"Let the scarabaeus devour him! Let him witness the torture of the
spies, and afterwards let the same be applied to him! Let him die the
most terrible of all deaths; let the sacred beetle crush him beneath its
fangs!"
A dozen men, aged, white-robed, with beards so long that some almost
swept the ground, whom I judged were priests, held brief consultation:
then, amid the uproar, they seized me, wrenched from me my arms, and led
me away ere I could raise my voice to charge their dreaded ruler with
treachery. Followed by the jeering, excited multitude, they conducted
me along the wide level road to the mysterious city, upon the high gates
of which were mounted strong guards, with breast-plates whereon the
image of the sacred beetle was worked in crimson, and through great
streets and squares until we came to a huge mosquelike structure, the
three golden domes of which I had noticed glittering afar as the dying
rays of the sunset slanted upon them.
The dimly-lit interior was magnificent, but as they dragged me forward,
I saw placed beneath the central dome a colossal figure of the sacred
Scarabaeus a hundred feet in height, and two hundred feet square, plated
over with gold. From the two hideous eyes shone lines of white light
like the rays of the searchlights of the Infidels, while, by some
mechanical contrivance, the wide mouth now and then opened and closed,
as though the monstrous emblem of the eternal were eager to devour those
who worshipped before it.
The bearded priests who held me threw themselves upon their knees before
it in adoration, uttering a low kind of chant, while almost at the same
instant a quivering terrified man, haggard, thin, and bearing signs of
long imprisonment, was dragged forth from a kind of cell in the colossal
walls, and made to bend upon his knees upon a grey circular stone
immediately before the monster Throat of Death.
"No! no!" he shrieked in horror. "Kill me by the sword! Let my body be
given to the alligators--anything--but spare me the torture of the
Beetle! I am innocent! It is but Nara's love of bloodshed and torture
of the flesh that hath caused her to condemn me. May the curse of the
Beetle be ever upon her!"
Ere he could utter another word six black slaves, veritable giants in
stature, seized the unfortunate wretch, and as the mouth of the monster
again opened, they flung him headlong into it.
Next second the cruel terrible mouth closed, and the shrieks and
crushing of bones told how terrible was the torture of the human victim
within its insatiable maw.
The sight caused me to shudder. To this frightful ignominious death had
this fair-faced, soft-spoken woman condemned me.
Again the enormous golden jaws opened, and again, as they closed, the
victim's piercing shrieks told that his agony was renewed, and that
death did not come quickly within that weird colossal figure of the
insect, once held sacred from the shores of the Red Sea unto the great
black ocean. In this, the last place in all the world where its worship
still remained, the people were the most cruel and relentless of any in
our great dark continent, Africa. A dozen times the mouth opened and
closed, and each occasion the cries of the agonised man were frightful
to hear, until at last they died away, and as they did so the light also
died from the monster's eyes.
Soon, however, another thin, cringing man, starved almost to a skeleton,
was brought forth, and with similar scant ceremony was cast into the
colossal jaws, whereupon the light in the giant eyes grew brilliant
again, and the shrieks for release, as the mouth reopened, were only
answered by the loud jeers of the assembled multitude, by this time
increased until every part of the magnificent building was crowded to
suffocation, while at that instant Nara, still upon the Throne of the
Thousand Eyes, was dragged in by a crowd of nearly a thousand persons.
Twelve black slaves slowly fanned her as she sat, her chin resting upon
her hand, watching in silence.
One after another were victims brought forth and hurled to the horrible
monster, to be slowly cut to pieces by the myriad gleaming knives and
fine-edged saws set within those terrible jaws, until at last some one
in the crowd cried out with a loud voice--
"Let the pirate Ahamadou die! His men killed our Prince, the valiant
Kourra, therefore no mercy shall be shown the Veiled Man. Let him be
given to the Sacred Beetle!"
In an instant the cry was taken up on every hand. "Let him die!" they
shouted wildly. "Let us witness his body being cut to ribbons!"
The priests hesitated, while in that perilous moment I repeated a
_sura_, and heeded not these Infidel worshippers of insects and
idolators of golden effigies.
But at a sign from Nara, the relentless figure in white seated upon her
wondrous Throne of the Thousand Eyes, they seized me, forced me to kneel
upon the circular stone, and then, as those hideous jaws opened with a
swift movement, they lifted me and cast me in.
For an instant my head reeled, and all breath left me, for I knew that a
fearful agonising death was nigh; but as Allah willed it, I alighted
upon my feet, and finding in the darkness that the floor sloped down, I
started running with all my might, gashing myself upon the knives, set
upright like teeth, but nevertheless speedily forward, heedless of the
pain. Slowly and surely the walls of that strange torture-chamber
closed about me with a creaking and groaning horrible to hear, until I
found myself squeezed tightly with irresistible force on every side. I
held my breath, for upon my chest was a great weight, and I knew that
next instant my frame must be crushed to pulp.
Slowly, however, almost imperceptibly, the frightful pressure upon my
body began to relax, and ere I realised the welcome truth, I found
myself able to breathe again. By dashing forward I had advanced far
down the dreaded Throat of Death to a point where the passage began to
widen, and by the freshness of the air I now felt that some outlet lay
beyond. Therefore, without hesitation, I sped again onward, stumbling
over some soft objects on the ground, which I instinctively knew to be
the remains of my fellow victims, until a faint grey glimmer of light
showed in the distance. The floor still sloped steeply, and by feeling
about me, I discovered that the Throat was now simply a natural burrow
in the rock.
Without loss of a second I soon gained the outlet, and peered forth,
aghast to discover that the tunnel ended abruptly in the face of a bare
precipice; and that in the valley some two hundred feet below lay a
great heap of sun-bleached bones, the remains of those who had passed
through the Throat of Death. Undoubtedly, when the channel became
choked with the rotting remains of the victims they were cast forth to
the vultures and the wolves.
Eager to escape from the noisome place, I climbed with difficulty down
the face of the mountain, and on gaining the valley, quickly recognised,
with satisfaction, that I was actually beyond the confines of the
accursed Land of Akkar. Truly I had encountered death as a very near
neighbour. The high range with their snowy crests were the same as my
treacherous guide had pointed out to me, and next day I skirted the lake
which, emptying itself by the subterranean river, gave entrance to the
mystic land of Nara. Through many weary weeks I travelled hither and
thither, ill and half-starved, until at length I fell in with a camel
caravan, and travelling with them to Ideles, subsequently rejoined my
own tribesmen, who had, by that time, begun to despair of my safety.
Within six moons I made a report of the mysterious land, and all that I
had witnessed therein, to the Bureau Arabe, in Algiers, and ere six more
moons had waned, the Franks sent an armed expedition to enter and
explore the country. Of this expedition I was appointed guide, all past
offences of my tribesmen being forgiven; but the soldiers of Nara
offering a determined resistance, their country was at once subdued and
occupied by the white conquerors. The sacred Scarabaeus was destroyed
by dynamite, and the Throat of Death widened until it now forms one of
the entrances to the land so long unknown. The dreaded Nara was sent as
prisoner down to Senegal, where she still lives in exile; but her
wondrous throne still remains in her great white palace--now a barrack
of the Spahis and Chasseurs--and the Arab story-tellers in every desert
town, from the Atlas to Lake Tsad, continue to relate weird and
wonderful tales of the City of the Golden Tombs and the Evil of the
Thousand Eyes.