So Mahommed Khan came last, and they slipped and grunted upward, round and round a spiral staircase that was hewn out of solid rock.  No light came through from anywhere to help them, but the priest climbed on, as though he were accustomed to the stair and knew the way from constant use.  After five minutes of steady climbing the stone grew gradually dry.  The steps became smaller, too, and deeper, and not so hard to climb.  Suddenly the priest reached out his arm and pulled at something or other that hung down in the darkness.  A stone in the wall rolled open.  A flood of light burst in and nearly blinded them.

“We are below Kharvani’s temple!” announced the priest.  He led them through the opening into a four-square room hewn from the rock below the foundations of the temple some time in the dawn of history.  The light that had blinded them when they first emerged proved to be nothing but the flicker of two small oil lamps that hung suspended by brass chains from the painted ceiling.  The only furniture was mats spread on the cut-stone floor.

“By which way did we come?” asked the Risaldar, staring in amazement round the walls.  There was not a door nor crack, nor any sign of one, except that a wooden ladder in one corner led to a trapdoor overhead, and they had certainly not entered by the ladder.

“Nay!  That is a secret!” grinned the priest.  “He who can may find the opening!  Here can the woman and her servant stay until we need them.”

“Here in this place?”

“Where else?  No man but I knows of this crypt!  The ladder there leads to another room, where there is yet another ladder, and that one leads out through a secret door I know of, straight into the temple.  Art ready?  There is need for haste!”

“Wait!” said the Risaldar.

“These soldiers!” sneered the priest.  “It is wait—­wait—­wait with them, always!”

“Hast thou a son.”

“Ay!  But what of it?”

“I said `hast,’ not `hadst’!”

“Ay.  I have a son.

“Where?”

“In one of the temple-chambers overhead.”

“Nay, priest!  Thy son lies gagged and bound and trussed in a place
I know of, and which thou dost not know!”

“Since when?”

“Since by my orders he was laid there.”

“Thou art the devil!  Thou liest, Rajput!”

“So?  Go seek thy son!”

The priest’s face had blanched beneath the olive of his skin, and he stared at Mahommed Khan through distended eyes.

“My son!” he muttered.

“Aye!  Thy priestling!  He stays where he is, as hostage, until my return!  Also the heavenborn stays here!  If, on my return, I find the heavenborn safe and sound, I will exchange her for thy son—­and if not, I will tear thy son into little pieces before thy eyes, priest!  Dost thou understand?”

“Thou liest!  My son is overhead in the temple here!”