difficulty after that event, we could not enter because
of the transom that blocked the doorway. Still,
there were plenty of others at hand in the old temple,
although they were foul with the refuse of the bats
that wheeled about us in thousands, for these creatures
evidently had some unknown access to the open air.
One of these rooms had served as our store-chamber,
and after a few rough preparations we assigned it
to Maqueda.
“Friends,” she said, as she surveyed its
darksome entrance, “it looks like the door of
a tomb. Well, in the tomb there is rest, and rest
I must have. Leave me to sleep, who, were it
not for you, O Oliver, would pray that I might never
wake again.
“Man,” she added passionately, before
us all, for now in face of the last peril every false
shame and wish to conceal the truth had left her;
“man, why were you born to bring woe upon my
head and joy to my heart? Well, well, the joy
outweighs the woe, and even if the angel who led you
hither is named Azrael, still I shall bless him who
has revealed to me my soul. Yet for you I weep,
and if only your life could be spared to fulfil itself
in happiness in the land that bore you, oh! for you
I would gladly die.”
Now Oliver, who seemed deeply moved, stepped to her
and began to whisper into her ear, evidently making
some proposal of which I think I can guess the nature.
She listened to him, smiling sadly, and made a motion
with her hand as though to thrust him away.
“Not so,” she said, “it is nobly
offered, but did I accept, through whatever universes
I may wander, those who came after me would know me
by my trail of blood, the blood of him who loved me.
Perhaps, too, by that crime I should be separated
from you for ever. Moreover, I tell you that
though all seems black as this thick darkness, I believe
that things will yet end well for you and me—in
this world or another.”
Then she was gone, leaving Orme staring after her
like a man in a trance.
“I daresay they will,” remarked Higgs
sotto voce to me, “and that’s first-rate
so far as they are concerned. But what I should
jolly well like to know is how they are going to end
for us who haven’t got a charming lady
to see us across the Styx.”
“You needn’t puzzle your brain over that,”
I answered gloomily, “for I think there will
soon be a few more skeletons in this beastly cave,
that’s all. Don’t you see that those
Abati will believe we are burned in the palace?”
STARVATION
I was right. The Abati did think that we had
been burned. It never occurred to them that we
might have escaped to the underground city. So
at least I judged from the fact that they made no attempt
to seek us there until they learned the truth in the
fashion that I am about to describe. If anything,
this safety from our enemies added to the trials of
those hideous days and nights. Had there been
assaults to repel and the excitement of striving against
overwhelming odds, at any rate we should have found
occupation for our minds and remaining energies.
