Peering through the spy-hole, Buell saw the leather-clad soldiers place the body of Hashin in the chest, nail down the lid, and seal it with molten lead. He turned his gaze in the direction of Doris and noticed that her hand stole toward her girdle, then dropped listlessly. How pale she looked, and how utterly forlorn! If only he might reveal the truth to her! But there was no way. The ceremony must be concluded.
He and Rafferty took turns watching the battle between the followers of Set and those of Horus, and the ceremonies that followed. Shortly after his fetters had been unlocked by Doris, Alcibar rushed into the room. Flinging back the lid of the gilded chest in the comer, he took therefrom a mask like the shaggy head of a bull.
“You are now to wear this mask of the bull, Apis,” he said. “Stand on the topmost step until the people have welcomed you. Then walk down and take the hand of Isis. Stand with her until they have proclaimed her the Bride of Osiris. At that point you are supposed to unmask. To do so, however, would be fatal, as the people would tear you, limb from limb. Instead you must lead her back up the steps as quickly as possible. It may be that I can then find a way of escape for you.”
Straightening his heavy bull mask, Buell stepped out in full view of the people. Pausing for a moment to receive their adulation, he advanced to where Doris stood and took her hand. At the words: “Hail to Isis, Bride of Osiris and co-ruler of Karneter,” he started to lead her back toward the altar in accordance with their prearranged plan. It was then that she twisted her hand free, whipped out the dagger and plunged it into her breast. He leaped forward, caught her wrist in a grip of steel, and forced it back, but the point of the dagger was wet with her blood. She slumped limply into his arms.
“With an agonized cry, he tore the mask of Athor from her head. Her eyes were closed, her nostrils moving slightly. A mixed crowd had gathered closely around them. Thoth and Horus drove them back.
“Doris,” he cried, “it is I, Alan, come to save you.”
She opened her eyes slowly—looked up at the ugly bull mask.
“Lies!” she said. “Lies! Lies!” Thoth, however, was not so incredulous. He knew the sound of Hashin’s voice so well that Alan’s first word had aroused his suspicion. Stepping quickly behind him, he jerked off the mask of Apis.
“A usurper!” he shouted. “It is the Osiris N! Slay him!”
Instantly Buell faced a ring of bared simitars and couched spears. Horus whipped out his keen blade and presented it at Buell’s heart.
“Surrender!” he rasped. “Surrender or die!”
CHAPTER 18
THE VENGEANCE OF ALCIBAR
AS HE stood there in the midst of the hostile multitude holding the half-fainting Doris and expecting instant death, Buell heard two sounds simultaneously—the twang of a bowstring and an encouraging shout from Rafferty.
Horus, with an arrow through his throat, uttered a choking cry and slumped forward. Buell wrenched the simitar from his death-grip and, supporting Doris with his left arm, laid about him with the keen weapon. The crowd drew back a. little at his furious onslaught. Then a giant form bore down on him—the huge commander of the guards of Osiris. He swung his six-foot simitar in a blow that would have sheared off Buell’s head as easily as a blade of grass. Alan ducked, leaped forward, and ran him through the middle. As he crashed back on those behind him, Buell caught a glimpse of two figures behind the altar. A vestal virgin and a yellow-robed priest were firing arrows into the crowd as fast as they could fit them to the bowstrings. Another figure, also attired as a priest of Re, was smashing through the crowd toward him, cracking heads and arms to right and left as he swung two heavy maces with flail-like blows.
In another instant Buell and Rafferty were fighting side by side with Doris between them, supported by tb© arm of the former.
The arrows continued to take deadly toll of those around them as they backed toward the altar. Time and again the lives of erne or the other were saved by the swift shafts of Debras or Alcibar, who had turned the toy weapons of the vestal virgins to good advantage.
At length they made the steps. Here Buell and Rafferty held the crowd at bay while Delra helped Doris to the temporary safety of the Holy Place.
Alcibar, his arrows gone, seized the brazier of burning incense and hurled it in the faces of the attackers, momentarily blinding those who stood in front.
“Come quickly,” he called. “Follow me,”
As they ran into the room behind the Maszing disk, several heavy spears struck around them. Alcibar slammed the door and slid the bolt in place. Delra was binding the wound in Doris’ breast, a wound that was not deep because of the quick intervention of Buell.
Raising the heavy curtain, the ex-priest opened the trap-door behind it.
“Down the steps, all of you!” he cried. “There is not a moment to lose. The soldiers may be deterred for a time by fear of the Holy Place, but it will not be for long.”
Securing his simitar to his wrist by its tasseled cord, Buell helped Doris down the steps. Rafferty followed with Delra, and Alcibar came after them, pausing only to close and bolt the trap-door. He called to Buell.
“Turn to the left. I will lead the way in a moment”
They hurried down the dimly lighted passageway as directed. Presently Alcibar eaught up with them, then took the lead.
“We are now beneath the temple gardens,” he said. “From here’we pass directly under the city.”
They pressed forward in silence. Buell’s numerous wounds, unnoticed until now in the heat of battle, smarted painfully. His once beautiful silk costume hung on him m shreds. Alcibar had apparently come through unscathed, though his magnificent robes were bedraggled and there was a bloodstain on his sleeve. Doris’ self-inflicted wound had left a crimson stain cm the breast of her pale blue garment. Like Alcibar, Delra was unwounded in the recent encounter, but her scant dancing costume revealed the welts she had received from the whip, some of which had been reopened by her exertions. Swinging along beside her with her slender arm in his huge left hand and the two maces dangling from his right, Dan Rafferty proudly carried the marks of battle. His yellow robe was full of rents and covered with bloodstains, and the cowl had been completely tom away. A simitar-cut above his left eyebrow gave him a rather ferocious expression. When they had traveled for a considerable distance he called to Alcibar.
“Where the divvil is that boat yez were tellin’ me about, Alcie? Is it in Port Said or Honolulu?”
“About a half-mile farther on. We should be there in a few minutes.” Faintly at first, but gradually growing more distinct, came the sound of voices and footsteps in the passageway behind them.,
“They’re coming,” called Buell. “Hurry ahead, all of you. I’ll be the the rear-guard.”
“Now be the bones of St. Patrick’s toe, where do yez get that stuff?” replied Rafferty indignantly. “I’ll be the rear-guard.”
“No time for argument. We’ll guard the rear together. The girls can go forward with Alcibar.”
Buell clutched his simitar, Rafferty took a mace in each hand, and they fell back about fifty feet behind the others. The expected attack came a few minutes later. Fortunately for the pursued, the pursuers were the giant guards of Osiris, who fought at a disadvantage in the low, narrow passageway, as they could only come forward one at a time and all had to stoop to avoid the arched ceiling.
Rafferty beat down the guard of the first man with a mace and Buell thrust him through the throat. The next man fought more warily, but finally succumbed to a blow from an iron shillalah, falling across the body of his companion. The third guard carried a spear. He made a lunge at Rafferty, but the Irishman seized the weapon and jerked him forward so that he stumbled across the bodies of the other two. Again Buell’s simitar drank blood.
“Come on,” said Dan. “They’ll have to pull thim three hulks out av the way before they can get through now.”
They hurried forward once more and presently saw Alcibar and the two girls waiting for them.
“Go on. What’re yez waitin’ for?” asked Dan.
“We’re waiting for you,” replied Alcibar. “I now have a way of stopping further pursuit, for a time at least.”
He reached up to a crack in the masonry and thrust his finger within it. There was a hum of hidden motors, and a heavy section of wall dropped into the passageway behind them just as the shouts of their pursuers began to grow audible again.
“Another was opened on the other side which leads into a passageway that circles and ends in a blank wall about a half-mile back,” explained the ex-priest. “It is a clever thing, and was devised by Mezzar Hashin the Second when he improved the original tunnel built by his father. We have only a short distance to go now.”
THE tunnel ended at the foot of a flight of narrow steps. Ascending these, they emerged in a small room, one end of which was paneled with thick glass in the center of which a metal door was set.
The ex-priest opened this door, which Buell noticed was rimmed with rubber gaskets. The room beyond, much larger than the first one, was also of steel, paneled on two sides with thick glass. A cigar-shaped boat, evidently a submarine, for it was equipped with vertical and horizontal rudders, planes, and a screw propeller, stood on a pair of high skids that slanted downward toward an arched glass panel, and Buell saw a small fish swim down into the circle of light and look inquiringly at them, its gills moving slowly, its scales glistening in the artificial light.
Alcibar closed and fastened the gasketed door.
“Like his distinguished forebears, Mezzar Hashin the Fourth thought of many things,” he said. “Foreseeing that Karneter might some day be discovered and perhaps captured, he planned a mode of escape, and with it a way to destroy the conquering hosts. You now behold the result of his forethought.”
He climbed the iron ladder which led to the top of the submarine. Leaning forward, he worked at a catch for a moment and swung back a heavy, circular door. Then he disappeared inside the craft. A short time after there was a throbbing hum from inside the boat and the propeller blade cut the air with a roar like that of an airplane.
The ex-priest’s head appeared at the top of the ladder.
“Come,” he shouted, his voice barely audible above the roar of the whirling blade.
Buell helped Doris up the ladder and Rafferty followed with Delra. Descending a small stairway that led down from the round hatch, they found themselves in a snug cabin with a round window of heavy glass on each side. At the front end of the cabin, steps led up to the steersman’s seat, which was under a rounded dome, also paneled with thick glass.
“Begorry, this seems like home,” said Dan. “Yez gave me the straight dope, Alcie old kid.”
“Do you think you can run her?”
“Just show me what thin levers are for and I’ll run her clear to Halifax. I didn’t spend four years on a submarine for nothing.”
Taking Dan aloft, the ex-priest explained the uses of the various wheels, buttons and levers. Then he descended. He motioned to Buell.
“Everything is in readiness now,” he said. “You must come up with me and close the hatch from the inside.”
“Why, aren’t you going with us?” asked Buell in surprize.
“No. My place is here in Karneter, and here I remain. The upper world offers no inducements to me.”
“But you will surely be killed.”
“That is my lookout. Come.” When they reached the round hatchway, Alcibar stepped over to the top of the iron ladder. He pointed to two long levers that hung down from the ceiling just above his head.
“This lever,” he said, “opens the glass panel at the end of the skids and shoots the submarine out into the lake as soon as the room is half filled with water. This one,” indicating the other, “sets off six enormous bombs that will blast every pane of glass between the lake and the doomed city.” Suddenly he pointed toward the glass panel in the side of the room. Buell looked, and saw that a crowd of armed men was rushing toward them.
“They come,” cried Alcibar, “the minions of Hashin, yelping like hounds after a fox, but this time the fox will turn on them—this time the hounds will die with their victim.”
He pulled back the first lever. The panel at the end of the skids moved upward and Buell saw that the room was filling rapidly.
“Fasten the hatch,” shouted Alcibar.
Buell grabbed for his legs, intending to draw him within the submarine before he could touch the deadly second lever, but the ex-priest was too quick for him. Leaping aloft, he threw his full weight on it and a terrific concussion shook the room. A wall of yellow water shot past the side panels, carrying the group of human figures before it like straws.
“Close the hatch, you fool,” yelled Alcibar. “You will be shot into the lake in a few seconds! You will be drowned!”
Again Buell reached unsuccessfully for the swinging figure. The water was lapping around the sides of the craft. Suddenly he felt it sliding forward. He could not save this maniac, and there were others to think of besides himself. With a quick jerk he pulled the door shut just before the waters closed over it. . . .
“LAND ho!”
This cheery call came from Dan Rafferty in the steersman’s seat some ten minutes after they had plunged beneath the lake. It had taken him that long to find out just how to get to the surface.
“Come up and I’ll show yez a sight for sore eyes.”
Buell and the two girls mounted the steps, and cries of joy escaped their lips at sight of Chicago’s rugged skyline silhouetted against a roseate sunset that was partly obscured by the pall of winter smoke. Quite near them the Municipal Pier, its foundations sheathed in ice, jutted out into the foam-flecked water.
There were tears in the eyes of Doris Lee—tears of happiness. She nestled close to Buell.
“It all seems too impossible, too like a fairy-story, to be really true,” she murmured.
Dan Rafferty, his arm around the slender form of Mary Mooney, was steering with one hand.
“Sure now, it’s all too true to be impossible,” he said.
[THE END]
Bride of Osiris Page 10
