“THE _SEAL!”_
THE way of the priest’s escape became clear at once. In the rear wall
of the chamber a small door stood ajar.
“I thought not that he knew of the passage,” the Ayuti hissed;
“but he shall not escape. Take you the hounds, Fairhair, and follow. I
know whereto this passage leads, and will ride round upon Muswani to
cut him off.”
Within five minutes the pursuit was in full swing. The hounds
were loping down the passage on the trail of Nordhu, with the
explorers close behind, while the king was galloping away from the
city on his elk, hoping to intercept the flying priest.
“Say,” exclaimed Haverly, “I guess this temple must be kinder
honeycombed with passages.”
“It’s a wonderful building,” returned Mervyn. “These passages are
doubtless arranged for the convenience of the
priests----”
“Nordhu must have the devil’s own cunning to have found that
secret door,” interrupted Seymour savagely; “But he won’t escape for
all his wiles. If the hounds get hold of him he’ll have short
shrift.”
Down a flight of stairs the pursuers went, the great hounds
making the passage ring with their baying; then on once more, the
tunnel twisting and winding in such a fashion that neither of the
friends had the least idea of the direction in which they were moving.
Little they cared, however, so that they might again lay hands on the
fugitive priest, who, should he succeed in effecting his escape, would
assuredly once again attempt their destruction. His capture was a
necessity if they would ever find their missing comrade and the
vessel; for, with Nordhu at liberty, plotting their ruin, they would
not dare venture forth to search for the _Seal._ So they put
forth every effort in the chase, hoping at each bend of the passage
they turned to come in sight of their quarry.
But Nordhu appeared to have obtained too good a start. The
pursuers were beginning to think that, after all, they should lose
him, when, rounding a curve swiftly, they pulled up in sheer
astonishment.
Scarce twenty feet away, his gleaming jewel flashing a challenge
to Seymour’s, stood the man they sought. Beside him was a great lever,
upon which his hand rested, and at his feet in the floor of the tunnel
yawned a hole some six feet in width. Close to the near edge of this
crouched the hounds, their ferocity overcome by the hypnotic power of
the priest.
At once the pursuers became watchful. What card was Nordhu about
to play? they wondered. What devilish trick was he about to perform?
The priest’s face puckered up into a savage grin as he noted the
hesitation of his enemies.
“Why do ye not come on?” he cried ironically; “art afraid? I have
waited to bid ye farewell, thinking perchance ye might grieve did I
leave you without.”
Seymour’s face was distorted with fury as he gazed upon the
priest. Scarcely could he control the mad passion which bade him rush
forward and grip the grinning fiend. But what was that hole in the
floor? What was the lever? That Nordhu was about to spring some
diabolical trick upon them was certain, and the thought checked the
baronet’s murderous desire. So for a space they remained, pursuers and
fugitive glaring at each other with a world of hatred in their eyes,
yet neither making a move.
Then once more the priest spoke:
“Since ye will not join me, I will go. Fare ye well until I
return with my warriors to destroy ye.”
He laughed mockingly, and at that Seymour, losing control of his
temper, leapt forward. Quick as thought Nordhu flung over the lever
beside him, and at once, from the roof of the tunnel, a cataract of
liquid light began to fall, plunging into the hole in the floor.
“Wilt follow now?” snarled the voice of the priest above the boom
and splash of the falling light.
“Jupiter!” gasped the Yankee. “Checkmate!”
Ay! checkmate it was! for who dared attempt to pass that gleaming
curtain after Chenobi’s warning as to its deadly power. Nordhu had
played his card and played it well.
With a laugh of triumph he turned and strode down the tunnel,
leaving his pursuers standing helpless and amazed at his
handiwork.
“I almost feel inclined to risk it,” growled Seymour, as the
sound of the priest’s footsteps died away.
“You must not,” cried Mervyn excitedly; “remember what the king
said, as----”
But there was no need for the scientist to reiterate Chenobi’s
warning.
While yet the words trembled on his lips the fact that the Ayuti
had not exaggerated the terrible power of the liquid light was brought
to the notice of all in a fearful manner.
Released from the fascination of the priest, the hounds had again
grown restless, baying clamorously, yet not daring to venture near the
curtain of falling light. Suddenly, while Mervyn spoke, from far away
came a cry, faint, but easily recognisable as the voice of Nordhu. At
the sound one of the dogs made a rash spring forward, as though he
would have plunged through the cataract on the trail of the priest.
Over the brink of the hole he leapt, his fore-paws outstretched, but
touched the fringe of the falling liquid; then he was shrivelled up
into a shapeless black mass, and was swept downward by the
cataract.
“Great Heaven!” the scientist cried: “poor brute!”
The other hounds, awed by the fate of their fellow, drew back
whining.
“What a fearful power!” Wilson exclaimed. “It must be some form
of electricity, I should imagine.”
“I guess the Ayuti didn’t pile it on a bit too thick when he said
it was death to touch it,” announced Silas; “but let’s get a move on.
We’ll have to follow the trail of the elk now, and we may be in at the
death, after all, if we flicker.”
With that they all turned and retraced their steps to the altar
chamber. Then, descending to the square, they set the two remaining
hounds on the trail of Muswani.
“I reckon,” Haverly averred, as they passed through the city
gate, “as Nordhu’s a man of resources. He ought to be a financier.
There’s not a blamed _coup_ but what he could bring off.”
“He’s the craftiest brute I ever had dealings with,” returned
Seymour; “but I think he’s about at the end of his tether. By this
time Chenobi should have reached the end of the passage, and, if so,
Nordhu will regret the bravado that inspired him to wait and bid ‘us
farewell,’ as he put it.”
“How he comes to know the secrets of the temple so well puzzles
me,” admitted Mervyn. “His knowledge of the workings of the place
seems almost unlimited.”
“You can bet he’s used that passage before,” remarked the
American; “perhaps to sneak into the city on some throat-slitting job
or other; but I reckon he’ll have to be real cute to get away from
Chenobi. Say, we’ll have to accelerate the pace considerable if we’re
to see this job through,” and he set the example by striding forward
briskly.
Over the plain they went for perhaps a couple of hours, close at
the heels of the hounds, until the sound of the sea came to their
ears, the booming of waves against the rocks.
“Great Scott!” the baronet exclaimed; “I did not know we were so
near the sea.”
“We may see something of the _Seal,”_ suggested Wilson, his
heart leaping at the thought.
“I shouldn’t reckon on it,” replied Silas; “this underground sea
appears to be fairly large, and there’s heaps of room for the old boat
to get lost if Garth ain’t careful where he’s steering.”
“You don’t think the submarine’s come to grief?” queried the
engineer anxiously.
“I think nothing,” was the reply, “but, what with wolf-men ashore
and ichthyosauri afloat, I reckon our pard must be havin’ a hot
time.”
Now the trail led down to the beach, and, swinging sharp to the
right after the hounds, the party passed beneath the shadow of an
immense cliff.
“Who goes?” cried a voice in Ayuti, and Chenobi stepped forward
from an angle of the rock. He checked the noise of the hounds with a
gesture, and turned to his friends with an air of surprise.
“Where is Nordhu?” he asked. “I have waited here long for ye to
drive him forth, but he hath not emerged.”
Forthwith Seymour explained all that had happened, and told of
the cry they had heard, at which the hound had leapt to his death.
“The priest hath doubtless met with some mischance,” Chenobi
asserted. “Come; we will enter the passage.”
Moving a few paces along the cliff base, he turned into a dark
opening. Ere the others could follow, however, he leapt back with a
startled cry, as a dark figure appeared at the tunnel end.
It was the priest.
His one hand, uplifted above his head, held a small, shrivelled
brown ball, and his whole attitude was so menacing that the explorers
involuntarily stepped back a pace.
“Back!” the king cried, his eyes fixed upon Nordhu’s hand; “’tis
the thunder-ball!”
“Move not,” snarled the priest; “I have somewhat to say ere I
destroy ye. Thought ye to trap me in the tunnel, dogs? I tell you ye
know not the resources of Nordhu. Ye are but babes.” Then, with a
change of tone, he went on, “Why do ye pit yourselves against me? I
offered you life for the secret of your fire-weapons, and ye would not
take it. I offer you again. Join me; make my people into a strong
race; teach them of your knowledge, and ye shall be rulers and kings
among them. What say ye?”
“No, you devil!” thundered the baronet in a fury, “a thousand
times, no! Think ye we would have dealings with a monster foul as you,
who can take pleasure in sacrificing helpless prisoners to the
appetite of the devilish Rahee? Truly you have no lack of
conceit.”
“Hath he spoken for all of ye?” demanded the priest calmly, not a
whit moved by this outburst. “Do all of ye choose death rather than
life?”
“We choose nothing,” retorted Mervyn; “you are in our power. What
is to prevent us slaying you?”
An evil grin spread over Nordhu’s features.
“This,” he cried, shaking aloft the ball he held, and at the
movement the face of Chenobi grew pale as death; “the thunder-ball.
’Twill shatter you to fragments in a moment, if I but cast it at your
feet.”
“Great Heaven!” whispered Mervyn to the baronet, “it’s a dried
puff-ball! We must be careful.”
“Now hearken,” the priest went on; “step backward to the water’s
edge and cast your weapons into the sea. Have a care”--as Seymour
made a threatening movement--“I am not minded to destroy myself
with ye, yet will I do that rather than fall again into your
hands.”
“I guess he’s got the drop on us,” Haverly growled, as the
scientist translated the priest’s command; “we’ll have to do as he
says.”
In silence the party obeyed the order, though their hearts burned
with shame at their humiliating position. As the last weapon splashed
into the heaving water, Nordhu advanced from the tunnel, walking with
a slight limp. The hounds, who had retreated with their master, whined
piteously as the priest moved over the beach. Their terror of the man
seemed to overcome all their natural courage.
“Stand where ye are,” Nordhu called, “and make no attempt to
follow me, or ’twill be the worse for ye.”
So the adventurers stood, and watched him toil painfully across
the shingle. Evidently he had fallen and injured himself in the
tunnel, at the time when the four had heard his cry. Towards the plain
they had crossed so recently he stumbled.
“Curse it! we’ve lost him!” muttered Seymour savagely, as the
light of the priest’s jewel faded from view; then suddenly a savage
bellow rang out of the darkness.
“’Tis Muswani,” cried the Ayuti; “I had forgotten him. He is
loose on the plain, and has doubtless attacked the priest.”
An instant later the bellow was repeated, and the priest
reappeared, scuttling down to the water’s edge with the giant elk
pounding along behind him, mad with fury. Here was a factor in the
game for which Nordhu was not prepared. If he used his explosive ball
to destroy the great elk, he would be defenceless against his human
foes, and he well knew that he would receive but scant mercy from
them. Therefore he took to the water, hoping to swim out beyond sight
of the Ayuti’s bellicose steed; then return to the shore at a point
some considerable distance away.
[Illustration: “SCUTTLING DOWN TO THE WATER’S EDGE WITH THE
GIANT ELK POUNDING ALONG BEHIND HIM” (_p. 235._)]
“Good old hoss!” Silas cried, as the elk plunged into the water
after his escaping foe; but his sentence broke off into a gasp of
amazement as a hoarse shout broke from the engineer:
“The _Seal!_ The _Seal!”_
Far away over the tumbling crests of the incoming waves shone a
bright light--the searchlight of the _Seal._