Slowly and in very bad spirits I retraced my steps
to the old temple, following the line of the telephone
wire which Higgs and Quick had unreeled as they went.
In the Sergeant’s prognostications of evil I
had no particular belief, as they seemed to me to be
born of the circumstances which surrounded us, and
in different ways affected all our minds, even that
of the buoyant Higgs.
To take my own case, for instance. Here I was
about to assist in an act which for aught I knew might
involve the destruction of my only son. It was
true we believed that this was the night of his marriage
at the town of Harmac, some miles away, and that the
tale of our spies supported this information.
But how could we be sure that the date, or the place
of the ceremony, had not been changed at the last moment?
Supposing, for instance, that it was held, not in
the town, as arranged, but in the courts of the idol,
and that the fearful activities of the fiery agent
which we were about to wake to life should sweep the
celebrants into nothingness.
The thought made me turn cold, and yet the deed must
be done; Roderick must take his chance. And if
all were well, and he escaped that danger, were there
not worse behind? Think of him, a Christian man,
the husband of a savage woman who worshipped a stone
image with a lion’s head, bound to her and her
tribe, a state prisoner, trebly guarded, whom, so far
as I could see, there would be no hope of rescuing.
It was awful. Then there were other complications.
If the plan succeeded and the idol was destroyed,
my own belief was that the Fung must thereby be exasperated.
Evidently they knew some road into this stronghold.
It would be used. They would pour their thousands
up it, a general massacre would follow, of which,
justly, we should be the first victims.
I reached the chamber where Oliver sat brooding alone,
for Japhet was patrolling the line.
“I am not happy about Maqueda, Doctor,”
he said to me. “I am afraid there is something
in that story. She wanted to be with us; indeed,
she begged to be allowed to come almost with tears.
But I wouldn’t have it, since accidents may
always happen; the vibration might shake in the roof
or something; in fact, I don’t think you should
be here. Why don’t you go away and leave
me?”
I answered that nothing would induce me to do so,
for such a job should not be left to one man.
“No, you’re right,” he said; “I
might faint or lose my head or anything. I wish
now that we had arranged to send the spark from the
palace, which perhaps we might have done by joining
the telephone wire on to the others. But, to
tell you the truth, I’m afraid of the batteries.
The cells are new but very weak, for time and the climate
have affected them, and I thought it possible the
extra difference might make the difference and that
they would fail to work. That’s why I fixed
this as the firing point. Hullo, there’s
the bell. What have they got to say?”
