THE UNDERWORLD
Meanwhile, what of Jackson and Hamid Gul?
The former, more nervous and highly-strung than either of his friends,
had suffered still more poignantly the malignant influence of the
monster's eye. Like them, he had been taken that morning to the foot of
the stairway, but the sight of the dizzy ascent had proved too much for
him. He could not bring himself to face it, and returned to his cell,
where he had remained all day in miserable solitude, his meals being
brought to him at intervals.
Hamid Gul, the first to fall into unconsciousness, was also the first to
revive. He came to himself as he was being carried along the corridor
to the cell allotted him, and immediately began to plead for mercy on
the ground that he was only a servant, only the humble cook. One of the
priests, who understood Hindustani, had reasons of his own for testing
the man's skill. Accordingly Hamid, after a night of solitude, was
conducted to the kitchen attached to the priestly buildings on the
plateau, and ordered to prepare one of his most appetising dishes. The
man was as quick-witted as he was timorous. Like many native servants,
he cherished a dog-like devotion for his master, and instantly made up
his mind to employ his utmost art in the hope of ingratiating himself
with his captors to the advantage of the whole party. He concocted one
of Forrester's favourite dishes, under the eye of the priest, who,
having made him eat a portion, as a precaution against poison, carried
the rest away. Returning presently, he said "It is well," and informed
Hamid that he was to consider himself attached, at any rate temporarily,
to the kitchen staff. Hamid was delighted with his success, and would
have been wondrously elated if he could have foreseen the remarkable
events that were to spring from his clever cooking.
Forrester had dreaded the approach of night, when he would again have to
encounter the unwinking glare of the eye. As soon as he had finished
the meal brought to him by two negritos, as before, and was locked in,
he took from his pocket the small article given him by the Indian girl.
It looked like a tightly folded sheet of paper, greyish in colour. It
crackled slightly in his hand. Opening it, he found it to be a thin
sheet of some unfamiliar substance, about eighteen inches square. The
only material to which he could compare it was mica; but on holding it
between his eyes and the window, through which came the reflected glow
of the setting sun, he discovered that it was more transparent than
mica, but less than glass. From the first he had felt little confidence
in the statement of the Indian girl. If this strange substance was a
defence against the Eye, why had not the little negrito kept it for
himself? Now that its transparency was proved, he lost even the slight
hope which the girl's words had inspired. If pervious to daylight, how
could this flimsy sheet give any protection against the incalculable
force that must emanate from the Eye?
When darkness fell, and the green glow from the eye of the monster on
the wall dominated the little apartment, Forrester, rather from
curiosity than with any belief in the efficacy of the screen, held it
before his eyes. To his amazement, it was absolutely effective. The
glow diminished to a faint luminosity. All its searching brilliance,
its compelling power, was gone. He moved the screen aside to make sure
that the light was still there, that it was not eclipsed by some other
agency. He was immediately undeceived, and again held the screen
between his eyes and the monster. What appeared to him still more
remarkable was that, protected as he was now from the light, he felt
little of that terrible depression of spirits which had tortured him on
the previous night.
Mackenzie's suggestion recurred to his mind. The monster's eye was part
of the fell machinery employed by the Old Man of the Mountain to crush
the spirits of his victims. He relied upon its influence sooner or
later to terrorise their minds into utter subjection to his own. From
his one night's experience, Forrester felt that the desired effect would
supervene soon rather than late: no mortal man could long withstand the
mysterious force which the glaring eye exercised upon him. He instantly
resolved to divide the screen next day into three portions, if that were
practicable, and give one secretly to each of his comrades, supposing
that Jackson appeared on the plateau. The fragments might avail to
arrest the gradual breaking down of their will-power.
Early next morning, before he could attempt to carry out his design, the
door was opened, and the guards made signs that he was to follow them.
Expecting to be led again to the stairway, he rose with alacrity. But
his guides soon turned off into a passage branching from the corridor he
had traversed on the previous day, and his heart sank with misgiving as
he recognised presently the ante-chamber giving access to the Temple.
He was detained there for a few minutes until joined by Mackenzie and
Jackson. The aspect of the latter struck him with anxious foreboding.
Jackson was deathly pale: his features were pinched, his eyes dull and
ringed with dark shadows.
"The Eye!" he murmured, and a shudder shook him.
There was no time for speech between them. They were led into the
Temple, where the priests were already assembled, ranged in two rows as
before. There was the same period of silent waiting; the same
prostration to the floor when the mist ascended before the throne; the
same gradual revelation of the August and Venerable. Again they chanted
the solemn litany, and during the performance the Englishmen grew faint
with apprehension lest it were to be followed by a ghastly scene like
that which they had formerly witnessed.
The last response was uttered; an ominous silence brooded over the
place; then Mackenzie and Forrester saw with a shiver of horror, between
two priests advancing, the shrinking form of Lilavanti. She was lifted
on to the pedestal, and silently bound to the framework; then the shaven
figure on her left made his genuflexions and began to declare her crime.
The Englishmen, of course, understood not a word of his recital; they
were indeed as though frozen stiff to the floor. But when the first
accuser had come to an end, and his colleague had bowed thrice to the
awful figure on the throne before taking up the tale, the girl turned
her head slightly and threw upon Forrester a glance in which he read a
last anguished plea for help. A hot thrill surged through him; he felt
his cheeks flush; and, clenching his fists, he sprang forward, into the
gap between the ranks of the priests, and strode swiftly up the floor
towards the throne.
"Stop! Stop!" he cried, raising his hands aloft.
There was not a movement among the priests. So well disciplined were
they, or so terrified at what might ensue upon any infraction of the
customary order, that each man remained steadfast in his place. If any
looked at the profane audacious stranger, it must have been from the
corners of his eyes.
At Forrester's impulsive movement Mackenzie took a step or two forward,
under the instinctive prompting to support his friend. But reflection
brought him to a standstill. He could do nothing at present: the prudent
part was to await the issue of Forrester's intervention: perhaps his aid
would be more valuable later on.
Forrester had started almost at a run, looking straight at the immobile
countenance of the Old Man on the throne. But the nearer he drew to it,
the slower he went. Under the steady gaze of those piercing eyes he felt
his courage oozing away; he almost forgot his purpose. He struggled
against the paralysis that seemed to be creeping over him; but when,
standing immediately beneath the throne, he tried to raise his arms,
they fell limp to his sides; when he tried to utter the burning words of
entreaty on his lips, he could only mutter and mumble. And when the
August and Venerable rose slowly in his place, and Forrester saw more
clearly than before the lozenge-shaped ornament on his head-dress, from
which the destructive beam had appeared to flash forth, he felt within
his soul that he was about to share with the Indian girl the same
annihilating doom.
A breathless stillness filled the Temple. Then the Old Man spoke, and
his words seemed to Forrester like drops of ice-cold water falling on
his head.
"You offer yourself to judgment in place of the girl?"
Unknown to Forrester, such substitution was frequently practised in
China. He scarcely understood the meaning of what he had heard.
Commanding his voice with an effort, he whispered:--
"Spare her! Do her no harm!"
The blazing eyes pierced him through and through; but the Old Man's
voice, when he spoke again, was cold and emotionless as ever.
Mackenzie, at the end of the Temple, wondered whether the wizened figure
on the throne retained the least drop of warm blood in his veins, the
least remnant of humanity.
"You oppose your puny strength to the Law of the Eye?"
"No, no," Forrester whispered. "She is a young girl; have mercy upon
her!"
"The Law of the Eye knows no mercy," the calm voice went on. "Whoso
transgresses, shall he not be cut off, even in the flower of his youth?
In ignorance you have profaned this holy place: the Law ordains that the
ignorant shall be chastised until he becomes wise. Its ordinances shall
be fulfilled from generation to generation, even until the world
dissolves. You shall be made wise, and when wisdom is yours, you shall
once more, and once only, behold the Power of the Eye. You shall see
that fair flower of maidenhood wither and become dust; then shall you
yourself suffer the selfsame penalty, and your dust shall mingle with
hers."
Speechless, fascinated, Forrester stood as though transfixed, scarcely
conscious that Lilavanti was reprieved. The quivering screen rose
before his eyes; the figure of the Old Man seemed to flicker and
dissolve into it. He was unaware of what went on behind him--that the
girl had been released from the pedestal and taken out; that Mackenzie,
his joy at his friend's respite swallowed up by dismay and dread of the
future, was led away to his cell; that Jackson had been carried out in a
swoon; that the priests had passed out in silent procession--all but
one.
Presently he rose at the touch of a hand. Staggering to his feet, he saw
that the vast chamber was empty save for the priest at his side.
Unresisting he allowed himself to be led through the hall into the
ante-chamber, where the negrito guards, trembling in every limb, were
awaiting him. They filed out before him into the corridor, and he
followed them, supposing that they were leading him back to his cell.
Unheeding, he did not know that they passed his bolted door. Only when
they stood back, and he saw, in the dim green light, a stairway
descending in the rock before him, did he become aware that he was in a
part strange to him. Turning round, he asked the priest where he was.
The mute immobile figure merely raised an arm and pointed downwards at
the stairway.
[Illustration: The mute immobile figure merely raised an arm and pointed
downwards at the stairway.]
Forrester was incapable of resistance, protest, expostulation. He felt
helpless as a child, compelled to obey the behest of a stronger will.
Slowly he began to descend the stairs. The negritos followed in a line,
their spears slanted on their shoulders, and the priest in his wide
flowing robes brought up the rear. Forrester, if he had been able to
think, might have remembered that he had seen just such a procession
passing like shades across the wall of the rift.
Down, always down, they went, until, after treading perhaps a hundred
steps, they came to a long smooth stairless slope, steep enough to
demand an effort lest the walking pace became an involuntary run.
Presently there were more steps. At the foot of this second stairway
the narrow, shallow tunnel--for it was no more--turned sharply to the
left, and the floor again sloped, but this time upwards. Another series
of stairs appeared. On ascending this Forrester, at length becoming
awake to his surroundings, noticed that the greenish light was growing
perceptibly brighter. He went on, up another incline, the floor of
which was covered with a yielding deposit, apparently of dust that had
fallen from the roof. Yet another flight of steps had to be mounted.
Then the tunnel broke abruptly to the right, and a few paces more
brought Forrester, more and more bewildered as he more completely
recovered his wits, to the opening of a large cave on his left.
He glanced into the entrance, and was amazed to see a sheet of water,
rippling a little in the greenish glow, and extending beyond eyeshot.
The water washed the walls; but there was a narrow ledge of rock that
lay uncovered, skirting the wall on the left. Forrester turned about to
enquire whether he was to proceed along this ledge, and discovered that
the negritos had halted some twenty paces in his rear, blocking up the
tunnel. Behind them the taller figure of the priest stood with arm
outstretched towards the cave.
Taking this as a command to go on, Forrester wheeled round, and walked
towards the ledge, wondering with sickly apprehension what lay in the
dim greenish mist beyond, and why his escort had not accompanied him.
Glancing to the right as he reached the ledge, he saw, in a recess
commanding the entrance to the cavern, a group of armed negritos and a
priest standing behind them. There could be no doubt that they were
placed there as a guard: the recess was a sort of wardroom.
He proceeded along the ledge, and came in about twenty yards to a gap,
bridged by a broad plank with a handrail on the side towards the lake.
He crossed this, went along the continuation of the ledge on the farther
side, and arrived suddenly at the entrance of another cave, larger and
more lofty than the first, rising to a vaulted roof like the nave of a
cathedral. Its floor of rock was a foot or two above the level of the
lake. Entering it, he saw a number of human figures, seated at the
further end. One of them rose on seeing a stranger, and after a brief
hesitation, stepped hastily forward to meet him. With a gulp and a half
articulate cry, Forrester quickened his step, and in a few moments was
grasping a firm hand, and looking amazedly into an English face.