THE HOODED DEATH
The causeway down which the horsemen of forgotten kings of Khandawar
had clattered forth to war, in its age-old desuetude had come to decay.
Between its great paving blocks grass sprouted, and here and there
creepers and even trees had taken root and in the slow immutable
process of their growth had displaced considerable masses of stone; so
that there were pitfalls to be avoided. Otherwise a litter of rubble
made the walking anything but good. Amber picked his way with caution,
grumbling.
The grade was rather more steep than it had seemed to be from the
plain. Now and then he stopped to regain his breath and scrub a
handkerchief over his forehead, on which sweat had started despite the
cold. At such times his gaze would seek inevitably and involuntarily,
the lotus-pointed pinnacle whereon the Eye was poised, blazing. Its
baleful emerald glare coloured his mood unpleasantly. He had a fancy
that the thing was actually watching him. The sensation was creepy.
For that matter, nothing that met his eye was calculated to instil
cheer into his heart. Desolation worked with silence sensibly upon his
thoughts, so that he presently made the alarming discovery that the
bottom had dropped completely out of his stock of scepticism, leaving
him seriously in danger of becoming afraid of the dark. Scowling over
this, he stumbled on, telling himself that he was a fool: a conclusion
so patent that neither then nor thereafter at any time did he find
reason to dispute it.
After some three-quarters of an hour of hard climbing he came to the
wooden bridge, and halted, surveying it with mistrust. Doubtless in the
olden time a substantial but movable structure, strong enough to
sustain a troop of warriors but light enough to be easily drawn up, had
extended across the chasm, rendering the city impregnable from capture
by assault. If so, it had long since been replaced by an airy and
well-ventilated latticework of boards and timbers, none of which seemed
to the wary eye any too sound. Amber selected the most solid-looking of
the lot and gingerly advanced a pace or two along it. With a soft
crackling a portion of the timber crumbled to dust beneath his feet. He
retreated hastily to the causeway, and swore, and noticed that the Eye
was watching him with malevolent interest, and swore some more.
Entirely on impulse he heaved a bit of rock, possibly twenty pounds in
weight, to the middle of the structure. There followed a splintering
crash and the contraption dissolved like a magic-lantern effect,
leaving a solitary beam about a foot in width and six or eight inches
thick, spanning a flight of twenty and a drop of sixty feet. The river
received the rubbish with several successive splashes, distinctly
disconcerting, and Amber sat down on a boulder to think it over.
"Clever invention," he mused; "one'd think that, after taking all this
trouble to get me here, they'd changed their minds about wanting me.
I've a notion to change mine." He looked up at the cusped and
battlemented gateway opposite him, shifted his regard to the Eye, and
shook his fist vindictively at the latter. "If ever I get hold of the
chap that invented you...!" An ingenious imagination failing to suggest
any form of torture commensurate with the crime, he relapsed into
gloomy meditation.
There seemed to be no possibility of turning back at that stage,
however. Kuttarpur was rather far away, and, moreover, he doubted if he
would be permitted to return. Having come thus far, he must go on.
Moreover, Sophia Farrell was on the other side of that Swordwide
Bridge, and such being the case, cross it he would though he were to
find the next world at its end. Finally he considered that he was
presently to undergo an Ordeal of some unknown nature, probably
extremely unpleasant, and that this matter of the vanishing bridge must
have been arranged in order to put him in a properly subdued and
tractable frame of mind.
He got up and tested the remaining girder with circumspection and
incredulity; but it seemed firm enough, solidly embedded in the
stonework of the causeway and immovable at the city end. So he
straddled it and, averting his eyes from the scenery beneath him,
hitched ingloriously across, collecting splinters and a very distinct
impression that, as a vocation, knight-errantry was not without its
drawbacks.
When again he stood on his feet he was in the shadow of the outer
gateway, the curtain of the second wall confronting him. The stillness
remained unbroken but the moonlight illuminated with startling
distinctness the frescoes, half obliterated by time, and they were
monstrous, revolting and obscene, from a Western point of view. A
bastion of the third wall hid the Eye, however; he was grateful for
that.
Casting about, he discovered the second gateway at some distance to the
left, and started toward it, forcing a way through a tangle of scrubby
undergrowth, weeds, and thorny acacia, but had taken few steps ere a
heavy splash in the river below brought him up standing, with a
thumping heart. After an irresolute moment he turned back to see for
himself, and found his apprehension only too well grounded; the
Swordwide Bridge was gone, displaced by an agency which had been prompt
to seek cover--though he confessed himself unable to suggest where that
cover had been found. There was no one visible on the causeway, and
nobody skulked in the shadows of the bastions of the main gate.
Furthermore it seemed hardly possible that in so scant a space of time
human hands could have worked that heavy beam out of its sockets. And
if the hands had been human (of course any other hypothesis were
ridiculous) what had become of their owners?
He gave it up, considering that it were futile to badger his wits for
the how and the wherefore. The important fact remained that he was a
prisoner in dead Kathiapur, his retreat cut off, and--Here he made a
second discovery, infinitely more shocking: his pistol was gone.
Amber remembered distinctly examining the weapon in Dulla Dad's boat,
since when he had found no occasion to think of it. Now either it had
jolted out of his pocket in that wild ride from Kuttarpur, or else
Naraini had managed deftly to abstract it while in his arms by the
summer palace, or when, later, she had shrunk against him in real or
affected terror of the Eye. Of the two explanations his reason favoured
the second. But he made no audible comment, though his thoughts were as
black as his brow and as grimly fashioned as the set of his jaw.
Turning back at length he made his way to the second gateway and from
it to the third, under the lewdly sculptured arch of which he stopped
and gasped, forgetting himself as for the first time Kathiapur the
Fallen was revealed to him in all the awful beauty of its naked
desolation.
A wide and stately avenue stretched away from the portals, between rows
of dwellings, palaces of marble and stone, tombs and mausoleums, with
meaner houses of sun-dried brick and rubble, roofless all and
disintegrating in the slow, terrible process of the years. Here a wall
had caved in, there an arch had fallen out. The thoroughfare was strewn
with fallen lintels, broken marble screens, blocks of red sandstone,
bricks, and in between them the fig and pipal nourished with the
bebel-thorn, the ak, the mimosa, the insidious convolvulus twining
everywhere. At the far end of the street a yawning black arch rose in
the white, beautiful façade of a marble temple on whose uppermost
pinnacle the Eye hovered, staring horridly.
As Amber moved forward small, alert ghosts rose from the undergrowth
and scurried silently thence: a circumstance which made him very
unhappy. Even a brilliant chorus of sharp barks from an adjacent street
failed to convince him that he had merely disturbed a pack of jackals,
after all, and not the disconsolate brooding wraiths of those who had
died and been buried in the imposing ruined tombs, what time Kathiapur
boasted ten thousand swords and elephants by the herd.
The way was difficult and Amber tired. After a while, having seen
nothing but the jackals, an owl or two, several thousand bats and a
crawling thing which had lurched along in the shadow of a wall some
distance away, giving an admirable imitation of a badly wounded man
pulling himself over the ground, and making strange gutteral
noises--Amber concluded to wait for the guide Naraini had promised him.
He turned aside and seated himself upon the edge of a broken sandstone
tomb. The silence was appalling and for relief he took refuge in cheap
irreverence. "Home," he observed aloud, "never was like this."
A heart-rending sigh from the tomb behind him was followed by a rattle
of dislodged rubbish. Amber found himself unexpectedly in the middle of
the street and, without stopping to debate the method of his getting
there with such unprecedented rapidity, looked back hopefully to the
tomb. At the same moment a black-shrouded figure swept out of it and
moved a few paces down the street, then paused and beckoned him with a
gaunt arm. "I wish," said Amber earnestly, "I had that gun."
The figure was apparently that of a native swathed in black from his
head to his heels and seemed the more strikingly peculiar in view of
the fact that, as far as Amber could determine, he had neither eyes nor
features although his head was without any sort of covering. He gulped
over the proposition for an instant, then stepped forward.
"Evidently my appointed cicerone," he considered. "Unquestionably this
ghost-dance is excellently stage-managed.... Though, of course, I _had_
to pick out that particular tomb."
He followed in the wake of the figure, which sped on with a singular
motion, something between a walk and a glide, conscious that his
equanimity had been restored rather than shaken by the incident. "You
wouldn't think," he reflected, "that a man like Salig Singh would lend
himself to anything so childish. Still, I'm not through with it yet."
He conceived a scheme to steal up behind his guide and strip him of his
masquerade, but though he mended his pace he got no nearer, and
eventually abandoned it on the consideration that it was probably most
inadvisable. After all, he had to remember that he was there for a
purpose, and a very serious one, and that properly to further that
purpose he must comport himself with dignity, submissively, accepting,
at least with a show of ease, each new development of the affair along
its prearranged lines. And so he held on in pursuit of the black
shadow, passing forsaken temples and lordly pleasure-houses, all marble
tracery and fretwork, standing apart in what had once been noble
gardens, sunken tanks all weed-grown and rank with slime, humbler
dooryards and cots on whose hearthstones the fires for centuries had
been cold--his destination evidently the temple of the unspeakable Eye.
As they drew nearer the leading shadow forsook the shade of the walls
which he had seemed to favour, sweeping hastily across a plaza white
with moonglare and without pause on into the black, gaping hole beyond
the marble arch.
Here for the first time Amber hung back, stopping a score of feet from
the door, his nerves a-jangle. He did not falter in his purpose; he was
going to enter the inky portal, but ... would he ever leave it? And the
world was still sweet to him. His quick, darting gaze registered a
dozen impressions in as many seconds: of the silver splendour spilled
so lavishly upon the soulless corpse of the city, of the high, bright
sky, of dead black shadows sharp-edged against the radiance, of the
fleet flitting spectre that was really a flying-fox....
Afar a hyena laughed with a sardonic intonation wholly uncalled-for--it
was blood-curdling, besides. And down the street a melancholy air
breathed gently, sighing like a soul astray.
"This won't do," he told himself; "it can't be worse inside than out
here."
He took firm hold of his reason and went on across the dark threshold,
took three uncertain strides into the limitless unknown, and pulled up
short, hearing nothing, unable to see a yard before him. Then with a
terrific crash like a thunder-clap the great doors swung to behind him.
He whirled about with a stifled cry, conscious of a mad desire to find
the doors again, took a step or two toward them, paused to wonder if he
were moving in the right direction, moved a little to the left, half
turned, and was lost. Reverberating, the echoes of the crash rolled far
away and back again, diminishing in volume, dying until they were no
more than as a whisper adrift in the silence, until that was gone....
Profound night enveloped him, vast, breathless, without dimensions. One
can endure the blackness that abides within four well-kenned walls; but
night unrelieved by the least gleam of light, night without bounds or
measurements, enfolding one like a stifling blanket and instilling into
the brain the fear of nameless things, quickening the respiration and
oppressing the heart--that is another thing entirely, and that is what
Amber found in the Temple of the Bell. Darkness swam visibly before his
eyes, like a fluid. The sound of his constrained breathing seemed most
loud and unnatural. He could hear his heart rumbling like a distant
drum.
Digging his nails into his palms, he waited; and in the suspense of
dread began to count the seconds.
One minute ... two ... three ... four....
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other....
Seven ...
He passed a hand across his face and brought it away wet with
perspiration....
Nine ...
In some remote spot a bell began to toll; at first slowly--_clang_!...
_clang_!... _clang_!--then more quickly, until the roar of its
sonorous, gong-like tones seemed to fill all the world and to set it
a-tremble. Then, insensibly, the tempo became more sedate, the fierce
clamour of it moderated, and Amber abruptly was alive to the fact that
the bell was _speaking_--that its voice, deep, clear, sound, metallic,
was rolling forth again and again a question couched in purest
Sanskrit:
"_Who is there_?... _Who is there_?... _Who is there_?..."
The hair lifted on his scalp and he swallowed hard in the effort to
answer; but the lie stuck in his throat: he was not Rutton and ... and
it is very hard to lie effectively when you stand in stark darkness
with a mouth dry as dust and your hair stirring at the roots because of
the intensely impersonal and aloof accents of an inhuman Bell-voice,
tolling away out of Nowhere.
"_Who is there_?"
Again he failed to answer. Somewhere near him he heard a slight noise
as of a man moving impatiently; and then a whisper: "Respond, thou
fool!"
"Art thou come, O Chosen of the Gateway?" the Bell-voice rang.
"I ... I am come," Amber managed to reply. And so still and small
sounded his own voice in the huge spaces of the place that he was
surprised to find he had been heard.
"Hear ye!" rang the Bell. "Hear ye, O Lords and Rulers in Medhyama! O
Children of my Gateway, hear ye well! He is come! He stands upon the
threshold of the Gateway!"
Resonant, the echoes of those awe-inspiring tones died upon the
stillness, and in response a faint sighing rose and, momentarily
growing in volume, became as the roaring of a mighty wind; and suddenly
it was abrupted, leaving only a ringing in the ears.
A great drum roared like the crack of Doom; and Amber's jaw dropped.
For in the high roof of the temple a six-foot slab had been noiselessly
withdrawn, and through it a cold shaft of moonlight fell, cutting the
gloom like a gigantic rapier, and smote with its immaculate radiance
the true Gateway of Swords.
Not six paces from him it leaped out of the darkness in an iridescent
sheen: an arch a scant ten feet in height, and in span double the width
of a big man's shoulders, woven across like a weaver's frame with
ribbons of pale fire. But the ribbons were of steel--steel blades,
sharp, bright, gleaming: a countless array of curved tulwars and
crescent scimetars, broad jataghans, short and ugly kukurees, long
kutars with straight ends, slender deadly patas, snake-like bichwas;
swords with jewelled hilts and engraved and damascened blades; sabres
with channels cut from point to guard wherein small pearls ran singing;
khands built for service and for parade; swords of every style and
period in all the history of India. With their pommels cunningly
affixed so that their points touched and interlaced, yet swung free,
they lined the piers of the arch from base to span and all the graceful
sweep of the intrados, a curtain of shimmering, trembling steel,
barring the way to the Mystery beyond. Which was--darkness.
"O ye Swords!" belled the Voice.... "O ye Swords that have known no
dishonour! O ye Swords that have sung in the grasp of my greatest!
Swords of Jehangar, Akbar, Alamgir! Swords of Alludin, Humayun, Shah
Jehan! Swords of Timur-Leng, Arungzeb, Rao Rutton!..."
The invocation seemed interminable. Amber recognised almost every name
noted in the annals and legends of Hindustan....
"Hearken, O my Swords! He, thy Chosen, prayeth for entry! What is thy
welcome?"
One by one the blades began to shiver, clashing their neighbours, until
the curtain of steel glimmered and glistened like phosphorescence in a
summer sea, and the place was filled with the music of their contact;
and through their clamour boomed the Bell:
"O my Chosen!" Amber started and held himself firmly in hand. "Look
well, look well! Here is thy portal to kingship and glory!"
He frowned and took a step forward as if he would throw himself through
the archway; for he had suddenly remembered with compelling vividness
that Sophia Farrell was to be won only by that passage. But as he moved
the swords clattered afresh and swung outwards, presenting a bristle of
points. And he stopped, while the Voice, indifferent and remote as
always, continued to harangue him.
"If thy heart, O my Chosen, be clean, unsullied with fear and guile; if
thy faith be the faith of thy fathers and thy honour rooted in love of
thy land; if thou hast faith in the strength of thy hands to hold the
reins of Empire ... enter, having no fear."
"Trick-work," he told himself. He set his teeth with determination.
"Hope they don't see fit to cut me to pieces on suspicion. Here goes."
He moved forward with a firm step until his bosom all but touched the
points.
Instantaneously, with another clash as of cymbals, the blades were
deflected and returned to their first position, closing the way. He
hesitated. Then, "That shan't stop me!" he said through his teeth, and
pushed forward, heart in mouth. He breasted the curtain and felt it
give; the blades yielded jealously, closing round his body like cold
caressing arms; he felt their chill kisses on his cheeks and hands,
even through his clothing he was conscious of their clinging, deadly
touch. Abruptly they swung entirely away, leaving the entrance clear,
and he was drawing a free breath when the moon glare showed him the
swords returned to position with the speed of light. He jumped for his
life and escaped being slashed to pieces by the barest inch. They swung
to behind him; and again the drum roared, while afar there arose a
furious, eldritch wailing of conches. Overhead the opening disappeared
and the light was shut out. In darkness as of the Hall of Eblis the
conches were stilled and the echoes ebbed into a silence that held sway
for many minutes ere again the Bell spoke.
"Stretch forth thy hand."
Somewhat shaken, Amber held out an open palm before him. A second time
the gusty sighing arose and breathed through the night, increasing
until the very earth beneath him seemed to rock with the magnitude of
the sound, until, at its highest, it ceased and was as if it had not
been; not even an echo sang its passing. Then out of nothingness
something plopped into Amber's hand and his fingers closed convulsively
about it. It was a hand, very small, small as a child's, gnarled and
hard as steel and cold as ice.
Amber sunk his teeth into his lower lip and subdued an almost
uncontrollable impulse to scream and fling the thing away; for his
sense of touch told him that the hand was dead. And yet he became
sensible that it was tugging at his own, and he yielded to its
persuasion, permitting himself to be led on for so long a journey that
his fingers clasping the little hand grew numb with cold ere it was
over. He could by no means say whither he was being conducted, but was
conscious of a long, gradual descent. Many times he swept his free arm
out round him, but touched nothing.
Abruptly the guiding hand was twisted away. He stopped incontinently,
and possessed himself with what patience he could muster throughout
another long wait tempered by strange sibilant whisperings and
rustlings in the void all about him.
Without any forewarning two heavy hands gripped him, one on either
shoulder, and he was forced to his knees. At the same instant, with a
snapping crackle a spurt of blue flame shot down from the zenith, and
where it fell with a thunderclap a dazzling glare of emerald light shot
up breasthigh.
To his half-blinded eyes it seemed, for a time, to dance suspended in
the air before him. A vapour swirled up from it, a thin cloud,
luminous. By degrees he made out its source, a small, brazen bowl on a
tripod.
A confusion of hushed voices swelled as had the sound of that mighty,
rushing, impalpable wind, and died more slowly.
Conscious that his features were in strong light, he strove to exhibit
an impassiveness that belied his temper; then glancing round beneath
lowered eyelids he sought to determine something of the nature of his
surroundings, but could see little. The hands had left his shoulders
the minute his knees touched the floor; he knelt utterly alone in the
middle of what seemed to be a vast hall, or cavern, of which the size
was but faintly suggested. As his eyes became accustomed to the
chiaroscuro he became aware of monstrous images of stone that appeared
to advance from and retreat to the far walls on either hand as the
green light flared and fell, and of a great silent and motionless
concourse of people grouped about the massive pedestals--a crowd as
contained and impassive as the gods that towered above its heads,
blending into the gloom that shrouded the high roof of the place.
In front of him he could see nothing beyond the noiselessly wavering
flame. But presently a hand appeared, as if by magic, above the bowl--a
hand, bony, brown, and long of finger, that seemed attached to
nothing--and cast something like a powder into the fire. There followed
a fizz and puff of vapour, and a strong and heady gust of incense was
wafted into Amber's face. Again and again the hand appeared, sprinkling
powder in the brazier, until the smoke clouded the atmosphere with its
fluent, eddying coils.
The gooseflesh that had pricked out on Amber's skin subsided, and his
qualms went with it. "Greek fire burning in a bowl," he explained the
phenomenon; "and a native with his arm wrapped to the wrist in black is
feeding it. Not a bad effect, though."
It was, perhaps, as well that he had not been deceived, for there was a
horror to come that required all his strength to face. He became
conscious that something was moving between him and the
brazier--something which he had incuriously assumed to be a piece of
dirty cloth left there carelessly. But now he saw it stir, squirm, and
upend, unfolding itself and lifting its head to the leaping flame: an
immense cobra, sleek and white as ivory, its swelling hood as large as
a man's two hands, with a binocular mark on it as yellow as topaz, and
with vicious eyes glowing like twin rubies in its vile little head.
Amber's breath clicked in his throat and he shrank back, rising; but
this instinctive move had been provided against and before his knees
were fairly off the rocky floor he was forced down again by the hands
on his shoulders. He was unable to take his eyes from the monster, and
though terror such as man is heir to lay cold upon his heart, he did
not again attempt to stir.
There was now no sound. Alone and undisturbed the bleached viper warmed
to its dance with the pulsing flame, turning and twisting, weaving and
writhing in its infernal glare....
"Hear ye, O my peoples!"
Amber jumped. The Voice had seemed to ring out from a point directly
overhead.
He looked up and discovered above him, vague in the obscurity, the
outlines of a gigantic bell, hanging motionless. The green glare,
shining on its rim and partly illumining its empty hollow (he saw no
clapper) revealed the sheen of the bronze of which it was fashioned.
Out of its immense bowl, the Voice rolled like thunder:
"Hear ye, O my peoples!"
A responsive murmur ascended from the company round the walls:
"We hear! We hear, O Medhyama!"
"Mark well this man, O Children of my Gateway! Mark well! Out of ye all
have I chosen him to lead thee in the work of healing; for I thy
Mother, I Medhyama, I Bharuta, I the Body from which ye are sprung,
call me by whatever name ye know me--I am laid low with a great
sickness.... Yea, I am stricken and laid low with a sickness."
A great and bitter wailing arose from the multitude.
"Yea, I am overcome with a faintness, and my strength is gone out from
me, and my limbs are as water; I am sick with a fever and languish; in
my veins runs the Evil like fire and like poison; and I burn and am
stricken; I toss in my torment and murmur, and the sound of my Voice
has come to thine ears. Ye have heard me and answered. The tale of my
sufferings is known to ye. Say, shall I perish?"
In the brazier the flame leaped high and subsided, and with it the
cobra leaped and sank low upon its coils. From the people a mighty
shout of negation went up, so that the walls rang with it, and the
echoes were bandied back and forth, insensibly decreasing through many
minutes. When all was still the Voice began to chant again, and the
flames blazed higher and brighter, while the cobra resumed its mystic
dance.
Amber knelt on in a semi-stupor, staring glassily at the light and the
serpent.
"I, thine old Mother, have called ye together to help in my healing.
From my feet to my head I am eaten with pestilence; yea, I am devoured
and possessed by the Evil. Even of old was it thus with thy Mother;
long since she complained of the Plague that is Scarlet--moaned and
cried out and turned in her misery.... But ye failed me. Then my
peoples were weaklings and their hearts all were craven; the Scarlet
Evil dismayed them; they fled from its power and left it to batten on
me in my sickness."
A deep groan welled in uncounted throats and resounded through the
cavern.
"Will ye fail me again, O my Children?"
"Nay, nay, O our Mother!"
"Too long have I suffered and been patient in silence. Now must I be
cleansed and made whole as of old time; yea, I must be purged
altogether and the Evil cast out from me. It is time.... Ye have heard,
ye have answered; make ready, for the day of the cleansing approacheth.
Whet thy swords for the days of the healing, for my cleansing can be
but by steel. Yea, thy swords shall do away with the Evil, and the land
shall run red with the blood of Bharuta, the blood of thy Mother; it
shall run to the sea as a river, bearing with it the Red Evil. So and
no otherwise shall I, thine old Mother, be healed and made whole
again."
"Aye, aye, O our Mother!"
The flames, dying, rose once more, and the Voice continued, but with a
change of temper. It was now a clarion call, stirring the blood like
martial music.
"Ye shall show me your swords for a token.... Swords of the North, are
ye ready?"
"We are ready, old Mother!"
With a singing shiver of steel, all around the walls, in knots and
clusters, naked blades leaped up, flashing.
"Swords of the East, are ye loyal?"
"Aye, old Mother!"
And the tally of swords was doubled.
"Swords of the South, are ye thirsty?"
A third time the crashing response shattered the echoes.
"Swords of the West, do ye love me?"
With the fourth ringing shout and showing of steel, a silence fell. The
walls were veritably hedged with quivering blades, all a-gleam in the
ghastly glare of green. Over the sculptured faces of the great idols
flickering shadows played, so that they seemed to move and grimace, as
if with approbation.
Amber was watching the serpent--dazed and weary as if with a great need
of sleep. Even the salvos of shouts came to him as from a great
distance. To the clangour of the Bell alone he had become abnormally
sensitive; every fibre of his being shuddered, responsive to its weird
nuances.
It returned to its solemn and stately intoning.
"Out of ye all have I chosen and fixed upon one who shall lead ye.
Through him shall my strength be made manifest, my Will be made known
to my peoples. Him must ye serve and obey; to him must ye bow down and
be humble. Say, are ye pleased? Will ye have him, my Children?"
Without an instant's delay a cry of ratification rang to the roof.
"Yea, O our Mother! Him we will serve and obey, to him bow down and be
humble."
The Voice addressed itself directly to the kneeling man. He stiffened
and roused.
"Thou hast heard of the honour we confer upon thee--I Medhyama, thy
Mother, and these my children, thy brothers. Ye shall lead and shall
rule in Bharuta. Are ye ready?"
Half hypnotised, Amber opened his mouth, but no words came. His chin
dropped to his breast.
"Thy strength must be known to my peoples; they must see thee put to
the proof of thy courage, that they may know thee to be the man for
their leader.... Ye are ready?"
He was unable to move a finger.
"Stretch out thine arms!"
He shuddered and tried to obey. The Voice rang imperative.
"Stretch forth thine arms for the testing!"
Somehow, mechanically, he succeeded in raising his arms and holding
them rigid before him. Alarmed by the movement, the cobra turned with a
hiss, waving his poisonous head. But the Virginian made no offer to
withdraw his hands. His eyes were wide and staring and his face livid.
A subdued murmur came from the men clustered round the idols, in
semi-darkness.
The Bell boomed forth like an organ.
"O hooded Death.... O Death, who art trained to my service! Thou before
whom all men stand affrighted! Thou who canst look into their hearts
and read them as a scroll that is unrolled ... Look deep into the heart
of my Chosen! Judge if he be worthy or wanting, judge if he be false or
true ... Judge him, O Death!"
Before Amber the great serpent was oscillating like a pendulum, its
little tongue playing like forked red lightning, its loathsome red eyes
holding his own. Terror gripped his heart, and his soul curdled. He
would have cried out, but that his tongue clave to the roof of his
mouth. He could not have moved had he willed to.
"Look well, O Death, and judge him!"
The dance of the Hooded Death changed in character, grew more frenzied;
the white writhing coils melted into one another in dizzying confusion;
figure merged into figure like smoke.... The suspense grew intolerable.
"Hast thou judged him, O Death?"
Instantly the white cobra reared up to its utmost and remained poised
over Amber, barely moving save for the almost imperceptible throbbing
of the hood and the incessant darting of the forked tongue.
"If he be loyal, then spare him ..."
The hood did not move. Amber's flesh crawled with unspeakable dread.
"If he be faithless, then ... _strike!_"
For another moment the cobra maintained the tensity. Then slowly, cruel
head waving, hood shrinking, eyes losing their deathly lustre, coil by
coil it sank.
A thick murmur ran the round of the walls, swelling into an
inarticulate cry, which beat upon Amber's ears like the raving of a
far-off surf. From his lips a strangled sob broke, and, every muscle
relaxing, he lurched forward.
Alarmed, in a trice the cobra was up again, hood distended to the
bursting point, head swinging so swiftly that the eye could not follow
it. In another breath would come the final thrust....
A firearm exploded behind Amber, singeing his cheek with its flame. He
fell over sideways, barely escaping the head of the cobra, which, with
its hood blown to tatters, writhed in convulsions, its malignant tongue
straining forth as if in one last attempt to reach his hand.
A second shot followed the first and then a brisk, confused fusillade.
Amber heard a man scream out in mortal agony, and the dull sound of a
heavy body falling near him; but, coincident with the second report,
the brazier had been overturned and its light extinguished as if sucked
up into the air.