[image]Mackenzie met Hamid in the enclosure where he was digging truffles."Well?" he asked eagerly."I have got a rise, sahib," the man replied. "Purely honorary; no pay!""What do you mean?""Rich food sometimes is cause of colic and inward qualms, sahib. After tiffin yesterday, bald-head comes to me;--he has a face, sahib!--and says 'Hai! come along!' Off I trot, knees playing castanets, blue funk, because of his face. Along passage, into room, another room, much to flabbergastation of humble self; for what do I see but gold everywhere: table of gold, seats of gold, cups of gold!"On couch of gold was very old man, very like monkey, bald as egg. Two bald-heads on knees to him: hai! what faces! Had to go down on knees; old man he stared at me with eyes like burning coals. I shivered like jelly. 'You poison me!' he said. I swore by Siva I was innocent as new-born babe. I talked a lot, told him I was absolutely ignorant he was so old, too old to eat things that would upset ostrich digestion of piggish little sons of English sahibs. I declared with great gusto if I had known I would not have made things so bilious. 'Send for doctor,' he said. Another bald-head came. Kicked me away, knelt in my place. I crawled away, pricked in manhood's dignity, but calm in innocency of heart, and while doctor did his job, I took squint round. Great snakes, sahib! At one end of room, in recess behind screen of gold wire, I spotted gorgeous robe hanging on gold peg, and on small gold table most splendiferous head-dress. My stars! old Chinky could give socks to American millionaire.""Did you see the Eye?" Jackson asked eagerly."What eye, sahib? Old man's eyes enough for me. They lugged me back; down I drop again; his eyes made me frizzle. He said 'Go!' Nothing wrong with him but liver off colour. But this morning bald-head told me to carry in dish myself: in future I must taste all grub in presence of old man. That is my rise, sahib.""Eh, man, you're lucky," said Mackenzie. "But now tell me: the grating in the passage--what is it like?""It is thin bars of gold, sahib.""How far apart?""Width of two fingers, sahib.""And how large is the hole?""As long as my outstretched arms, and a little wider than my spread fingers.""Big enough to crawl through?""If you were flat as a flounder, sahib.""Can you see to the bottom of the hole?""No, sahib: it is dark, and goes deep.""Next time you come, bring me a small marrowbone, not wider than your two fingers. Fill it with dried marrow, closely pressed together. Can you get any paper?""There is rice paper in kitchen, sahib.""Bring me a piece, and something I can write with--a blackened stick, or a bit of charcoal. You will remember?""Like a book, sahib."Fingering his beard meditatively, he walked away."What do you mean to do?" Jackson asked, when Mackenzie had repeated what Hamid had told him, and the instructions he had given."Put a wee note inside the bone, and get Hamid to fling it down the grating.""But if it falls into the wrong hands, and is taken to the Old Man? He speaks English: he may read it too.""What I write will only puzzle him.""In any case, what's the good? Suppose Dick is there. How can he send an answer?""I've my notion about that, Bob. All depends on Hamid; but, as I said, he is no fool; he will do what we tell him, and take every care. I wish it were to-morrow!""What puzzles me is the Eye. What on earth can it be?""That beats me. Clearly it is harmless at times; Hamid didn't notice it. I think it's a kind of box, containing some destructive substance in a concentrated form. The Old Man evidently has some device for opening it without harm to himself. One thing is very clear.""What's that?""Och, man, that the old wretch must be very human after all, or he couldn't have the stomach ache."CHAPTER XVTHE MOLES"Give me my bone!"Forrester puzzled over the words. They seemed merely absurd. What could their meaning be? It was a joy to know that Mackenzie or Jackson was above, and had discovered the place of imprisonment; but they must know little about it, after all, or they would be aware that it was impossible to send them an answer. Yet they must expect an answer; they would not have sent a message, mysterious as it was, unless they looked for at least an acknowledgment that it had been received. It occurred to him that the cleft might be used as a speaking tube: but a moment's consideration told him that it would be unwise to put this to the test. His voice might be heard by an enemy!Beresford was so much exhausted after the day's work that Forrester did not mention the strange discovery to him that night. But the next day was an off day for him, and in the afternoon, after he was somewhat restored by rest and food, Forrester showed him the bone and the paper. The effect was electric. A look of eager hope dawned in the tired eyes. A murmur of thankfulness broke from his lips, and he lay for a while thinking."We have nothing we can write with," he said at length."Nothing at all. My pockets are empty," replied Forrester."Not even a pin?""No. Wait, though!" He felt along the edge of his waistcoat. "Yes, by Jove! I've one solitary pin. They would naturally overlook that.""Prick the words through the paper.""But what words?""Something that won't give anything away if the paper falls into the wrong hands. 'Give me my bone!' Answer, 'Take it!' Put the paper in the bone, fill up with dust, and replace it in the cleft when you get a chance. Leave the rest to our friends above."The guard kept by the priest and the negritos was little more than a form. The abject condition of the Chinese prisoners precluded any likelihood of revolt. Consequently no real watch was kept at night, and the only risk was that an unusual sound might awaken one of the three somnolent figures at the entrance. Forrester was careful to move very quietly when he returned to the cleft that night, though after all there was little chance of a slight sound from the inner cavern reaching the priest's ears.On reaching the cleft he looked in eagerly for the string which he half expected to find there. He was not disappointed. A few feet from the opening, but within easy reach, lay another bone, with a string attached. He replaced this by the bone containing the paper, and stole back to his friend. The second bone held no message."We shall hear from them again to-morrow," said Beresford hopefully.Next night, when Forrester visited the cleft, he found the bone on the end of the string, untied it, and hurried back with it to Beresford. Shaking out its contents, he found a somewhat larger screw of paper, enwrapping a sharpened stick of charcoal. On it, when opened out, he read: "String 65': hole 3' x 10": grated: where are you? Reply at once. M.""He evidently thinks communication safe at night," said Beresford. "We can't tell him everything. Just write: 'Cavern. Boring chimney through roof. More to-morrow.'"Forrester wrote the message, adding 'B. is here,' replaced the paper, and returning to the cleft, tied the bone again to the string. It occurred to him to give a slight tug. The string gave slightly, then stretched taut. It was evidently fastened to something above.It was long before the Englishmen fell asleep that night. They discussed in whispers the information they had gained, and their future course of action. They could not but conclude that the cleft, narrow as it was, was the avenue by which the negrito had escaped; but what was possible to his diminutive frame was impossible to them. The grating had probably been placed over the hole after his escape was discovered, to prevent a second attempt. It was clear that the cleft was not perpendicular, or the little man could hardly have climbed up it. If they could ascertain the angle of its slope, they might calculate the vertical distance, and learn how long their chimney through the roof of the inner cavern must be made. They had no means of discovering this fact, which would have been so useful to them; but it seemed probable that, allowing for the steepest practicable slope, the chimney must be pierced for at least forty feet before it reached the surface.By gradually lengthening the bamboo pole, and clearing the dust from the sides of the chimney, they had already extended the range of the rays nearly twenty feet above the roof, and more than thirty feet above the floor of the cavern. They had now no more bamboo rods; the pole could not be lengthened further; it was impossible to remove the dust at a greater height without a ladder to stand on. But, with communications open, a ladder might no longer be an impossibility. With a knife and some stout string they might form one of bamboo, and still leave enough for a pole wherewith to continue their work of removing the dust. Forrester resolved to ask for these articles at the first opportunity.Beresford pointed out the importance of letting Mackenzie know the spot at which the chimney, when completed, would reach the upper air. It might prove to be in the very quarters of the enemy. In that case the chances of escape would seem to be remote indeed. But Mackenzie was cautious as well as shrewd, and with this necessary information in his possession he would know how to direct his own course, and what advice to give his friends below.Accordingly, next day Forrester carefully paced the distance between the cleft and the pit in the inner cavern. Allowing as accurately as he could for the windings of the passage, he gauged the length to be approximately fifty yards in a straight line. At night, he found on opening the paper secreted in the bone that Mackenzie had anticipated him. "Cleft--?--> chimney." he read. He crossed out the query and wrote "50 yds.: cleft on right," adding: "Send knife + stout string." He returned to the cleft several times during the night in the hope of finding the things asked for; but it was not until the next night that they came: a large kitchen knife such as is used in boning meat, and about a dozen yards of thin hempen cord.The work on the chimney had been perforce interrupted for several days, much to Beresford's benefit. The less prolonged exposure to the noxious atmosphere of the inner cave, and the new hope engendered in his heart by the knowledge that something was in progress above, effected a decided improvement in his physical and mental condition. His fear now was that he would be summoned again to the Old Man, and condemned without reprieve, before the chimney was complete. He resolved, if he were sent for, to persist in his refusal to translate the tablet, in the hope that the Old Man would spare him for yet further coercion.Forrester set to work on the ladder as soon as possible after the knife came to hand. At night, in the passage, he cut short lengths of bamboo as rungs, and knotted them firmly to the two uprights with the cord. It was a crazy structure at the best, and he had a nervous dread lest, if he fell, he should break through or displace the slab over the pit, and be turned instantly to dust. But an experimental ascent against the wall and the cavern somewhat reassured him as to the ladder's stability, and setting its top in the cavity above the pit, he mounted and resumed the work of scouring away the dust overhead.From that moment they applied themselves to the task with unremitting energy. As soon as their fellow prisoners were torpid in the heavy sleep that was the only alleviation of their lot, the Englishmen stole from their place, and laboured until their endurance gave out. Forrester spared Beresford as much as possible, and often undertook the double work, alternately lifting the slab to release the rays, and, when it was lowered, climbing to remove the dust. Each knew he carried his life in his hands, for the ladder could not be entirely hidden. If any priest should chance to visit by day the passage in which they laid it, he could not fail to observe it, and then their fate was sealed. But, judging by past experience, that risk was slight; and to disregard it was the only way to success.Every now and then Forrester reported progress to his friends above. The length of the chimney increased about eighteen inches a day on the average; if, as they had calculated, there remained--before they constructed the ladder--twenty feet of rock to pierce, in a fortnight they should arrive at or very near the surface. Meanwhile they received no news of what was happening above ground. Mackenzie did not reveal his plans; perhaps, they thought, he had formed none, but was biding his time until the chimney was nearly completed. His messages were brief words of encouragement, assurances that all was well, and the news that he was in touch daily with Jackson, Sher Jang, and Hamid Gul.Rather more than a week after the first use of the ladder, Forrester made the alarming discovery that he could no longer reach the top of the cavity with the outstretched pole. This threatened the stoppage of the work, for neither pole nor ladder could be lengthened. He did not mention the matter to Beresford, who by this time had ceased to work on the chimney. When he had transmuted the due number of plates, he was too much fatigued to endure the strain any longer, and Forrester persuaded him that he must conserve his strength for what might ensue when the chimney was completely pierced. Anything that might throw him back was to be avoided.Forrester puzzled over the baffling problem that now confronted him. Time and again he stood looking up into the cavity, trying to conceive of a means by which the top might be reached. It was two days before he hit upon a possible solution. If he could cut notches in the walls of the chimney, and insert in them cross-bars of bamboo, he would be able to raise himself successively to heights from which the rock above would be within reach of the pole. To obtain material for the cross-bars he would have to shorten the pole; the difficulty was the notches: how could they be cut with no tool but a knife? Standing on the ladder, he tried the point of the blade on the rock, and found that this, while not very hard, was not friable enough to be excavated by so pliant a tool.His thoughts turned at once to Mackenzie: perhaps he could find a more serviceable instrument. That night he placed in the bone the following note: "Work stopped: send a chisel." Next night he found in the bottom of the cleft, not a chisel, but a bar of iron slightly pointed at one end. Accompanying it was a note: "Hope this will serve. Let me know when near surface."This implement he found to answer his purpose sufficiently well. From his perch on the top rung of the ladder he worked out two holes in the rock on opposite sides of the chimney; then with the knife he cut the proper length of bamboo, and thus fashioned a cross-bar on which he could stand to repeat the same operation higher up. In this way he made a series of steps enabling him to brush the dust, as before, from the top of the cavity after each employment of the rays. Only then did he acquaint Beresford with the difficulty and the manner in which it had been overcome.The progress of the work was necessarily slower now. The cross-bars had to be removed after each ascent; otherwise at the next opening of the pit they would have been instantly destroyed. But the piercing went on steadily, and Forrester felt sure that, unless his calculations were very much out, his pole would in a few more days penetrate the roof of the chimney, and emerge through a hole in the floor of whatever room was immediately above him."Be very cautious," Beresford urged, when he learnt this good news. "To break through prematurely might be fatal to us all. Tell Mackenzie how things are, and ask for instructions.""Yes. We shall have done our part. The rest will lie with him. I wonder what old Mac has been doing all this time?"CHAPTER XVITHE HOLE IN THE WALLMackenzie, meanwhile, had been playing a very busy and at the same time a very discreet part above ground, with timorous but efficient assistance from Hamid Gul. It was the latter who, at night, when all was quiet, stole from the kitchen into the passage, and tied the string to a bar of the golden grating, so cleverly that only the closest scrutiny could have detected it. Having ascertained by means of this device the whereabouts of Forrester, and the burrowing in which he and Beresford were engaged, Mackenzie, in his calm sagacious way, set himself to think out a plan for turning that work to account.At first he decided to employ Hamid Gul only as postman. It was of vital importance that the Old Man should entertain no suspicion of his cook. There seemed little risk of Hamid's night-work at the grating being detected. An Indian servant moves more silently than a cat. On the other hand, if he pried and prowled in the pagoda or its precincts, for the purpose of discovering the means of access to the rift, or the other particulars about which Mackenzie was curious, he would almost certainly attract the notice of the Chinese, and ruin everything. For the same reason Mackenzie took care that his necessary meetings with Hamid should take place at different times of the day, at different spots, and in the utmost secrecy.His own actions were dictated by shrewd policy. To begin with, he told Jackson no more, not that he distrusted him, but that he feared the possibility of his disclosing something if for any reason the priests should again practise their hypnotic powers on him. Then, he assumed in public the mien of a slave, utterly cowed, bereft of will power, who lived only to get through his appointed task, and had no other aim than to merit his masters' approval. So well did he act his part that after a few days' observation, the priests concluded that their taming process had been thoroughly effective, and paid no more attention to him than to any other of the men who toiled and sighed on the plateau. That the dejection which Mackenzie feigned was in Jackson's case real confirmed them in their delusion. Sher Jang, meanwhile, went about his tasks with philosophic submissiveness; but in his heart of hearts he believed that the sahibs, whose movements he watched unobtrusively, would some day get the better of the Chinese dogs, and he was ready instantly to obey the call which he felt would surely come.When Mackenzie was satisfied that he was accounted well broken in, he took to roaming at night about the precincts of the pagoda. He had already settled in his mind that the way to the rift could lie only through the pagoda or one of the neighbouring buildings, and his chief aim must be to discover that. It was also of vital importance to find as nearly as possible the spot where the chimney would cut through the earth; one step towards that discovery was the knowledge that its base was fifty yards from the cleft, and therefore presumably from the grating in the passage. He had been much puzzled by the almost incessant knocking that proceeded in day-time from the low building behind the orchard, but dismissed that matter as of no account so far as he and his friends were concerned.The wall enclosing the pagoda and its appurtenances was twelve feet in height: too high to look over, too smooth to scale. The gate by which Hamid issued to the fields was unlocked for him by a priest, and locked after him. Mackenzie meant to get inside the wall. It would not be difficult, perhaps, to make a ladder, but before taking this in hand he might as well see if there was a less ostentatious mode of entry.Strolling at the rear of the orchard late one dark night, he was guided by the sound of running water to the stream which he and Forrester had observed on their first day upon the plateau. He followed the course of this, and discovered that it entered the enclosure on the north side by a culvert beneath the wall. The darkness rendered it impossible to measure with the eye the width and depth of the arch, but on stooping and feeling along the stonework, he found that the stream poured through an iron grating. Since the water was perfectly clear, the grating must have been designed, not as a strainer, but as a defence against intrusion. The Old Man was obviously a stickler for privacy.Mackenzie pushed and shook the grating, to ascertain whether it was firmly fixed. It held fast, but slipping his hand under the water, he discovered that the submerged part was worn thin with long corrosion, and that there were several gaps in it where the iron had been completely rusted away. With a little exertion he managed to break off a considerable portion of the grating below water, leaving a space large enough for a man to crawl through. It had occurred to him at once that this was a safer means of getting inside than by a ladder, which would always make him a conspicuous object to anyone who chanced to be looking that way from the buildings.There was no time like the present. Without removing his clothes, Mackenzie slipped into the stream, spread himself flat, and, taking a long breath, wriggled under water through the arch. When he stood up, he found that the top of the grating was considerably higher than his head, but that his head was higher than the earthen embankments of the stream on either side. The depth of the water was no more than three feet; but the embankments were no doubt intended to protect the buildings from flood in those seasons when the stream, swollen by the melting snow on the mountains, became a torrent.Standing in the running water, he peered over the embankment on his right. The pagoda loomed up black against the sky some distance away. Between it and him were much lower buildings. No light was to be seen. All was quiet. He would have liked to push his exploration further, but felt that in his ignorance of the place the risk of mistake and detection was too great. Hamid's co-operation would be necessary if he was to profit by his secret entrance, and he resolved to come to an arrangement with the cook for the following night.Returning to his hut by the same route, he stripped off his drenched clothes, spread them on the ground at the back, out of sight, to dry, rolled himself in his blanket, and was soon asleep."How far are your quarters from the wall?" he asked Hamid next day, meeting him among the raspberry canes."Thirty good paces, sahib," replied the man."I wish you to meet me to-night at the wall, where the stream flows under. Have you a clock?""An hour-glass, sahib.""Then let the time be two hours after lock-up. And bring a blanket with you.""I am your servant, sahib, but if I may humbly ask----""Ask nothing. You can get out quietly?""Truly, sahib, but if bald-head nabbed me----""Hech! Are you afraid? Have you ever seen any of them about after nightfall?""Answer to both questions in negative, sahib.""Where do they sleep?""Other side of Old Man's house, sahib; also across garden on left.""Very well then. You can slip out of your quarters at any time--that's so?""Quite O.K., sahib.""Very well. Be at yon arch two hours after lock-up, with a dark blanket, you mind.""I am your servant, sahib."But Hamid asked himself with much trouble of mind what notion the Mac Sahib had in his noddle.Jackson's curiosity had been awakened by Mackenzie's prolonged absence on the previous night."Where are you off to, Mac?" he asked, seeing his companion prepare to go out again into the dark."I'll bide a wee before I answer you, Bob. You can't help, and if I come a mucker the less you know about it the better."On reaching the culvert, he stripped off all his clothes and laid them beneath a bush. Too many wettings would so alter their appearance, he thought, as to draw the attention of the priests. Naked he slipped into the water, crawled through the arch, and on lifting himself slightly, saw Hamid crouching beneath the shelter of the embankment. He quitted the stream, flung about him the dark-blue blanket which the Bengali had brought, and putting his fingers to his lips, motioned to Hamid to lead him along the watercourse.[image]On lifting himself, he saw Hamid crouching beneath the shelter of the embankment.Hamid was shivering with amazement and nervousness, but he obeyed in utter silence. They waded slowly through the stream, whose gurgling drowned the sound of their own movements. Presently they ducked to avoid a low bridge that led from one part of the grounds to the other. The dull thud of footsteps brought them to a sudden halt, and they crouched under the bridge, listening anxiously as the walker passed over their heads. They caught a glimmer of light, and as the footsteps receded, Mackenzie peeped out, and saw a priest, swinging a small lantern, moving towards a building a good distance on their left. He entered it, and disappeared."Last man out!" whispered Hamid.After waiting a few minutes, they continued their way along the stream. It flowed through a wide inner enclosure, in which were scattered a number of small structures like summer-houses. Two slight bridges spanned the stream, and here and there were irregular masses which in the darkness could not be clearly distinguished, but which appeared to be rockeries. Quaintly shaped bushes outlined their dark forms against the walls of the distant buildings. Mackenzie concluded that this was either the Old Man's private garden, or the garden of the priests. Hamid could not tell him; he had been strictly forbidden to stray in this direction, or even to look over the low wall that surrounded the enclosure.The watercourse was not straight. It turned now to the right, now to the left; its general course carried it obliquely across the garden, towards the angle of the wall. Thus the buildings on the right were not parallel with it. Mackenzie stopped, to take his bearings. Hamid pointed out his own quarters, the kitchen adjoining, and the wall of the passage connecting with the dwelling of the Old Man. The pagoda reared itself high above the other buildings. Beyond it lay the barrack-like lodgings of the first order of priests; those of the second order were on the opposite side of the enclosure, and were approached by means of the bridges."How far along the passage is the grating?" Mackenzie asked in a whisper."About half-way, sahib.""And on which side?""Side nearest us, to be sure, sahib.""Wait here for me, and hold this."He placed in Hamid's hands the end of a coil of string, climbed over the embankment, and made his way with stealthy speed towards the middle point of the passage wall, as nearly as he could judge it, paying out the string as he went. On reaching the wall, he turned swiftly back, coiling the string round his finger. When he regained Hamid's side, he knew that the distance between the wall and this point of the embankment was a little more than sixty yards. The chimney which his friends were cutting would reach the surface somewhere on the circumference of a circle of which the middle of the wall was the centre, and which would come within about ten yards of his present position. He followed that imaginary line with his eye. It passed close to one of the summer-houses, ran across a bed of plants, then over the grass on which he had walked, touched the embankment some yards to the right, owing to the oblique course of this, and finally reached a point near the door of the cook's lean-to. To gauge the position of the chimney more precisely was impossible, because, though he knew that it was on the near side of the passage, he knew no more than that it was fifty yards from the grating.Making a mental note of the course of the circumference on which lay the locus of the hole sometime to be pierced, he considered for a few moments whether to steal towards the door of the pagoda, and try to discover whether it was guarded. But by this time he was shivering with cold. His reconnaissance had not been unfruitful, and he decided to return at once to his hut. He parted from Hamid at the culvert, handed him the blanket, again entered his cold bath, and picking up his clothes, ran lightly over the ground to his lodging. Only on those two night expeditions had he taken off his clothes since his departure from the village in the forest.Next morning Hamid handed him a note which he had drawn up in the bone. It was the longest he had yet received: Forrester had grown bolder, more reckless, perhaps, with the lapse of time. It read: "Always light below. Can't tell when it becomes dark outside. Give us a sign.""Things are moving," he thought. "They are afraid of cutting through in the daylight. How in the world can I give them a sign? Hamid lets down the bone at all hours. Ah, well, I must think it out."CHAPTER XVIITHE CARNIVOREAs Forrester mounted higher into the chimney, he worked with ever increasing caution. To allow the rays to break a passage through before everything was ready for joint action with his friends above would be disastrous. Another possible mischance was even more alarming. The ground might cave in prematurely by its own weight, or the weight of somebody passing over it. The result might be to hurl him on to the frail screen below, and through it into the pit.To guard against such accidents he listened intently at each ascent, before he brushed away the protective dust. Once he thought he heard distant footfalls; another time the sound of running water. He wished that Mackenzie had been more communicative about what he was doing, and what he had discovered; but reflected that if his friend was silent, it was because, with Scotch canniness, he was determined to risk as little as possible, for the sake of all.He waited patiently for the sign by which he would know when darkness fell in the open. The bone, no doubt, could be dropped only at uncertain intervals, as opportunity offered. Even if he knew that it would be let down precisely at the hour of sunset, he could not be sure of being then on the watch at the cleft, for it was not his duty to enter the inner cavern at all; his secret work there had been done only when guards and prisoners were asleep, and that was probably much later than sunset.One day, Beresford, just before he had finished his task at the pit, and while Forrester was awaiting him in the outer cavern, noticed a trickle of water running from the inner passage towards him. While he was still looking at it in surprise, wondering where it came from, it was reinforced by a sudden swell, which carried the tiny stream across the floor of the cavern in a direct course for the open pit. By the time it reached the brink it had almost exhausted its energy; but some of it flowed slowly on, and poured over. Instantly there was a terrific explosion, like the bursting of an immense inflated bag, accompanied by a flash of white light which for the moment wholly conquered the green. Beresford was hurled against the wall of the cavern, and when he picked himself up, he saw that the force of the concussion had shut the screen down upon the pit, gripping the gold chain to which was suspended the plate in process of transmutation.It was all over in a moment; but Beresford had hardly recovered his senses when Forrester came hurrying into the cavern, through the cloud of dust which had followed the explosion, with Wing Wu and the priest in charge hard on his heels.Forrester had just time to give a word of warning. When the priest arrived, Beresford had sufficient presence of mind to explain in Chinese that while the cover was lifted from the mouth of the pit there had been a loud bang. He did not mention the stream of water; it had now ceased to flow, and though its appearance had amazed him, and in his half-dazed condition he attached no definite meaning to it, he felt instinctively that it had a meaning for himself and his fellow prisoners.The priest looked puzzled. The dust had set him coughing. He peered through it round the walls, remaining at a discreet distance from the pit, and thus failing to notice the dwindling trickle on the farther side. The atmosphere of the cavern, at all times unpleasant and oppressive, was stifling now. In a few moments everybody was retreating along the passage to the outer cavern, Beresford remaining only to release the chain, draw up the plate, and lower the apparently uninjured screen firmly into its place. The negritos were just bringing in the evening meal."Are you hurt?" Forrester asked anxiously."Slightly bruised, perhaps; nothing serious.""What on earth caused the explosion?""A trickle of water into the pit. Where it came from----""That was the sign!" exclaimed Forrester aloud, knowing that the priest could not understand him. But Wing Wu understood."What sign, sir?" he asked eagerly."Shall we tell him?" said Beresford.Forrester hesitated for a moment."Not yet," he answered.Wing Wu sighed, and turned away.The priest at the entrance was joined by a second, drawn by the noise from the guard-room beyond the lake. They talked together for a few minutes, then the second man departed."He will tell the Old Man, no doubt," said Forrester to his companion."Yes; things are coming to a crisis. The water was our sign, no doubt. It could hardly have been accidental. Mackenzie must have thrown a bucketful or two through the grating. It is dark outside at about the time of our last meal.""Do you think the priests suspect us?""Who can say what goes on in their Chinese minds? The fellow didn't see the water: that is pretty certain. But I am troubled. In the chimney you heard running water above you, you said?""I am almost sure of it--perhaps the stream that runs across the plateau.""If our chimney pierces its bed, we are doomed. There is not the ghost of a chance for us. The explosion you heard will be as a popgun to a whole Dreadnought armament in comparison with the result if the cavern is flooded. I take it that the water which fell into the pit was instantly decomposed by the rays. Only a little trickled over the brink; yet the explosion was powerful enough to hurl me against the wall. If water pours down in any volume, the whole place will be shattered, and we shall be cremated instantly in one enormous flame.""Will you go up the chimney yourself presently, and see if I was right?" asked Forrester, aghast at the thought of this cataclysm."I will try. Thanks to you I am not nearly so much crocked as I was a few days ago. But we will wait a little longer than usual, to give the priest time to settle down if he is at all suspicious.... You were quite right, by the way, not to let me explain things to Wing Wu. He is so easily hypnotised that he might betray us at the first question. It will be time enough to tell him when our work is done."Several hours later, they stole into the inner cavern, and when Forrester had placed the cross-bars in position, Beresford mounted the ladder, and climbed laboriously into the chimney from bar to bar. He carried the piece of pointed iron, with which he carefully probed the roof. Withdrawing the implement, he passed his fingers along it from the pointed end downwards."We are very near the surface," he called down softly. "You have destroyed all the rock. The iron has gone through two or three inches of clay, and then into loose earth. We can't risk employing the rays again. If the earth above collapsed en masse, it would smash through the screen and carry us with it into the pit. We must bore a hole gradually with the iron.""What about the water?" Forrester asked.Beresford listened intently, Forrester standing below with his hand on the ladder."Yes," said Beresford at length, "you are right. But it appears to be at one side, not directly overhead. Ah! there are footsteps. Listen!"They kept absolute silence. The dull thud of footsteps overhead was clearly audible. Forrester looked up at his friend, dimly visible high above him. His attention was so fully concentrated that a slight sound behind caused him to jump round with a sudden start. And there, in the entrance to the cavern, he saw the priest, peering up towards the hole in which the ladder rested.[image]There he saw the priest, peering up towards the hole in which the ladder rested.In after years Forrester often felt a quickening of the pulse as he tried to piece together the confused sequence of events in the next crowded minute. Whether he shouted to warn his companion before the Chinaman swung round and dashed back along the passage, or whether the Chinaman fled first and his cry followed, he could never distinctly recollect. All that he could remember was that, impelled by an instinctive feeling that the priest must be caught and silenced, he sprang like a tiger towards the intruder. Probably the fact was that the priest, being on the alert, had already turned before Forrester dashed after him, for he had a lead of several yards up the narrow passage.Forrester was the younger and the fleeter of the two. Weeks of life in the mephitic atmosphere of the underworld, indeed, had slackened his muscles and lowered his nervous energy; his wind came short; but at this perilous crisis he seemed to regain all the athletic vigour which had served him so well on the football field in years gone by. When the priest dashed into the outer cavern, Forrester was only a few yards in the rear.The former, feeling no doubt that he had now desperate men to deal with, rushed straight across to the entrance, where he might expect to find the negrito guards ready to support him. The little men, however, startled out of their wits by a sight which never, in all their years of servitude, had they beheld before, stood like stockfish, gazing amazedly at the two figures swiftly approaching them. When he reached them, the Chinaman appeared to realise instantly that he could place no reliance on men so palsied. He darted between them, turned to the right, and ran as fast as his long robe would allow along the ledge leading to the ward-room on the other side of the lake.Crossing the cavern Forrester had gained on him. At the entrance he was barely two yards behind. He flashed past the astounded negritos, swung round on to the ledge, came up with his quarry just as he reached the plank bridge, and making a spring forward, caught him round the waist, as he had tackled many a man in pursuit of the oval ball. The Chinaman, however, although less agile, was of heavier build, and by sheer strength and weight he began to haul Forrester along the bridge towards the further ledge, at the end of which his colleague and the negrito guards were already massing.Forrester clung to him desperately, tried to drag upon him by digging ineffectual heels into the plank; but with the cavern wall on his right, and only two feet of planking to manoeuvre on, he found that inch by inch he was being pulled into the jaws of danger. The Chinaman was clutching at the crazy handrail for purchase in hauling his tenacious grappler along. In a few seconds Forrester must either release him, or fall a captive into remorseless hands. Despair struck a spark in his darkening mind. There was one chance--one, and no more!Bracing his right leg, he threw the whole weight of the Chinaman and himself against the balustrade. It creaked; there was the snap of breaking timber. Forrester released his man and drew quickly back. The priest fell with a great splash into the green oily waters of the lake.By this time the startled company at the remote end of the ledge were beginning to advance. A spear whizzed past Forrester's ear. To protect himself, he wrenched away a piece of the broken handrail. With this club he could ward off a missile or crack a skull. Facing the enemy, he retreated with wary footsteps along the bridge. The priest, leading on his negritos, came striding along the ledge, his parchmenty features grimacing with rage.Forrester was trembling in every limb. The sudden spurt, the muscular strain, had told heavily upon his debilitated body. And again despair seized upon his soul as he realised that his efforts after all had been made in vain. Before long the priest now menacing him would hurry to acquaint the Old Man with this revolt of the prisoners. They would be taken aloft, and then--the Eye!But all speculation was suddenly shocked out of his mind by a tragic sequel, unlooked-for, terrible.The Chinaman was still floundering beneath the bridge.Swift and silent, from out the sombre spaces of the lake there slid a something huge and hideous--a Shape. A glint of greenish light in cruel eyes; a flash of gleaming teeth in jaws like those of a mammoth dog-fish; a shriek of terror and despair; then silence, and a slow heaving of the waters. The Monster had claimed his ancient right!
[image]Mackenzie met Hamid in the enclosure where he was digging truffles.
[image]
[image]
Mackenzie met Hamid in the enclosure where he was digging truffles.
"Well?" he asked eagerly.
"I have got a rise, sahib," the man replied. "Purely honorary; no pay!"
"What do you mean?"
"Rich food sometimes is cause of colic and inward qualms, sahib. After tiffin yesterday, bald-head comes to me;--he has a face, sahib!--and says 'Hai! come along!' Off I trot, knees playing castanets, blue funk, because of his face. Along passage, into room, another room, much to flabbergastation of humble self; for what do I see but gold everywhere: table of gold, seats of gold, cups of gold!
"On couch of gold was very old man, very like monkey, bald as egg. Two bald-heads on knees to him: hai! what faces! Had to go down on knees; old man he stared at me with eyes like burning coals. I shivered like jelly. 'You poison me!' he said. I swore by Siva I was innocent as new-born babe. I talked a lot, told him I was absolutely ignorant he was so old, too old to eat things that would upset ostrich digestion of piggish little sons of English sahibs. I declared with great gusto if I had known I would not have made things so bilious. 'Send for doctor,' he said. Another bald-head came. Kicked me away, knelt in my place. I crawled away, pricked in manhood's dignity, but calm in innocency of heart, and while doctor did his job, I took squint round. Great snakes, sahib! At one end of room, in recess behind screen of gold wire, I spotted gorgeous robe hanging on gold peg, and on small gold table most splendiferous head-dress. My stars! old Chinky could give socks to American millionaire."
"Did you see the Eye?" Jackson asked eagerly.
"What eye, sahib? Old man's eyes enough for me. They lugged me back; down I drop again; his eyes made me frizzle. He said 'Go!' Nothing wrong with him but liver off colour. But this morning bald-head told me to carry in dish myself: in future I must taste all grub in presence of old man. That is my rise, sahib."
"Eh, man, you're lucky," said Mackenzie. "But now tell me: the grating in the passage--what is it like?"
"It is thin bars of gold, sahib."
"How far apart?"
"Width of two fingers, sahib."
"And how large is the hole?"
"As long as my outstretched arms, and a little wider than my spread fingers."
"Big enough to crawl through?"
"If you were flat as a flounder, sahib."
"Can you see to the bottom of the hole?"
"No, sahib: it is dark, and goes deep."
"Next time you come, bring me a small marrowbone, not wider than your two fingers. Fill it with dried marrow, closely pressed together. Can you get any paper?"
"There is rice paper in kitchen, sahib."
"Bring me a piece, and something I can write with--a blackened stick, or a bit of charcoal. You will remember?"
"Like a book, sahib."
Fingering his beard meditatively, he walked away.
"What do you mean to do?" Jackson asked, when Mackenzie had repeated what Hamid had told him, and the instructions he had given.
"Put a wee note inside the bone, and get Hamid to fling it down the grating."
"But if it falls into the wrong hands, and is taken to the Old Man? He speaks English: he may read it too."
"What I write will only puzzle him."
"In any case, what's the good? Suppose Dick is there. How can he send an answer?"
"I've my notion about that, Bob. All depends on Hamid; but, as I said, he is no fool; he will do what we tell him, and take every care. I wish it were to-morrow!"
"What puzzles me is the Eye. What on earth can it be?"
"That beats me. Clearly it is harmless at times; Hamid didn't notice it. I think it's a kind of box, containing some destructive substance in a concentrated form. The Old Man evidently has some device for opening it without harm to himself. One thing is very clear."
"What's that?"
"Och, man, that the old wretch must be very human after all, or he couldn't have the stomach ache."
CHAPTER XV
THE MOLES
"Give me my bone!"
Forrester puzzled over the words. They seemed merely absurd. What could their meaning be? It was a joy to know that Mackenzie or Jackson was above, and had discovered the place of imprisonment; but they must know little about it, after all, or they would be aware that it was impossible to send them an answer. Yet they must expect an answer; they would not have sent a message, mysterious as it was, unless they looked for at least an acknowledgment that it had been received. It occurred to him that the cleft might be used as a speaking tube: but a moment's consideration told him that it would be unwise to put this to the test. His voice might be heard by an enemy!
Beresford was so much exhausted after the day's work that Forrester did not mention the strange discovery to him that night. But the next day was an off day for him, and in the afternoon, after he was somewhat restored by rest and food, Forrester showed him the bone and the paper. The effect was electric. A look of eager hope dawned in the tired eyes. A murmur of thankfulness broke from his lips, and he lay for a while thinking.
"We have nothing we can write with," he said at length.
"Nothing at all. My pockets are empty," replied Forrester.
"Not even a pin?"
"No. Wait, though!" He felt along the edge of his waistcoat. "Yes, by Jove! I've one solitary pin. They would naturally overlook that."
"Prick the words through the paper."
"But what words?"
"Something that won't give anything away if the paper falls into the wrong hands. 'Give me my bone!' Answer, 'Take it!' Put the paper in the bone, fill up with dust, and replace it in the cleft when you get a chance. Leave the rest to our friends above."
The guard kept by the priest and the negritos was little more than a form. The abject condition of the Chinese prisoners precluded any likelihood of revolt. Consequently no real watch was kept at night, and the only risk was that an unusual sound might awaken one of the three somnolent figures at the entrance. Forrester was careful to move very quietly when he returned to the cleft that night, though after all there was little chance of a slight sound from the inner cavern reaching the priest's ears.
On reaching the cleft he looked in eagerly for the string which he half expected to find there. He was not disappointed. A few feet from the opening, but within easy reach, lay another bone, with a string attached. He replaced this by the bone containing the paper, and stole back to his friend. The second bone held no message.
"We shall hear from them again to-morrow," said Beresford hopefully.
Next night, when Forrester visited the cleft, he found the bone on the end of the string, untied it, and hurried back with it to Beresford. Shaking out its contents, he found a somewhat larger screw of paper, enwrapping a sharpened stick of charcoal. On it, when opened out, he read: "String 65': hole 3' x 10": grated: where are you? Reply at once. M."
"He evidently thinks communication safe at night," said Beresford. "We can't tell him everything. Just write: 'Cavern. Boring chimney through roof. More to-morrow.'"
Forrester wrote the message, adding 'B. is here,' replaced the paper, and returning to the cleft, tied the bone again to the string. It occurred to him to give a slight tug. The string gave slightly, then stretched taut. It was evidently fastened to something above.
It was long before the Englishmen fell asleep that night. They discussed in whispers the information they had gained, and their future course of action. They could not but conclude that the cleft, narrow as it was, was the avenue by which the negrito had escaped; but what was possible to his diminutive frame was impossible to them. The grating had probably been placed over the hole after his escape was discovered, to prevent a second attempt. It was clear that the cleft was not perpendicular, or the little man could hardly have climbed up it. If they could ascertain the angle of its slope, they might calculate the vertical distance, and learn how long their chimney through the roof of the inner cavern must be made. They had no means of discovering this fact, which would have been so useful to them; but it seemed probable that, allowing for the steepest practicable slope, the chimney must be pierced for at least forty feet before it reached the surface.
By gradually lengthening the bamboo pole, and clearing the dust from the sides of the chimney, they had already extended the range of the rays nearly twenty feet above the roof, and more than thirty feet above the floor of the cavern. They had now no more bamboo rods; the pole could not be lengthened further; it was impossible to remove the dust at a greater height without a ladder to stand on. But, with communications open, a ladder might no longer be an impossibility. With a knife and some stout string they might form one of bamboo, and still leave enough for a pole wherewith to continue their work of removing the dust. Forrester resolved to ask for these articles at the first opportunity.
Beresford pointed out the importance of letting Mackenzie know the spot at which the chimney, when completed, would reach the upper air. It might prove to be in the very quarters of the enemy. In that case the chances of escape would seem to be remote indeed. But Mackenzie was cautious as well as shrewd, and with this necessary information in his possession he would know how to direct his own course, and what advice to give his friends below.
Accordingly, next day Forrester carefully paced the distance between the cleft and the pit in the inner cavern. Allowing as accurately as he could for the windings of the passage, he gauged the length to be approximately fifty yards in a straight line. At night, he found on opening the paper secreted in the bone that Mackenzie had anticipated him. "Cleft--?--> chimney." he read. He crossed out the query and wrote "50 yds.: cleft on right," adding: "Send knife + stout string." He returned to the cleft several times during the night in the hope of finding the things asked for; but it was not until the next night that they came: a large kitchen knife such as is used in boning meat, and about a dozen yards of thin hempen cord.
The work on the chimney had been perforce interrupted for several days, much to Beresford's benefit. The less prolonged exposure to the noxious atmosphere of the inner cave, and the new hope engendered in his heart by the knowledge that something was in progress above, effected a decided improvement in his physical and mental condition. His fear now was that he would be summoned again to the Old Man, and condemned without reprieve, before the chimney was complete. He resolved, if he were sent for, to persist in his refusal to translate the tablet, in the hope that the Old Man would spare him for yet further coercion.
Forrester set to work on the ladder as soon as possible after the knife came to hand. At night, in the passage, he cut short lengths of bamboo as rungs, and knotted them firmly to the two uprights with the cord. It was a crazy structure at the best, and he had a nervous dread lest, if he fell, he should break through or displace the slab over the pit, and be turned instantly to dust. But an experimental ascent against the wall and the cavern somewhat reassured him as to the ladder's stability, and setting its top in the cavity above the pit, he mounted and resumed the work of scouring away the dust overhead.
From that moment they applied themselves to the task with unremitting energy. As soon as their fellow prisoners were torpid in the heavy sleep that was the only alleviation of their lot, the Englishmen stole from their place, and laboured until their endurance gave out. Forrester spared Beresford as much as possible, and often undertook the double work, alternately lifting the slab to release the rays, and, when it was lowered, climbing to remove the dust. Each knew he carried his life in his hands, for the ladder could not be entirely hidden. If any priest should chance to visit by day the passage in which they laid it, he could not fail to observe it, and then their fate was sealed. But, judging by past experience, that risk was slight; and to disregard it was the only way to success.
Every now and then Forrester reported progress to his friends above. The length of the chimney increased about eighteen inches a day on the average; if, as they had calculated, there remained--before they constructed the ladder--twenty feet of rock to pierce, in a fortnight they should arrive at or very near the surface. Meanwhile they received no news of what was happening above ground. Mackenzie did not reveal his plans; perhaps, they thought, he had formed none, but was biding his time until the chimney was nearly completed. His messages were brief words of encouragement, assurances that all was well, and the news that he was in touch daily with Jackson, Sher Jang, and Hamid Gul.
Rather more than a week after the first use of the ladder, Forrester made the alarming discovery that he could no longer reach the top of the cavity with the outstretched pole. This threatened the stoppage of the work, for neither pole nor ladder could be lengthened. He did not mention the matter to Beresford, who by this time had ceased to work on the chimney. When he had transmuted the due number of plates, he was too much fatigued to endure the strain any longer, and Forrester persuaded him that he must conserve his strength for what might ensue when the chimney was completely pierced. Anything that might throw him back was to be avoided.
Forrester puzzled over the baffling problem that now confronted him. Time and again he stood looking up into the cavity, trying to conceive of a means by which the top might be reached. It was two days before he hit upon a possible solution. If he could cut notches in the walls of the chimney, and insert in them cross-bars of bamboo, he would be able to raise himself successively to heights from which the rock above would be within reach of the pole. To obtain material for the cross-bars he would have to shorten the pole; the difficulty was the notches: how could they be cut with no tool but a knife? Standing on the ladder, he tried the point of the blade on the rock, and found that this, while not very hard, was not friable enough to be excavated by so pliant a tool.
His thoughts turned at once to Mackenzie: perhaps he could find a more serviceable instrument. That night he placed in the bone the following note: "Work stopped: send a chisel." Next night he found in the bottom of the cleft, not a chisel, but a bar of iron slightly pointed at one end. Accompanying it was a note: "Hope this will serve. Let me know when near surface."
This implement he found to answer his purpose sufficiently well. From his perch on the top rung of the ladder he worked out two holes in the rock on opposite sides of the chimney; then with the knife he cut the proper length of bamboo, and thus fashioned a cross-bar on which he could stand to repeat the same operation higher up. In this way he made a series of steps enabling him to brush the dust, as before, from the top of the cavity after each employment of the rays. Only then did he acquaint Beresford with the difficulty and the manner in which it had been overcome.
The progress of the work was necessarily slower now. The cross-bars had to be removed after each ascent; otherwise at the next opening of the pit they would have been instantly destroyed. But the piercing went on steadily, and Forrester felt sure that, unless his calculations were very much out, his pole would in a few more days penetrate the roof of the chimney, and emerge through a hole in the floor of whatever room was immediately above him.
"Be very cautious," Beresford urged, when he learnt this good news. "To break through prematurely might be fatal to us all. Tell Mackenzie how things are, and ask for instructions."
"Yes. We shall have done our part. The rest will lie with him. I wonder what old Mac has been doing all this time?"
CHAPTER XVI
THE HOLE IN THE WALL
Mackenzie, meanwhile, had been playing a very busy and at the same time a very discreet part above ground, with timorous but efficient assistance from Hamid Gul. It was the latter who, at night, when all was quiet, stole from the kitchen into the passage, and tied the string to a bar of the golden grating, so cleverly that only the closest scrutiny could have detected it. Having ascertained by means of this device the whereabouts of Forrester, and the burrowing in which he and Beresford were engaged, Mackenzie, in his calm sagacious way, set himself to think out a plan for turning that work to account.
At first he decided to employ Hamid Gul only as postman. It was of vital importance that the Old Man should entertain no suspicion of his cook. There seemed little risk of Hamid's night-work at the grating being detected. An Indian servant moves more silently than a cat. On the other hand, if he pried and prowled in the pagoda or its precincts, for the purpose of discovering the means of access to the rift, or the other particulars about which Mackenzie was curious, he would almost certainly attract the notice of the Chinese, and ruin everything. For the same reason Mackenzie took care that his necessary meetings with Hamid should take place at different times of the day, at different spots, and in the utmost secrecy.
His own actions were dictated by shrewd policy. To begin with, he told Jackson no more, not that he distrusted him, but that he feared the possibility of his disclosing something if for any reason the priests should again practise their hypnotic powers on him. Then, he assumed in public the mien of a slave, utterly cowed, bereft of will power, who lived only to get through his appointed task, and had no other aim than to merit his masters' approval. So well did he act his part that after a few days' observation, the priests concluded that their taming process had been thoroughly effective, and paid no more attention to him than to any other of the men who toiled and sighed on the plateau. That the dejection which Mackenzie feigned was in Jackson's case real confirmed them in their delusion. Sher Jang, meanwhile, went about his tasks with philosophic submissiveness; but in his heart of hearts he believed that the sahibs, whose movements he watched unobtrusively, would some day get the better of the Chinese dogs, and he was ready instantly to obey the call which he felt would surely come.
When Mackenzie was satisfied that he was accounted well broken in, he took to roaming at night about the precincts of the pagoda. He had already settled in his mind that the way to the rift could lie only through the pagoda or one of the neighbouring buildings, and his chief aim must be to discover that. It was also of vital importance to find as nearly as possible the spot where the chimney would cut through the earth; one step towards that discovery was the knowledge that its base was fifty yards from the cleft, and therefore presumably from the grating in the passage. He had been much puzzled by the almost incessant knocking that proceeded in day-time from the low building behind the orchard, but dismissed that matter as of no account so far as he and his friends were concerned.
The wall enclosing the pagoda and its appurtenances was twelve feet in height: too high to look over, too smooth to scale. The gate by which Hamid issued to the fields was unlocked for him by a priest, and locked after him. Mackenzie meant to get inside the wall. It would not be difficult, perhaps, to make a ladder, but before taking this in hand he might as well see if there was a less ostentatious mode of entry.
Strolling at the rear of the orchard late one dark night, he was guided by the sound of running water to the stream which he and Forrester had observed on their first day upon the plateau. He followed the course of this, and discovered that it entered the enclosure on the north side by a culvert beneath the wall. The darkness rendered it impossible to measure with the eye the width and depth of the arch, but on stooping and feeling along the stonework, he found that the stream poured through an iron grating. Since the water was perfectly clear, the grating must have been designed, not as a strainer, but as a defence against intrusion. The Old Man was obviously a stickler for privacy.
Mackenzie pushed and shook the grating, to ascertain whether it was firmly fixed. It held fast, but slipping his hand under the water, he discovered that the submerged part was worn thin with long corrosion, and that there were several gaps in it where the iron had been completely rusted away. With a little exertion he managed to break off a considerable portion of the grating below water, leaving a space large enough for a man to crawl through. It had occurred to him at once that this was a safer means of getting inside than by a ladder, which would always make him a conspicuous object to anyone who chanced to be looking that way from the buildings.
There was no time like the present. Without removing his clothes, Mackenzie slipped into the stream, spread himself flat, and, taking a long breath, wriggled under water through the arch. When he stood up, he found that the top of the grating was considerably higher than his head, but that his head was higher than the earthen embankments of the stream on either side. The depth of the water was no more than three feet; but the embankments were no doubt intended to protect the buildings from flood in those seasons when the stream, swollen by the melting snow on the mountains, became a torrent.
Standing in the running water, he peered over the embankment on his right. The pagoda loomed up black against the sky some distance away. Between it and him were much lower buildings. No light was to be seen. All was quiet. He would have liked to push his exploration further, but felt that in his ignorance of the place the risk of mistake and detection was too great. Hamid's co-operation would be necessary if he was to profit by his secret entrance, and he resolved to come to an arrangement with the cook for the following night.
Returning to his hut by the same route, he stripped off his drenched clothes, spread them on the ground at the back, out of sight, to dry, rolled himself in his blanket, and was soon asleep.
"How far are your quarters from the wall?" he asked Hamid next day, meeting him among the raspberry canes.
"Thirty good paces, sahib," replied the man.
"I wish you to meet me to-night at the wall, where the stream flows under. Have you a clock?"
"An hour-glass, sahib."
"Then let the time be two hours after lock-up. And bring a blanket with you."
"I am your servant, sahib, but if I may humbly ask----"
"Ask nothing. You can get out quietly?"
"Truly, sahib, but if bald-head nabbed me----"
"Hech! Are you afraid? Have you ever seen any of them about after nightfall?"
"Answer to both questions in negative, sahib."
"Where do they sleep?"
"Other side of Old Man's house, sahib; also across garden on left."
"Very well then. You can slip out of your quarters at any time--that's so?"
"Quite O.K., sahib."
"Very well. Be at yon arch two hours after lock-up, with a dark blanket, you mind."
"I am your servant, sahib."
But Hamid asked himself with much trouble of mind what notion the Mac Sahib had in his noddle.
Jackson's curiosity had been awakened by Mackenzie's prolonged absence on the previous night.
"Where are you off to, Mac?" he asked, seeing his companion prepare to go out again into the dark.
"I'll bide a wee before I answer you, Bob. You can't help, and if I come a mucker the less you know about it the better."
On reaching the culvert, he stripped off all his clothes and laid them beneath a bush. Too many wettings would so alter their appearance, he thought, as to draw the attention of the priests. Naked he slipped into the water, crawled through the arch, and on lifting himself slightly, saw Hamid crouching beneath the shelter of the embankment. He quitted the stream, flung about him the dark-blue blanket which the Bengali had brought, and putting his fingers to his lips, motioned to Hamid to lead him along the watercourse.
[image]On lifting himself, he saw Hamid crouching beneath the shelter of the embankment.
[image]
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On lifting himself, he saw Hamid crouching beneath the shelter of the embankment.
Hamid was shivering with amazement and nervousness, but he obeyed in utter silence. They waded slowly through the stream, whose gurgling drowned the sound of their own movements. Presently they ducked to avoid a low bridge that led from one part of the grounds to the other. The dull thud of footsteps brought them to a sudden halt, and they crouched under the bridge, listening anxiously as the walker passed over their heads. They caught a glimmer of light, and as the footsteps receded, Mackenzie peeped out, and saw a priest, swinging a small lantern, moving towards a building a good distance on their left. He entered it, and disappeared.
"Last man out!" whispered Hamid.
After waiting a few minutes, they continued their way along the stream. It flowed through a wide inner enclosure, in which were scattered a number of small structures like summer-houses. Two slight bridges spanned the stream, and here and there were irregular masses which in the darkness could not be clearly distinguished, but which appeared to be rockeries. Quaintly shaped bushes outlined their dark forms against the walls of the distant buildings. Mackenzie concluded that this was either the Old Man's private garden, or the garden of the priests. Hamid could not tell him; he had been strictly forbidden to stray in this direction, or even to look over the low wall that surrounded the enclosure.
The watercourse was not straight. It turned now to the right, now to the left; its general course carried it obliquely across the garden, towards the angle of the wall. Thus the buildings on the right were not parallel with it. Mackenzie stopped, to take his bearings. Hamid pointed out his own quarters, the kitchen adjoining, and the wall of the passage connecting with the dwelling of the Old Man. The pagoda reared itself high above the other buildings. Beyond it lay the barrack-like lodgings of the first order of priests; those of the second order were on the opposite side of the enclosure, and were approached by means of the bridges.
"How far along the passage is the grating?" Mackenzie asked in a whisper.
"About half-way, sahib."
"And on which side?"
"Side nearest us, to be sure, sahib."
"Wait here for me, and hold this."
He placed in Hamid's hands the end of a coil of string, climbed over the embankment, and made his way with stealthy speed towards the middle point of the passage wall, as nearly as he could judge it, paying out the string as he went. On reaching the wall, he turned swiftly back, coiling the string round his finger. When he regained Hamid's side, he knew that the distance between the wall and this point of the embankment was a little more than sixty yards. The chimney which his friends were cutting would reach the surface somewhere on the circumference of a circle of which the middle of the wall was the centre, and which would come within about ten yards of his present position. He followed that imaginary line with his eye. It passed close to one of the summer-houses, ran across a bed of plants, then over the grass on which he had walked, touched the embankment some yards to the right, owing to the oblique course of this, and finally reached a point near the door of the cook's lean-to. To gauge the position of the chimney more precisely was impossible, because, though he knew that it was on the near side of the passage, he knew no more than that it was fifty yards from the grating.
Making a mental note of the course of the circumference on which lay the locus of the hole sometime to be pierced, he considered for a few moments whether to steal towards the door of the pagoda, and try to discover whether it was guarded. But by this time he was shivering with cold. His reconnaissance had not been unfruitful, and he decided to return at once to his hut. He parted from Hamid at the culvert, handed him the blanket, again entered his cold bath, and picking up his clothes, ran lightly over the ground to his lodging. Only on those two night expeditions had he taken off his clothes since his departure from the village in the forest.
Next morning Hamid handed him a note which he had drawn up in the bone. It was the longest he had yet received: Forrester had grown bolder, more reckless, perhaps, with the lapse of time. It read: "Always light below. Can't tell when it becomes dark outside. Give us a sign."
"Things are moving," he thought. "They are afraid of cutting through in the daylight. How in the world can I give them a sign? Hamid lets down the bone at all hours. Ah, well, I must think it out."
CHAPTER XVII
THE CARNIVORE
As Forrester mounted higher into the chimney, he worked with ever increasing caution. To allow the rays to break a passage through before everything was ready for joint action with his friends above would be disastrous. Another possible mischance was even more alarming. The ground might cave in prematurely by its own weight, or the weight of somebody passing over it. The result might be to hurl him on to the frail screen below, and through it into the pit.
To guard against such accidents he listened intently at each ascent, before he brushed away the protective dust. Once he thought he heard distant footfalls; another time the sound of running water. He wished that Mackenzie had been more communicative about what he was doing, and what he had discovered; but reflected that if his friend was silent, it was because, with Scotch canniness, he was determined to risk as little as possible, for the sake of all.
He waited patiently for the sign by which he would know when darkness fell in the open. The bone, no doubt, could be dropped only at uncertain intervals, as opportunity offered. Even if he knew that it would be let down precisely at the hour of sunset, he could not be sure of being then on the watch at the cleft, for it was not his duty to enter the inner cavern at all; his secret work there had been done only when guards and prisoners were asleep, and that was probably much later than sunset.
One day, Beresford, just before he had finished his task at the pit, and while Forrester was awaiting him in the outer cavern, noticed a trickle of water running from the inner passage towards him. While he was still looking at it in surprise, wondering where it came from, it was reinforced by a sudden swell, which carried the tiny stream across the floor of the cavern in a direct course for the open pit. By the time it reached the brink it had almost exhausted its energy; but some of it flowed slowly on, and poured over. Instantly there was a terrific explosion, like the bursting of an immense inflated bag, accompanied by a flash of white light which for the moment wholly conquered the green. Beresford was hurled against the wall of the cavern, and when he picked himself up, he saw that the force of the concussion had shut the screen down upon the pit, gripping the gold chain to which was suspended the plate in process of transmutation.
It was all over in a moment; but Beresford had hardly recovered his senses when Forrester came hurrying into the cavern, through the cloud of dust which had followed the explosion, with Wing Wu and the priest in charge hard on his heels.
Forrester had just time to give a word of warning. When the priest arrived, Beresford had sufficient presence of mind to explain in Chinese that while the cover was lifted from the mouth of the pit there had been a loud bang. He did not mention the stream of water; it had now ceased to flow, and though its appearance had amazed him, and in his half-dazed condition he attached no definite meaning to it, he felt instinctively that it had a meaning for himself and his fellow prisoners.
The priest looked puzzled. The dust had set him coughing. He peered through it round the walls, remaining at a discreet distance from the pit, and thus failing to notice the dwindling trickle on the farther side. The atmosphere of the cavern, at all times unpleasant and oppressive, was stifling now. In a few moments everybody was retreating along the passage to the outer cavern, Beresford remaining only to release the chain, draw up the plate, and lower the apparently uninjured screen firmly into its place. The negritos were just bringing in the evening meal.
"Are you hurt?" Forrester asked anxiously.
"Slightly bruised, perhaps; nothing serious."
"What on earth caused the explosion?"
"A trickle of water into the pit. Where it came from----"
"That was the sign!" exclaimed Forrester aloud, knowing that the priest could not understand him. But Wing Wu understood.
"What sign, sir?" he asked eagerly.
"Shall we tell him?" said Beresford.
Forrester hesitated for a moment.
"Not yet," he answered.
Wing Wu sighed, and turned away.
The priest at the entrance was joined by a second, drawn by the noise from the guard-room beyond the lake. They talked together for a few minutes, then the second man departed.
"He will tell the Old Man, no doubt," said Forrester to his companion.
"Yes; things are coming to a crisis. The water was our sign, no doubt. It could hardly have been accidental. Mackenzie must have thrown a bucketful or two through the grating. It is dark outside at about the time of our last meal."
"Do you think the priests suspect us?"
"Who can say what goes on in their Chinese minds? The fellow didn't see the water: that is pretty certain. But I am troubled. In the chimney you heard running water above you, you said?"
"I am almost sure of it--perhaps the stream that runs across the plateau."
"If our chimney pierces its bed, we are doomed. There is not the ghost of a chance for us. The explosion you heard will be as a popgun to a whole Dreadnought armament in comparison with the result if the cavern is flooded. I take it that the water which fell into the pit was instantly decomposed by the rays. Only a little trickled over the brink; yet the explosion was powerful enough to hurl me against the wall. If water pours down in any volume, the whole place will be shattered, and we shall be cremated instantly in one enormous flame."
"Will you go up the chimney yourself presently, and see if I was right?" asked Forrester, aghast at the thought of this cataclysm.
"I will try. Thanks to you I am not nearly so much crocked as I was a few days ago. But we will wait a little longer than usual, to give the priest time to settle down if he is at all suspicious.... You were quite right, by the way, not to let me explain things to Wing Wu. He is so easily hypnotised that he might betray us at the first question. It will be time enough to tell him when our work is done."
Several hours later, they stole into the inner cavern, and when Forrester had placed the cross-bars in position, Beresford mounted the ladder, and climbed laboriously into the chimney from bar to bar. He carried the piece of pointed iron, with which he carefully probed the roof. Withdrawing the implement, he passed his fingers along it from the pointed end downwards.
"We are very near the surface," he called down softly. "You have destroyed all the rock. The iron has gone through two or three inches of clay, and then into loose earth. We can't risk employing the rays again. If the earth above collapsed en masse, it would smash through the screen and carry us with it into the pit. We must bore a hole gradually with the iron."
"What about the water?" Forrester asked.
Beresford listened intently, Forrester standing below with his hand on the ladder.
"Yes," said Beresford at length, "you are right. But it appears to be at one side, not directly overhead. Ah! there are footsteps. Listen!"
They kept absolute silence. The dull thud of footsteps overhead was clearly audible. Forrester looked up at his friend, dimly visible high above him. His attention was so fully concentrated that a slight sound behind caused him to jump round with a sudden start. And there, in the entrance to the cavern, he saw the priest, peering up towards the hole in which the ladder rested.
[image]There he saw the priest, peering up towards the hole in which the ladder rested.
[image]
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There he saw the priest, peering up towards the hole in which the ladder rested.
In after years Forrester often felt a quickening of the pulse as he tried to piece together the confused sequence of events in the next crowded minute. Whether he shouted to warn his companion before the Chinaman swung round and dashed back along the passage, or whether the Chinaman fled first and his cry followed, he could never distinctly recollect. All that he could remember was that, impelled by an instinctive feeling that the priest must be caught and silenced, he sprang like a tiger towards the intruder. Probably the fact was that the priest, being on the alert, had already turned before Forrester dashed after him, for he had a lead of several yards up the narrow passage.
Forrester was the younger and the fleeter of the two. Weeks of life in the mephitic atmosphere of the underworld, indeed, had slackened his muscles and lowered his nervous energy; his wind came short; but at this perilous crisis he seemed to regain all the athletic vigour which had served him so well on the football field in years gone by. When the priest dashed into the outer cavern, Forrester was only a few yards in the rear.
The former, feeling no doubt that he had now desperate men to deal with, rushed straight across to the entrance, where he might expect to find the negrito guards ready to support him. The little men, however, startled out of their wits by a sight which never, in all their years of servitude, had they beheld before, stood like stockfish, gazing amazedly at the two figures swiftly approaching them. When he reached them, the Chinaman appeared to realise instantly that he could place no reliance on men so palsied. He darted between them, turned to the right, and ran as fast as his long robe would allow along the ledge leading to the ward-room on the other side of the lake.
Crossing the cavern Forrester had gained on him. At the entrance he was barely two yards behind. He flashed past the astounded negritos, swung round on to the ledge, came up with his quarry just as he reached the plank bridge, and making a spring forward, caught him round the waist, as he had tackled many a man in pursuit of the oval ball. The Chinaman, however, although less agile, was of heavier build, and by sheer strength and weight he began to haul Forrester along the bridge towards the further ledge, at the end of which his colleague and the negrito guards were already massing.
Forrester clung to him desperately, tried to drag upon him by digging ineffectual heels into the plank; but with the cavern wall on his right, and only two feet of planking to manoeuvre on, he found that inch by inch he was being pulled into the jaws of danger. The Chinaman was clutching at the crazy handrail for purchase in hauling his tenacious grappler along. In a few seconds Forrester must either release him, or fall a captive into remorseless hands. Despair struck a spark in his darkening mind. There was one chance--one, and no more!
Bracing his right leg, he threw the whole weight of the Chinaman and himself against the balustrade. It creaked; there was the snap of breaking timber. Forrester released his man and drew quickly back. The priest fell with a great splash into the green oily waters of the lake.
By this time the startled company at the remote end of the ledge were beginning to advance. A spear whizzed past Forrester's ear. To protect himself, he wrenched away a piece of the broken handrail. With this club he could ward off a missile or crack a skull. Facing the enemy, he retreated with wary footsteps along the bridge. The priest, leading on his negritos, came striding along the ledge, his parchmenty features grimacing with rage.
Forrester was trembling in every limb. The sudden spurt, the muscular strain, had told heavily upon his debilitated body. And again despair seized upon his soul as he realised that his efforts after all had been made in vain. Before long the priest now menacing him would hurry to acquaint the Old Man with this revolt of the prisoners. They would be taken aloft, and then--the Eye!
But all speculation was suddenly shocked out of his mind by a tragic sequel, unlooked-for, terrible.
The Chinaman was still floundering beneath the bridge.
Swift and silent, from out the sombre spaces of the lake there slid a something huge and hideous--a Shape. A glint of greenish light in cruel eyes; a flash of gleaming teeth in jaws like those of a mammoth dog-fish; a shriek of terror and despair; then silence, and a slow heaving of the waters. The Monster had claimed his ancient right!