Well, the end of it was that Joshua came on in the centre of the third body of Mountaineers, who were practically obliged to carry him.
Shadrach was right, since for some reason or other the stairs thenceforward remained more perfect. Only they seemed almost endless, and before we reached our goal I calculated that we must have descended quite twelve hundred feet into the bowels of the rock. At length, when I was almost tired out and Maqueda was so breathless that she was obliged to lean on Oliver, dragging me behind her like a dog on a string, of a sudden we saw a glimmer of daylight that crept into the tunnel through a small hole. By the mouth of yet another pit or shaft, we found Shadrach and the others waiting for us. Saluting, he said that we must unrope, leave our lamps behind, and follow him. Oliver asked him whither this last shaft led.
"To a still lower level, lord," he answered, "but one which you will scarcely care to explore, since it ends in the great pit where the Fung keep their sacred lions."
"Indeed," said Oliver, much interested for reasons of his own, and he glanced at Quick, who nodded his head and whistled.
Then we all followed Shadrach to find ourselves presently upon a plateau about the size of a racquet court which, either by nature or by the hand of man, had been recessed into the face of that gigantic cliff. Going to the edge of this plateau, whereon grew many tree-ferns and some thick green bushes that would have made us invisible from below even had there been any one to see us, we saw that the sheer precipice ran down beneath for several hundred feet. Of these yawning depths, however, we did not at the moment make out much, partly because they were plunged in shadow and partly for another reason.
Rising out of the gulf below was what we took at first to be a rounded hill of black rock, oblong in shape, from which projected a gigantic shaft of stone ending in a kind of fretted bush that alone was of the size of a cottage. The point of this bush-like rock was exactly opposite the little plateau on to which we had emerged and distant from it not more than thirty, or at most, forty feet.
"What is that?" asked Maqueda, of Shadrach, pointing in front of her, as she handed back to one of the Mountaineers a cup from which she had been drinking water.
"That, O Walda Nagasta," he answered, "is nothing else than the back of the mighty idol of the Fung, which is shaped like a lion. The great shaft of rock with the bush at the end of it is the tail of the lion.
Doubtless this platform on which we stand is a place whence the old priests, when they owned Mur as well as the land of the Fung, used to hide themselves to watch whatever it was they wanted to see. Look," and he pointed to certain grooves in the face of the rock, "I think that here there was once a bridge which could be let down at will on to the tail of the lion-G.o.d, though long ago it has rotted away. Yet ere now I have travelled this road without it."
We stared at him astonished, and in the silence that followed I heard Maqueda whisper to Oliver:
"Perhaps that is how he whom we call Cat escaped from the Fung; or perhaps that is how he communicates with them as a spy."
"Or perhaps he is a liar, my Lady," interrupted Quick, who had also overheard their talk, a solution which, I confess, commended itself to me.
"Why have you brought us here?" asked Maqueda presently.
"Did I not tell you in Mur, Lady--to rescue Black Windows? Listen, now, it is the custom of the Fung to allow those who are imprisoned within the idol to walk unguarded upon its back at dawn and sunset. At least, this is their custom with Black Windows--ask me not how I know it; this is truth, I swear it on my life, which is at stake. Now this is my plan.
We have with us a ladder which will reach from where we stand to the tail of the idol. Should the foreign lord appear upon the back of the G.o.d, which, if he still lives, as I believe he does, he is almost sure to do at sundown, as a man who dwells in the dark all day will love the light and air when he can get them, then some of us must cross and bring him back with us. Perhaps it had best be you, my lord Orme, since if I went alone, or even with these men, after what is past Black Windows might not altogether trust me."
"Fool," broke in Maqueda, "how can a man do such a thing?"
"O Lady, it is not so difficult as it looks. A few steps across the gulf, and then a hundred feet or so along the tail of the lion which is flat on the top and so broad that one may run down it if careful to follow the curves, that is on a still day--nothing more. But, of course, if the Lord Orme is afraid, which I did not think who have heard so much of his courage----" and the rogue shrugged his shoulders and paused.
"Afraid, fellow," said Oliver, "well, I am not ashamed to be afraid of such a journey. Yet if there is need I will make it, though not before I see my brother alone yonder on the rock, since all this may be but a trick of yours to deliver me to the Fung, among whom I know that you have friends."
"It is madness; you shall not go," said Maqueda. "You will fall and be dashed to pieces. I say that you shall not go."
"Why should he not go, my niece?" interrupted Joshua. "Shadrach is right; we have heard much of the courage of this Gentile. Now let us see him do something."
She turned on the Prince like a tiger.
"Very good, my uncle, then you shall go with him. Surely one of the ancient blood of the Abati will not shirk from what a "Gentile" dares."
On hearing this Joshua relapsed into silence, and I have no clear memory of what he did or said in connection with the rest of that thrilling scene.
Now followed a pause in the midst of which Oliver sat down and began to take off his boots.
"Why do you undress yourself, friend?" asked Maqueda nervously.
"Because, Lady," he answered, "if I have to walk yonder road it is safer to do so in my stockings. Have no fear," he added gently, "from boyhood I have been accustomed to such feats, and when I served in my country"s army it was my pleasure to give instruction in them, although it is true that this one surpa.s.ses all that ever I attempted."
"Still I do fear," she said.
Meanwhile Quick had sat down and begun to take off _his_ boots.
"What are you doing, Sergeant?" I asked.
"Getting ready to accompany the Captain upon forlorn hope, Doctor."
"Nonsense," I said, "you are too old for the game, Sergeant. If any one goes, I should, seeing that I believe my son is over there, but I can"t try it, as I know my head would give out, and I should fall in a second, which would only upset everybody."
"Of course," broke in Oliver, who had overheard us, "I"m in command here, and my orders are that neither of you shall come. Remember, Sergeant, that if anything happens to me it is your business to take over the stores and use them if necessary, which you alone can do. Now go and see to the preparations, and find out the plan of campaign, for I want to rest and keep quiet. I daresay the whole thing is humbug, and we shall see nothing of the Professor; still, one may as well be prepared."
So Quick and I went to superintend the lashing of two of the light ladders together and the securing of some planks which we had brought with us upon the top of the rungs, so as to make these ladders easy to walk on. I asked who would be of the party besides Shadrach and Orme, and was told no one, as all were afraid. Ultimately, however, a man named j.a.phet, one of the Mountaineers, volunteered upon being promised a grant of land from the Child of Kings herself, which grant she proclaimed before them all was to be given to his relatives in the event of his death.
At length everything was ready, and there came another spell of silence, for the nerves of all of us were so strained that we did not seem able to talk. It was broken by a sound of sudden and terrible roaring that arose from the gulf beneath.
"It is the hour of the feeding of the sacred lions which the Fung keep in the pit about the base of the idol," explained Shadrach. Then he added, "Unless he should be rescued, I believe that Black Windows will be given to the lions to-night, which is that of full moon and a festival of Harmac, though maybe he will be kept till the next full moon when all the Fung come up to worship."
This information did not tend to raise anyone"s spirits, although Quick, who always tried to be cheerful, remarked that it was probably false.
The shadows began to gather in the Valley of Harmac, whereby we knew that the sun was setting behind the mountains. Indeed, had it not been for a clear and curious glow reflected from the eastern sky, the gulf would have plunged us in gloom. Presently, far away upon a rise of rock which we knew must be the sphinx head of the huge idol, a little figure appeared outlined against the sky, and there began to sing. The moment that I heard the distant voice I went near to fainting, and indeed should have fallen had not Quick caught me.
"What is it, Adams?" asked Oliver, looking up from where he and Maqueda sat whispering to each other while the fat Joshua glowered at them in the background. "Has Higgs appeared?"
"No," I answered, "but, thank G.o.d, my son still lives. That is his voice. Oh! if you can, save him, too."
Now there was much suppressed excitement, and some one thrust a pair of field-gla.s.ses into my hand, but either they were wrongly set or the state of my nerves would not allow me to see through them. So Quick took them and reported.
"Tall, slim figure wearing a white robe, but at the distance in this light can"t make out the face. One might hail him, perhaps, only it would give us away. Ah! the hymn is done and he"s gone; seemed to jump into a hole in the rock, which shows that he"s all right, anyway, or he couldn"t jump. So cheer up, Doctor, for you have much to be thankful for."
"Yes," I repeated after him, "much to be thankful for, but still I would that I had more after all these years to search. To think that I should be so close to him and he know nothing of it."
After the ceasing of the song and the departure of my son, there appeared upon the back of the idol three Fung warriors, fine fellows clad in long robes and armed with spears, and behind them a trumpeter who carried a horn or hollowed elephant"s tusk. These men marched up and down the length of the platform from the rise of the neck to the root of the tail, apparently to make an inspection. Having found nothing, for, of course, they could not see us hidden behind the bushes on our little plateau, of which no doubt they did not even know the existence, and much less that it was connected with the mountain plain of Mur, the trumpeter blew a shrill blast upon his horn, and before the echoes of it had died away, vanished with his companions.
"Sunset tour of inspection. Seen the same kind of thing as at Gib.,"
said the Sergeant. "Oh! by Jingo! p.u.s.s.y isn"t lying after all--there he is," and he pointed to a figure that rose suddenly out of the black stone of the idol"s back just as the guards had done.
It was Higgs, Higgs without a doubt; Higgs wearing his battered sun-helmet and his dark spectacles; Higgs smoking his big meerschaum pipe, and engaged in making notes in a pocket-book as calmly as though he sat before a new object in the British Museum.
I gasped with astonishment, for somehow I had never expected that we should really see him, but Orme, rising very quietly from his seat beside Maqueda, only said:
"Yes, that"s the old fellow right enough. Well, now for it. You, Shadrach, run out your ladder and cross first that I may be sure you play no trick."
"Nay," broke in Maqueda, "this dog shall not go, for never would he return from his friends the Fung. Man," she said, addressing j.a.phet, the Mountaineer to whom she had promised land, "go you over first and hold the end of the ladder while this lord crosses. If he returns safe your reward is doubled."
j.a.phet saluted, the ladder was run out and its end set upon the roughnesses in the rock that represented the hair of the sphinx"s tail.
The Mountaineer paused a moment with hands and face uplifted; evidently he was praying. Then bidding his companions hold the hither end of the ladder, and having first tested it with his foot and found that it hung firm, calmly he walked across, being a brave fellow, and presently was seen seated on the opposing ma.s.s of rock.
Now came Oliver"s turn. He nodded to Maqueda, who went white as a sheet, muttering some words to her that did not reach me. Then he turned and shook my hand.