:--
"Spare her! Do her no harm!"
The blazing eyes pierced him through and through; but the Old Man's voice, when he spoke again, was cold and emotionless as ever. Mackenzie, at the end of the Temple, wondered whether the wizened figure on the throne retained the least drop of warm blood in his veins, the least remnant of humanity.
"You oppose your puny strength to the Law of the Eye?"
"No, no," Forrester whispered. "She is a young girl; have mercy upon her!"
"The Law of the Eye knows no mercy," the calm voice went on. "Whoso transgresses, shall he not be cut off, even in the flower of his youth? In ignorance you have profaned this holy place: the Law ordains that the ignorant shall be chastised until he becomes wise. Its ordinances shall be fulfilled from generation to generation, even until the world dissolves. You shall be made wise, and when wisdom is yours, you shall once more, and once only, behold the Power of the Eye. You shall see that fair flower of maidenhood wither and become dust; then shall you yourself suffer the selfsame penalty, and your dust shall mingle with hers."
Speechless, fascinated, Forrester stood as though transfixed, scarcely conscious that Lilavanti was reprieved. The quivering screen rose before his eyes; the figure of the Old Man seemed to flicker and dissolve into it. He was unaware of what went on behind him--that the girl had been released from the pedestal and taken out; that Mackenzie, his joy at his friend's respite swallowed up by dismay and dread of the future, was led away to his cell; that Jackson had been carried out in a swoon; that the priests had passed out in silent procession--all but one.
Presently he rose at the touch of a hand. Staggering to his feet, he saw that the vast chamber was empty save for the priest at his side. Unresisting he allowed himself to be led through the hall into the ante-chamber, where the negrito guards, trembling in every limb, were awaiting him. They filed out before him into the corridor, and he followed them, supposing that they were leading him back to his cell. Unheeding, he did not know that they passed his bolted door. Only when they stood back, and he saw, in the dim green light, a stairway descending in the rock before him, did he become aware that he was in a part strange to him. Turning round, he asked the priest where he was. The mute immobile figure merely raised an arm and pointed downwards at the stairway.
[image]The mute immobile figure merely raised an arm and pointed downwards at the stairway.
[image]
[image]
The mute immobile figure merely raised an arm and pointed downwards at the stairway.
Forrester was incapable of resistance, protest, expostulation. He felt helpless as a child, compelled to obey the behest of a stronger will. Slowly he began to descend the stairs. The negritos followed in a line, their spears slanted on their shoulders, and the priest in his wide flowing robes brought up the rear. Forrester, if he had been able to think, might have remembered that he had seen just such a procession passing like shades across the wall of the rift.
Down, always down, they went, until, after treading perhaps a hundred steps, they came to a long smooth stairless slope, steep enough to demand an effort lest the walking pace became an involuntary run. Presently there were more steps. At the foot of this second stairway the narrow, shallow tunnel--for it was no more--turned sharply to the left, and the floor again sloped, but this time upwards. Another series of stairs appeared. On ascending this Forrester, at length becoming awake to his surroundings, noticed that the greenish light was growing perceptibly brighter. He went on, up another incline, the floor of which was covered with a yielding deposit, apparently of dust that had fallen from the roof. Yet another flight of steps had to be mounted. Then the tunnel broke abruptly to the right, and a few paces more brought Forrester, more and more bewildered as he more completely recovered his wits, to the opening of a large cave on his left.
He glanced into the entrance, and was amazed to see a sheet of water, rippling a little in the greenish glow, and extending beyond eyeshot. The water washed the walls; but there was a narrow ledge of rock that lay uncovered, skirting the wall on the left. Forrester turned about to enquire whether he was to proceed along this ledge, and discovered that the negritos had halted some twenty paces in his rear, blocking up the tunnel. Behind them the taller figure of the priest stood with arm outstretched towards the cave.
Taking this as a command to go on, Forrester wheeled round, and walked towards the ledge, wondering with sickly apprehension what lay in the dim greenish mist beyond, and why his escort had not accompanied him. Glancing to the right as he reached the ledge, he saw, in a recess commanding the entrance to the cavern, a group of armed negritos and a priest standing behind them. There could be no doubt that they were placed there as a guard: the recess was a sort of wardroom.
He proceeded along the ledge, and came in about twenty yards to a gap, bridged by a broad plank with a handrail on the side towards the lake. He crossed this, went along the continuation of the ledge on the farther side, and arrived suddenly at the entrance of another cave, larger and more lofty than the first, rising to a vaulted roof like the nave of a cathedral. Its floor of rock was a foot or two above the level of the lake. Entering it, he saw a number of human figures, seated at the further end. One of them rose on seeing a stranger, and after a brief hesitation, stepped hastily forward to meet him. With a gulp and a half articulate cry, Forrester quickened his step, and in a few moments was grasping a firm hand, and looking amazedly into an English face.
CHAPTER XI
ALCHEMY
"Redfern got through?"
The eager question was like a knife in Forrester's heart.
"Yes, Redfern got through," he repeated wearily. "Your name is Beresford?"
"It is. Where is Redfern? Have you disposed of that ancient scarecrow above?"
"I am a prisoner like yourself."
The elder man gasped.
"Has he cast his spell over all of you?" he cried. "A British force conquered by a conjuring trick? For heaven's sake explain yourself."
"There is no British force. It is a long story I have to tell you."
"Come along over here, then. There's only one poor idiot whocanunderstand you besides myself, and he's so desperately cowed that I doubt whether hewill. Now, sit here: you won't catch cold: the whole place is warm, as I daresay you have discovered."
Beresford's brusque manner, quick speech, and robust personality acted as a tonic upon Forrester. Already he felt invigorated. The mystery of the place evidently had no terror for this sturdy Englishman. Forrester had vaguely expected that the archaeologist would be old, dry, bent, and spectacled: the actual man was of middle height, athletic in build, under forty years of age, with a heavy brown beard and moustache, and the large deep eyes that are the index to a mind at once eager and reflective.
They squatted side by side on the rocky floor. Beyond them, Forrester caught sight of the drooping figure of the young Chinaman, Wen Shih's companion, and several older Chinamen, clearly prisoners. Near the entrance to the cave were two negritos with spears, and, in a pagoda-shaped sentry-box, a priest of the second order.
"I didn't choose my company," said Beresford with a laugh. "Now, forge ahead; I won't interrupt you if I can help it."
It was soon evident that to listen long without interrupting was impossible to this impetuous spirit. He was patient enough while Forrester related the strange manner of his meeting Redfern, only ejaculating "Poor dear old chap!" when he heard of the captain's illness. But as Forrester was recounting the preliminary stages of the expedition, he broke in:--
"Cut that, if you don't mind. Hitch on again at your discovery of the rift."
"Yes; there's a good deal in between, but--well, the people here were warned of our coming by Wen Shih, who----"
"Wen Shih! Who is he? I suppose he comes into the part you've skipped. Wait though: I know the name. Of course; that broken-hearted young fellow over there mentioned him; seemed in two minds whether to hate or love him. But he has only been here since yesterday: he's young, and I hope to make a man of him yet. But I'm interrupting: do go on."
Forrester was too much pleased with this cheery being to resent being hustled. He went on to relate the closing scenes of the party's journey through the rift, their awaking in the rock chamber above, and the dreadful ceremony in the Temple. His voice faltered as he spoke of the beam of light and its effect.
"Ah! That's new to me," said Beresford more gravely than he had yet spoken. "That's dashed bad. You're sure it wasn't a Maskelyne and Devant trick?"
"Quite sure. There could be no possible doubt about it."
"That's what they really mean by the Eye, then. I took it to be the eye of that ridiculous creature on the wall. That old villain above is more ingenious than I fancied him. I regarded him as a mere clever bag-of-bones togged up--a sort of music-hall comedian with a straight face. But please go on."
The rest of Forrester's story was soon told.
"Well, don't be downhearted," Beresford cried, gripping his shoulder with the rough vigour of a friendly bear. "The August and Venerable sent me here too, to learn wisdom: we'll learn it together. I have been here three days----"
"Did you come down a staircase, with negritos and a priest behind?" asked Forrester, remembering the strange procession across the rift wall.
"I did. There's no other way. But why did you ask?"
"Because we saw you--what looked like half-dressed skeletons, slanting down the wall. When we found that the wall was solid, without steps, we were flabbergasted."
"I daresay," Beresford rejoined with a smile. "You will learn more wisdom here than our ancient friend upstairs reckons for!"
"But why didn't you feel the same ghastly creepiness as we did?"
"I'll tell you. It wasbecause I knew what the old villain was up to. That knowledge was a wonderful talisman against his tricks. And what's more,he didn't know that I knew, or, after what you have told me about his murderous Eye, I should without doubt have been resolved into molecules before this. Like you, I was allowed to go up daily to the plateau--by the way, they employ a marvellously effective system of intensive cultivation there--like you, I refused to dig. Unluckily one day I lost my temper with one of his bald-headed priests: it doesn't matter why; and I knocked the fellow down. They hauled me into the Temple, and tried to lift me on to that pedestal you spoke of, supposing no doubt that the green-eyed monster and the surroundings generally had crumpled me up--that mist, for instance, a magnificent bit of stage management. But I sent one of the fellows spinning with my right and the other with my left, and marched straight up to the throne--it's pure gold, by the way--and shook my fist in the August and Venerable face, telling him what I thought of him and his crew. I am bound to say he stood it well. He didn't blink an eyelid; there wasn't a tremor in his silvery old voice when he reeled off, in surprisingly good English, a rigmarole about the Law of the Eye. I told him I didn't care a tinker's curse for the Law of the Eye. That was enough to rouse him, but the wonderful old creature wouldn't be roused. He simply yarned on about learning wisdom, and the Power of the Eye, shrouded himself in his vapour and disappeared like a dissolving view. Then I was brought here."
"I wonder you came!" Forrester exclaimed, envying the speaker's boldness, and burning to hear the secret of it.
"Well, I wanted to see all there was to be seen," Beresford replied simply. "I didn't know, of course, that I couldn't get back; and I might have acted differently if he had given an exhibition of the Power of the Eye for my benefit: I suppose there was no criminal on hand at the moment. As soon as I got here I saw that his intention was to give me a stronger dose of his horrors; he is a perfect epicure in punishments. But there was no occasion for panic. I've known Redfern for twenty odd years: he was my fag at school: and I would have given long odds that he would worry through somehow, send up a relief party and give the old reprobate what-for. I've every confidence even now that he will--if he lives. We may be here longer than I expected; but we can stand two years of it, perhaps three."
"You mean that, even if we are not taken above and pulverised, we are in mortal danger here?" Forrester asked.
"Certainly; but not of instant death unless we make fools of ourselves. The length of the process depends on your constitution. Not one of those poor wretches yonder has been here more than four years, and that's exceptional. That young fellow, the last-comer--his name is Wing Wu, by the way: did you ever hear such a name?--he will hardly last out a year: he hasn't the stamina for it."
"But what is the mystery, then?" asked Forrester, astonished at the calmness with which this intrepid fellow seemed to envisage a certain death. "People have lived much longer than four years underground."
"Never in such a dungeon as this. Come with me."
He led Forrester across the cave until they came to a spot whence the floor shelved down steeply to the wall. That part of the wall which was below the general level of the floor was brightly luminous, and on its green surface Forrester saw, as on a screen, the shadowy forms of fishes and aquatic reptiles flitting hither and thither. Watching them curiously, he was astonished when, at one and the same moment, they dispersed with a rapidity betokening terror, some to the right, some to the left. For an instant the screen was left blank; then there appeared upon it a monstrous skeletonised form, somewhat resembling the fantastic creatures depicted on the walls of the Temple, and on the wall of his own cell. It combined in one shape all the most hideous features of the alligator, the rhinoceros, and the dog-fish immensely magnified. Involuntarily Forrester started back as the figure came close up to the wall, and seemed to be looking through it, as the fish in an aquarium look through the glass of their tank. But it was a shape only; its eyes could not be seen.
"What is it?" Forrester asked in a whisper.
"I don't know," his companion responded. "It is not one of any of the species of ichthyosaurus that I have ever seen; but it is liker that reptile than to any other known creature."
"But isn't that extinct? Don't they find merely the fossil remains of it?"
"Who is to say that any creature is extinct? Scarcely a year passes but some explorer finds, in some remote neglected region, what is to him a new type, but in reality, no doubt, dates back to an antiquity beyond computation. This hideous creature seems to be the last of his kind; I have seen no sign of a mate; and his extinction would not be much of a loss."
"How can we see him at all, through the wall--just as we saw you coming down here three days ago?"
"Does no explanation occur to you?"
"Well, of course I have heard of X-rays, and things of that kind; but----"
"Exactly. Excuse my interruption, but I know what you were going to say. You were going to speak of cathodes, and vacuum tubes, and phosphorescent screens, and----"
"I wasn't," said Forrester: "I never heard of them."
"It comes to the same thing," Beresford went on imperturbably; and Forrester felt a little sorry that the man of cheery good fellowship was for the time sunk in the man of science. "Here there is none of the elaborate apparatus of the experimenter; but Nature has been experimenting through ages beyond count. What do our men of science know of the real nature of the X-rays? Next to nothing. They can produce them, that is all. And here, before our eyes, we have phenomena produced, not by man, but by the Great Artificer of the universe. Those creatures are swimming in the lake which you skirted just now. Their images are cast in some marvellous way upon this particular portion of the wall. I know no more than you the explanation, but.... My dear fellow, pardon me: this is not a lecture room. Come, I have something more to show you."
They recrossed the cavern, which was as broad as it was high, and turning a corner, were confronted by the arch-like opening of a passage. It was much more brightly illuminated by green light than the cavern out of which it led. Passing under the arch, the two men walked quickly up the passage, which twisted to right and left at every few yards, and inclined gradually upward.
"I feel very rummy," said Forrester after a while: "the sort of tingling you have before a severe thunderstorm."
"I feel it too," his companion responded: "not so intensely as you, perhaps. The thing is to keep as tight a hold on yourself as you can--as you ought to have done when that old sinner above hypnotised you."
"But----"
"Now don't talk. We shall have plenty of opportunities of discussing him, and hypnotism, and a thousand and one things. Take a grip of yourself, andwillthat the mephitic influence shall not affect you. You won't thoroughly succeed, but the effort will be good."
The feeling of tenseness increased as they advanced. To Forrester it seemed as though a hot band were tightening round his temples; but he kept silence. Glancing at Beresford, he perceived on his face an expression of grim, almost savage, determination. They went on, the passage becoming lighter moment by moment, until, after they had walked a few hundred yards, it widened out into a cavern, much less spacious than that which they had left, but almost as light as open ground at noonday. At the edge of it Beresford halted.
"Stand here, and watch," he said.
In the centre of the floor there was a large square slab of some greyish substance--the only spot in the cavern through which the green rays did not, as it were, percolate. It was about three feet each way, and stood a few inches above the floor. Upon it lay a coil of thin yellow-green chain, like an immense brass watch-guard tinged with verdigris, and an oblong lump about a foot in length, and of the same colour. A few feet above, a stout bar of yellow metal projected from the wall of the cavern, having at its free end, exactly over the centre of the slab, a wheel over which another chain hung.
These objects first caught Forrester's attention, no doubt because they formed a group in the centre of an otherwise bare floor; but they held it only for a moment or two. His eyes were diverted to a living figure. From a hitherto unnoticed recess on his left hand came a bent, decrepit, cadaverous Chinaman, to all appearance very old, carrying a thin square plate, in colour a dirty greenish-grey. He toddled slowly towards the slab, looking neither to right nor left, laid the plate upon it, and passed through a hole in the centre of the plate what seemed to be a small catch in the aforesaid lump of metal. This latter he attached to the chain hanging over the wheel.
This done, he moved to one side, and standing at a distance of about ten feet from the slab, pulled at the chain which lay upon it, and which, as Forrester now saw, was fastened to a stout ring in its upper edge. The slab moved on hinges slowly towards the Chinaman, and as it rose from the floor, a shaft of pale green light, blinding in its brilliance, shot up to the roof, fourteen or fifteen feet above, causing the two Englishmen to start back and retreat some paces into the passage. Forrester was conscious of an intensification of his nervous excitement. His ears buzzed; his skin tingled as if he were in an electric bath; his impulse was to cover his eyes and rush headlong to escape the terrible glare and its psychical accompaniment. But seeing Beresford venturing back by degrees, he exerted his will to the utmost, and followed him.