CHAPTER XLVIII
MORE FROM THE PAST
Tchigorsky was waiting. The room was pregnant with the perfume ofTurkish cigarettes and coffee. Ralph handed a cup to his nephew.
"Drink that," he said. "You want something to keep you awake."
Geoffrey accepted the coffee gratefully. It had the desired effect. Hefelt the clouds lifting from his brain and the drowsy heaviness of limbleaving him.
"Are you coming with us?" he asked.
Ralph shook his head. There was a strange gleam on his face.
"I stay here," he said. "You are going to be busy, but I also have muchto do. Don't be concerned for me. Blind as I am, I am capable of takingcare of myself. I shall have a deal to tell you in the morning."
A minute or two later and the two conspirators slipped away. It struckGeoffrey as strange that they should not leave the house in the usualway; but Tchigorsky grimly explained that he much preferred using theivy outside Ralph's window.
"Always be on the safe side," Tchigorsky muttered. "Come along."
Geoffrey followed. Where Tchigorsky could go he felt competent tofollow. They reached the ground in safety and later were in the road.The moon had gone and it was intensely dark, but Geoffrey knew the wayperfectly.
"Straight to Jessop's farm?" he asked.
"As far as the lawn," Tchigorsky replied. "It will be a good hour yetbefore we can venture to carry out our burglary. I can run no risksuntil I know that those two Asiatics are out of the way. What time isit?"
"About ten minutes to twelve."
Tchigorsky muttered that the time was not quite suitable for him. Hedrew a watch from his pocket; there was a stifled whirr of machinery,and the repeater's rapid pulse beat twelve with the silvery chime of aquarter after the hour.
"You are wrong," he said. "You see it is between a quarter and half-pasttwelve. We will lie on Jessop's lawn till one o'clock and then all willbe safe."
They lay there waiting for the time to pass. The minutes seemed to beweighted. "Tell me some more of your Lassa adventures," Geoffrey asked.
"Very well," Tchigorsky replied. "Where did I leave off? Ah, we had justbeen tortured on that awful grill. And we had been offered our lives oncondition that we consented to be hopeless idiots for the rest of ourdays.
"Well, we were not going to live in these circumstances, you may besure. For the next few days we were left to our own resources in a darkdungeon with the huge rats and vermin for company. We were half starvedinto the bargain, and when we were brought into the light once more theynaturally expected submission.
"But they didn't get it. They did not realize the stuff we were made of.And they had no idea we were armed. We had our revolvers and concealedin our pockets were some fifty rounds of ammunition. If the worst cameto the worst we should not die without a struggle.
"Well, there was a huge palaver over us before the priests in the bigtemple, with Zara on her throne, and a fine, impressive scene it was,or, at least, it would have been had we not been so interested as to ourown immediate future. At any rate, it was a comfort to know that therewere no more tortures for the present, for nothing of the kind was to beseen. We were going to die; we could read our sentence in the eyes ofthe priests long before the elaborate mummery was over.
"I tell you it seemed hard to perish like that just at the time when wehad penetrated nearly all the secrets we had come in search of. And itwas no less hard to know that if the princess had postponed her visitanother week she would have been too late. By that time we should haveleft Lassa far behind.
"The trial or ceremony, or whatever you like to call it, came to an endat length, and then we were brought up to the throne of the princess.You know the woman, you have looked upon the beauty and fascination ofher face; but you have no idea how different she was in the home of herpeople. She looked a real queen, a queen from head to foot. We stoodawed before her.
"'You have been offered terms and refused them,' she said. 'It is nowtoo late.'
"'We could not trust you,' I replied boldly; we had nothing to gain bypoliteness. 'Better anything than the living death you offered us. Andwe can only die once.'
"The princess smiled in her blood-curdling way.
"'You do not know what you are talking about,' she said. 'Ah, you willfind out when you come to walk the Black Valley!'
"She gave a sign and we were led away unbound. A quaint wailing musicfilled the air; the priests were singing our funeral song. I never fullyappreciated the refined cruelty of reading the burial service to acriminal on his way to the scaffold till then. It makes me shudder tothink of it even now.
"They led us out into the open air, still crooning that dirge. Theybrought us at length to the head of a great valley between huge toweringmountains, as if the Alps had been sliced in two and a narrow passagemade between them. At the head of this passage was a door let into thecliff and down through this door they thrust us. It was dark inside. Forthe first part of the way, till we reached the floor of the valley, wewere to be accompanied by four priests, a delicate attention to preventus from breaking our necks before we reached the bottom. But our guidesdid not mean us to perish so mercifully.
"'Listen to me,' Zara cried, 'listen for the last time. You are goinginto the Black Valley; of its horror and dangers you know nothing asyet. But you will soon learn. Take comfort in the fact that there is anexit at the far end if you can find it. When you are out of the exit youare free. Thousands have walked this valley, and over their dry bonesyou will make your way. Out of these thousands one man escaped. Perhapsyou will be as fortunate. Farewell!'
"The door clanged behind us, and we were alone with the priests. Wecould not see, we could only feel our way down those awful cliffs, whereone false step would have smashed us to pieces. But the priests neverhesitated. Down, down we went until we reached the bottom. There wecould just see dimly.
"'You could guide us through?' I asked.
"One of the priests nodded. He could save us if he liked. Not that I wasgoing to waste my breath by asking him. They were priests of a minordegree; there were thousands of them about the temple, all alike as peasin a pod. If these men failed to return they would never be missed. Adesperate resolution came to me. In a few English whispered words Iconveyed it to Ralph Ravenspur.
"We still had a priest on either side of us. At a given signal weproduced our revolvers, and before the priests had the remotest ideawhat had happened two of them were dead on the ground, shot through thebrain. When the thousand and one echoes died away we each had our man bythe throat. What did we care if the plot was discovered or not! We wereboth desperate.
"'Listen, dog,' I cried. 'You have seen your companions perish. If youwould escape a similar death, you will bear us to safety. You shallwalk ten paces in front, and if you try to evade us you die, for ourweapons carry farther than you can run in the space of two minutes.Well, are you going to convey us to a place of safety, or shall we shootyou like the others?'"
Tchigorsky paused and pulled at his watch. He drew back the catch andthe rapid little pulse beat one.
Then he rose to his feet.
"To be continued in our next," he said. "The time has come to act.Follow me and betray no surprise at anything you may see or hear."
"You can rely upon me," Geoffrey whispered. "Lead on."