Such, at any rate, was the White Death and such were
the White Dead!
SOLOMON’S TREASURE CHAMBER
While we were engaged in recovering from our fright,
and in examining the grisly wonders of the Place of
Death, Gagool had been differently occupied.
Somehow or other—for she was marvellously
active when she chose—she had scrambled
on to the great table, and made her way to where our
departed friend Twala was placed, under the drip, to
see, suggested Good, how he was “pickling,”
or for some dark purpose of her own. Then, after
bending down to kiss his icy lips as though in affectionate
greeting, she hobbled back, stopping now and again
to address the remark, the tenor of which I could
not catch, to one or other of the shrouded forms,
just as you or I might welcome an old acquaintance.
Having gone through this mysterious and horrible ceremony,
she squatted herself down on the table immediately
under the White Death, and began, so far as I could
make out, to offer up prayers. The spectacle
of this wicked creature pouring out supplications,
evil ones no doubt, to the arch enemy of mankind, was
so uncanny that it caused us to hasten our inspection.
“Now, Gagool,” said I, in a low voice—somehow
one did not dare to speak above a whisper in that
place—“lead us to the chamber.”
The old witch promptly scrambled down from the table.
“My lords are not afraid?” she said, leering
up into my face.
“Lead on.”
“Good, my lords;” and she hobbled round
to the back of the great Death. “Here is
the chamber; let my lords light the lamp, and enter,”
and she placed the gourd full of oil upon the floor,
and leaned herself against the side of the cave.
I took out a match, of which we had still a few in
a box, and lit a rush wick, and then looked for the
doorway, but there was nothing before us except the
solid rock. Gagool grinned. “The way
is there, my lords. Ha! ha! ha!”
“Do not jest with us,” I said sternly.
“I jest not, my lords. See!” and
she pointed at the rock.
As she did so, on holding up the lamp we perceived
that a mass of stone was rising slowly from the floor
and vanishing into the rock above, where doubtless
there is a cavity prepared to receive it. The
mass was of the width of a good-sized door, about ten
feet high and not less than five feet thick.
It must have weighed at least twenty or thirty tons,
and was clearly moved upon some simple balance principle
of counter-weights, probably the same as that by which
the opening and shutting of an ordinary modern window
is arranged. How the principle was set in motion,
of course none of us saw; Gagool was careful to avoid
this; but I have little doubt that there was some very
simple lever, which was moved ever so little by pressure
at a secret spot, thereby throwing additional weight
on to the hidden counter-balances, and causing the
monolith to be lifted from the ground.
