by Sax Rohmer
V
IN THE VALLEY OF THE SORCERESS
I
Condor wrote to me three times before the end (said Neville,Assistant-Inspector of Antiquities, staring vaguely from his openwindow at a squad drilling before the Kasr-en-Nil Barracks). He datedhis letters from the camp at Deir-el-Bahari. Judging from these,success appeared to be almost within his grasp. He shared my theories,of course, respecting Queen Hatasu, and was devoting the whole of hisenergies to the task of clearing up the great mystery of Ancient Egyptwhich centres around that queen.
For him, as for me, there was a strange fascination about thosedefaced walls and roughly obliterated inscriptions. That the queenunder whom Egyptian art came to the apogee of perfection should thushave been treated by her successors; that no perfect figure of thewise, famous, and beautiful Hatasu should have been spared toposterity; that her very cartouche should have been ruthlessly removedfrom every inscription upon which it appeared, presented to Condor'smind a problem only second in interest to the immortal riddle ofGizeh.
You know my own views upon the matter? My monograph, "Hatasu, theSorceress," embodies my opinion. In short, upon certain evidences,some adduced by Theodore Davis, some by poor Condor, and someresulting from my own inquiries, I have come to the conclusion thatthe source--real or imaginary--of this queen's power was an intimateacquaintance with what nowadays we term, vaguely, magic. Pursuing herstudies beyond the limit which is lawful, she met with a certain end,not uncommon, if the old writings are to be believed, in the case ofthose who penetrate too far into the realms of the Borderland.
For this reason--the practice of black magic--her statues weredishonored, and her name erased from the monuments. Now, I do notpropose to enter into any discussion respecting the reality of suchpractices; in my monograph I have merely endeavored to show that,according to contemporary belief, the queen was a sorceress. Condorwas seeking to prove the same thing; and when I took up the inquiry,it was in the hope of completing his interrupted work.
He wrote to me early in the winter of 1908, from his camp by the RockTemple. Davis's tomb, at Biban el-Muluk, with its long, narrowpassage, apparently had little interest for him; he was at work on thehigh ground behind the temple, at a point one hundred yards or so duewest of the upper platform. He had an idea that he should find therethe mummies of Hatasu--and another; the latter, a certain Sen-Mut, whoappears in the inscriptions of the reign as an architect high in thequeen's favor. The archaeological points of the letter do not concernus in the least, but there was one odd little paragraph which I hadcause to remember afterwards.
"A girl belonging to some Arab tribe," wrote Condor, "came racing tothe camp two nights ago to claim my protection. What crime she hadcommitted, and what punishment she feared, were far from clear; butshe clung to me, trembling like a leaf, and positively refused todepart. It was a difficult situation, for a camp of fifty nativeexcavators, and one highly respectable European enthusiast, affords nosuitable quarters for an Arab girl--and a very personable Arab girl.At any rate, she is still here; I have had a sort of lean-to rigged upin a little valley east of my own tent, but it is very embarrassing."
Nearly a month passed before I heard from Condor again; then came asecond letter, with the news that on the eve of a great discovery--ashe believed--his entire native staff--the whole fifty--had desertedone night in a body! "Two days' work," he wrote, "would have seen thetomb opened--for I am more than ever certain that my plans areaccurate. Then I woke up one morning to find every man Jack of myfellows missing! I went down into the village where a lot of themlive, in a towering rage, but not one of the brutes was to be found,and their relations professed entire ignorance respecting theirwhereabouts. What caused me almost as much anxiety as the check in mywork was the fact that Mahara--the Arab girl--had vanished also. I amwondering if the thing has any sinister significance."
Condor finished with the statement that he was making tremendousefforts to secure a new gang. "But," said he, "I shall finish theexcavation, if I have to do it with my own hands."
His third and last letter contained even stranger matters than the twopreceding it. He had succeeded in borrowing a few men from the BritishArchaeological camp in the Fayum. Then, just as the work wasrestarting, the Arab girl, Mahara, turned up again, and entreated himto bring her down the Nile, "at least as far as Dendera. For thevengeance of her tribesmen," stated Condor, "otherwise would resultnot only in her own death, but in mine! At the moment of writing I amin two minds what to do. If Mahara is to go upon this journey, I donot feel justified in sending her alone, and there is no one here whocould perform the duty," etc.
I began to wonder, of course; and I had it in mind to take the trainto Luxor merely in order to see this Arab maiden, who seemed to occupyso prominent a place in Condor's mind. However, Fate would have itotherwise; and the next thing I heard was that Condor had been broughtinto Cairo, and was at the English hospital.
He had been bitten by a cat--presumably from the neighboring village;and although the doctor at Luxor dealt with the bite at once, traveleddown with him, and placed him in the hand of the Pasteur man at thehospital, he died, as you remember, in the night of his arrival,raving mad; the Pasteur treatment failed entirely.
I never saw him before the end, but they told me that his howls werehorribly like those of a cat. His eyes changed in some way, too, Iunderstand; and, with his fingers all contracted, he tried to_scratch_ everyone and everything within reach.
They had to strap the poor beggar down, and even then he tore thesheets into ribbons.
Well, as soon as possible, I made the necessary arrangements to finishCondor's inquiry. I had access to his papers, plans, etc., and in thespring of the same year I took up my quarters near Deir-el-Bahari,roped off the approaches to the camp, stuck up the usual notices, andprepared to finish the excavation, which, I gathered, was in a fairlyadvanced state.
My first surprise came very soon after my arrival, for when, with theplan before me, I started out to find the shaft, I found it,certainly, but only with great difficulty.
It had been filled in again with sand and loose rock right to the verytop!
II
All my inquiries availed me nothing. With what object the excavationhad been thus closed I was unable to conjecture. That Condor had notreclosed it I was quite certain, for at the time of his mishap he hadactually been at work at the bottom of the shaft, as inquiries from anative of Suefee, in the Fayum, who was his only companion at thetime, had revealed.
In his eagerness to complete the inquiry, Condor, by lantern light,had been engaged upon a solitary night-shift below, and the rabid cathad apparently fallen into the pit; probably in a frenzy of fear, ithad attacked Condor, after which it had escaped.
Only this one man was with him, and he, for some reason that I couldnot make out, had apparently been sleeping in the temple--quite aconsiderable distance from Condor's camp. The poor fellow's cries hadaroused him, and he had met Condor running down the path and away fromthe shaft.
This, however, was good evidence of the existence of the shaft at thetime, and as I stood contemplating the tightly packed rubble whichalone marked its site, I grew more and more mystified, for this taskof reclosing the cutting represented much hard labor.
Beyond perfecting my plans in one or two particulars, I did little onthe day of my arrival. I had only a handful of men with me, all ofwhom I knew, having worked with them before, and beyond clearingCondor's shaft I did not intend to excavate further.
Hatasu's Temple presents a lively enough scene in the daytime duringthe winter and early spring months, with the streams of touristsconstantly passing from the white causeway to Cook's Rest House on theedge of the desert. There had been a goodly number of visitors that dayto the temple below, and one or two of the more curious andventuresome had scrambled up the steep path to the little plateauwhich was the scene of my operations. None had penetrated beyond thenotice boards, however, and now, with the evening sky passing throughthose innumerable shade
s which defy palette and brush, which can onlybe distinguished by the trained eye, but which, from palest blue meltinto exquisite pink, and by some magical combination form that deepviolet which does not exist to perfection elsewhere than in the skiesof Egypt, I found myself in the silence and the solitude of "the HolyValley."
I stood at the edge of the plateau, looking out at the rosy belt whichmarked the course of the distant Nile, with the Arabian hills vaguelysketched beyond. The rocks stood up against that prospect as greatblack smudges, and what I could see of the causeway looked like a graysmear upon a drab canvas. Beneath me were the chambers of the RockTemple, with those wall paintings depicting events in the reign ofHatasu which rank among the wonders of Egypt.
Not a sound disturbed my reverie, save a faint clatter of cookingutensils from the camp behind me--a desecration of that sacredsolitude. Then a dog began to howl in the neighboring village.The dog ceased, and faintly to my ears came the note of a reedpipe. The breeze died away, and with it the piping.
I turned back to the camp, and, having partaken of a frugal supper,turned in upon my campaigner's bed, thoroughly enjoying my freedomfrom the routine of official life in Cairo, and looking forward tothe morrow's work pleasurably.
Under such circumstances a man sleeps well; and when, in an uncannygray half-light, which probably heralded the dawn, I awoke with astart, I knew that something of an unusual nature alone could havedisturbed my slumbers.
Firstly, then, I identified this with a concerted howling of thevillage dogs. They seemed to have conspired to make night hideous;I have never heard such an eerie din in my life. Then it graduallybegan to die away, and I realized, secondly, that the howling of thedogs and my own awakening might be due to some common cause. Thisidea grew upon me, and as the howling subsided, a sort of disquietpossessed me, and, despite my efforts to shake it off, grew moreurgent with the passing of every moment.
In short, I fancied that the thing which had alarmed or enraged thedogs was passing from the village through the Holy Valley, upwardto the Temple, upward to the plateau, and was approaching _me_.
I have never experienced an identical sensation since, but I seemedto be audient of a sort of psychic patrol, which, from a remote_pianissimo_, swelled _fortissimo_, to an intimate but silent clamor,which beat in some way upon my brain, but not through the faculty ofhearing, for now the night was deathly still.
Yet I was persuaded of some _approach_--of the coming of somethingsinister, and the suspense of waiting had become almost insupportable,so that I began to accuse my Spartan supper of having given menightmare, when the tent-flap was suddenly raised, and, outlinedagainst the paling blue of the sky, with a sort of reflected elfinlight playing upon her face, I saw an Arab girl looking in at me!
By dint of exerting all my self-control I managed to restrain the cryand upward start which this apparition prompted. Quite still, with myfists tightly clenched, I lay and looked into the eyes which werelooking into mine.
The style of literary work which it has been my lot to cultivate failsme in describing that beautiful and evil face. The features wereseverely classical and small, something of the Bisharin type, with acruel little mouth and a rounded chin, firm to hardness. In the eyesalone lay the languor of the Orient; they were exceedingly--indeed,excessively--long and narrow. The ordinary ragged, picturesque fineryof a desert girl bedecked this midnight visitant, who, motionless,stood there watching me.
I once read a work by Pierre de l'Ancre, dealing with the BlackSabbaths of the Middle Ages, and now the evil beauty of this Arab facethrew my memory back to those singular pages, for, perhaps owing tothe reflected light which I have mentioned, although the explanationscarcely seemed adequate, those long, narrow eyes shone catlike in thegloom.
Suddenly I made up my mind. Throwing the blanket from me, I leapt tothe ground, and in a flash had gripped the girl by the wrists.Confuting some lingering doubts, she proved to be substantial enough.My electric torch lay upon a box at the foot of the bed, and,stooping, I caught it up and turned its searching rays upon the faceof my captive.
She fell back from me, panting like a wild creature trapped, thendropped upon her knees and began to plead--began to plead in a voiceand with a manner which touched some chord of consciousness that Icould swear had never spoken before, and has never spoken since.
She spoke in Arabic, of course, but the words fell from her lips asliquid music in which lay all the beauty and all the deviltry of the"Siren's Song." Fully opening her astonishing eyes, she looked up atme, and, with her free hand pressed to her bosom, told me how she hadfled from an unwelcome marriage; how, an outcast and a pariah, shehad hidden in the desert places for three days and three nights,sustaining life only by means of a few dates which she had broughtwith her, and quenching her thirst with stolen water-melons.
"I can bear it no longer, _effendim_. Another night out in the desert,with the cruel moon beating, beating, beating upon my brain, withcreeping things coming out from the rocks, wriggling, wriggling, theirmany feet making whisperings in the sand--ah, it will kill me! And Iam for ever outcast from my tribe, from my people. No tent of all theArabs, though I fly to the gates of Damascus, is open to me, save Ienter in shame, as a slave, as a plaything, as a toy. Myheart"--furiously she beat upon her breast--"is empty and desolate,_effendim_. I am meaner than the lowliest thing that creeps upon thesand; yet the God that made that creeping thing made me also--and you,you, who are merciful and strong, would not crush any creature becauseit was weak and helpless."
I had released her wrist now, and was looking down at her in a sortof stupor. The evil which at first I had seemed to perceive in her waseffaced, wiped out as an artist wipes out an error in his drawing. Herdark beauty was speaking to me in a language of its own; a strangelanguage, yet one so intelligible that I struggled in vain todisregard it. And her voice, her gestures, and the witch-fire of hereyes were whipping up my blood to a fever heat of passionatesorrow--of despair. Yes, incredible as it sounds, despair!
In short, as I see it now, this siren of the wilderness was playingupon me as an accomplished musician might play upon a harp, strikingthis string and that at will, and sounding each with such full notesas they had rarely, if ever, emitted before.
Most damnable anomaly of all, I--Edward Neville, archaeologist, mostprosy and matter-of-fact man in Cairo, perhaps--_knew_ that this nomadwho had burst into my tent, upon whom I had set eyes for the firsttime scarce three minutes before, held me enthralled; and yet, withher wondrous eyes upon me, I could summon up no resentment, and couldoffer but poor resistance.
"In the Little Oasis, _effendim_, I have a sister who will admit meinto her household, if only as a servant. There I can be safe, thereI can rest. O _Inglisi_, at home in England you have a sister of yourown! Would you see her pursued, a hunted thing from rock to rock,crouching for shelter in the lair of some jackal, stealing that shemight live--and flying always, never resting, her heart leaping forfear, flying, flying, with nothing but dishonor before her?"
She shuddered and clasped my left hand in both her own convulsively,pulling it down to her bosom.
"There can be only one thing, _effendim_," she whispered. "Do you notsee the white bones bleaching in the sun?"
Throwing all my resolution into the act, I released my hand from herclasp, and, turning aside, sat down upon the box which served me aschair and table, too.
A thought had come to my assistance, had strengthened me in the momentof my greatest weakness; it was the thought of that Arab girlmentioned in Condor's letters. And a scheme of things, an incrediblescheme, that embraced and explained some, if not all, of the horriblecircumstances attendant upon his death, began to form in my brain.
Bizarre it was, stretching out beyond the realm of things natural andproper, yet I clung to it, for there, in the solitude, with thiswildly beautiful creature kneeling at my feet, and with her uncannypowers of fascination yet enveloping me like a cloak, I found it notso improbable as inevitably it must have seemed at another time.
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I turned my head, and through the gloom sought to look into the longeyes. As I did so they closed and appeared as two darkly luminousslits in the perfect oval of the face.
"You are an impostor!" I said in Arabic, speaking firmly anddeliberately. "To Mr. Condor"--I could have sworn that she startedslightly at sound of the name--"you called yourself Mahara. I knowyou, and I will have nothing to do with you."
But in saying it I had to turn my head aside, for the strangest,maddest impulses were bubbling up in my brain in response to theglances of those half-shut eyes.
I reached for my coat, which lay upon the foot of the bed, and, takingout some loose money, I placed fifty piastres in the nerveless brownhand.
"That will enable you to reach the Little Oasis, if such is yourdesire," I said. "It is all I can do for you, and now--you must go."
The light of the dawn was growing stronger momentarily, so that Icould see my visitor quite clearly. She rose to her feet, and stoodbefore me, a straight, slim figure, sweeping me from head to foot withsuch a glance of passionate contempt as I had never known or suffered.
She threw back her head magnificently, dashed the money on the groundat my feet, and, turning, leaped out of the tent.
For a moment I hesitated, doubting, questioning my humanity, testingmy fears; then I took a step forward, and peered out across theplateau. Not a soul was in sight. The rocks stood up gray and eerie,and beneath lay the carpet of the desert stretching unbroken to theshadows of the Nile Valley.
III
We commenced the work of clearing the shaft at an early hour thatmorning. The strangest ideas were now playing in my mind, and in someway I felt myself to be in opposition to definite enmity. Myexcavators labored with a will, and, once we had penetrated below thefirst three feet or so of tightly packed stone, it became a merematter of shoveling, for apparently the lower part of the shaft hadbeen filled up principally with sand.
I calculated that four days' work at the outside would see the shaftclear to the base of Condor's excavation. There remained, accordingto his own notes, only another six feet or so; but it was solidlimestone--the roof of the passage, if his plans were correct,communicating with the tomb of Hatasu.
With the approach of night, tired as I was, I felt little inclinationfor sleep. I lay down on my bed with a small Browning pistol under thepillow, but after an hour or so of nervous listening drifted off intoslumber. As on the night before, I awoke shortly before the coming ofdawn.
Again the village dogs were raising a hideous outcry, and again I waskeenly conscious of some ever-nearing menace. This consciousness grewstronger as the howling of the dogs grew fainter, and the sense of_approach_ assailed me as on the previous occasion.
I sat up immediately with the pistol in my hand, and, gently raisingthe tent flap, looked out over the darksome plateau. For a long timeI could perceive nothing; then, vaguely outlined against the sky, Idetected something that moved above the rocky edge.
It was so indefinite in form that for a time I was unable to identifyit, but as it slowly rose higher and higher, two luminouseyes--obviously feline eyes, since they glittered greenly in thedarkness--came into view. In character and in shape they were the eyesof a cat, but in point of size they were larger than the eyes of anycat I had ever seen. Nor were they jackal eyes. It occurred to me thatsome predatory beast from the Sudan might conceivably have strayedthus far north.
The presence of such a creature would account for the nightlydisturbance amongst the village dogs; and, dismissing thesuperstitious notions which had led me to associate the mysteriousArab girl with the phenomenon of the howling dogs, I seized upon thisnew idea with a sort of gladness.
Stepping boldly out of the tent, I strode in the direction of thegleaming eyes. Although my only weapon was the Browning pistol, it wasa weapon of considerable power, and, moreover, I counted upon thewell-known cowardice of nocturnal animals. I was not disappointed inthe result.
The eyes dropped out of sight, and as I leaped to the edge of rockoverhanging the temple a lithe shape went streaking off in thegreyness beneath me. Its coloring appeared to be black, but thisappearance may have been due to the bad light. Certainly it was nocat, was no jackal; and once, twice, thrice my Browning spat into thedarkness.
Apparently I had not scored a hit, but the loud reports of the weaponaroused the men sleeping in the camp, and soon I was surrounded by aring of inquiring faces.
But there I stood on the rock-edge, looking out across the desert insilence. Something in the long, luminous eyes, something in thesinuous, flying shape had spoken to me intimately, horribly.
Hassan es-Sugra, the headman, touched my arm, and I knew that I mustoffer some explanation.
"Jackals," I said shortly. And with no other word I walked back to mytent.
The night passed without further event, and in the morning weaddressed ourselves to the work with such a will that I saw, to mysatisfaction, that by noon of the following day the labor of clearingthe loose sand would be completed.
During the preparation of the evening meal I became aware of a certaindisquiet in the camp, and I noted a disinclination on the part of thenative laborers to stray far from the tents. They hung together in agroup, and whilst individually they seemed to avoid meeting my eye,collectively they watched me in a furtive fashion.
A gang of Moslem workmen calls for delicate handling, and I wonderedif, inadvertently, I had transgressed in some way their iron-boundcode of conduct. I called Hassan es-Sugra aside.
"What ails the men?" I asked him. "Have they some grievance?"
Hassan spread his palms eloquently.
"If they have," he replied, "they are secret about it, and I am not intheir confidence. Shall I thrash three or four of them in order tolearn the nature of this grievance?"
"No thanks all the same," I said, laughing at this characteristicproposal. "If they refuse to work to-morrow, there will be time enoughfor you to adopt those measures."
On this, the third night of my sojourn in the Holy Valley by theTemple of Hatasu, I slept soundly and uninterruptedly. I had beenlooking forward with the keenest zest to the morrow's work, whichpromised to bring me within sight of my goal, and when Hassan came toawaken me, I leaped out of bed immediately.
Hassan es-Sugra, having performed his duty, did not, as was hiscustom, retire; he stood there, a tall, angular figure, looking at mestrangely.
"Well?" I said.
"There is trouble," was his simple reply. "Follow me, NevilleEffendi."
Wondering greatly, I followed him across the plateau and down theslope to the excavation. There I pulled up short with a cry ofamazement.
Condor's shaft was filled in to the very top, and presented, to myastonished gaze, much the same aspect that had greeted me upon myfirst arrival!
"The men----" I began.
Hassan es-Sugra spread wide his palms.
"Gone!" he replied. "Those Coptic dogs, those eaters of carrion, havefled in the night."
"And this"--I pointed to the little mound of broken granite andsand--"is their work?"
"So it would seem," was the reply; and Hassan sniffed his sublimecontempt.
I stood looking bitterly at this destruction of my toils. Thestrangeness of the thing at the moment did not strike me, in my anger;I was only concerned with the outrageous impudence of the missingworkmen, and if I could have laid hands upon one of them it had surelygone hard with him.
As for Hassan es-Sugra, I believe he would cheerfully have broken thenecks of the entire gang. But he was a man of resource.
"It is so newly filled in," he said, "that you and I, in three days,or in four, can restore it to the state it had reached when thosenameless dogs, who regularly prayed with their shoes on, thosedevourers of pork, began their dirty work."
His example was stimulating. _I_ was not going to be beaten, either.
After a hasty breakfast, the pair of us set to work with pick andshovel and basket. We worked as those slaves must have worked whosetoil was directed
by the lash of the Pharaoh's overseer. My backacquired an almost permanent crook, and every muscle in my body seemedto be on fire. Not even in the midday heat did we slacken or stay ourtoils; and when dusk fell that night a great mound had arisen besideCondor's shaft, and we had excavated to a depth it had taken our gangdouble the time to reach.
When at last we threw down our tools in utter exhaustion, I held outmy hand to Hassan, and wrung his brown fist enthusiastically. His eyessparkled as he met my glance.
"Neville Effendi," he said, "you are a true Moslem!"
And only the initiated can know how high was the compliment conveyed.
That night I slept the sleep of utter weariness, yet it was not adreamless sleep, or perhaps it was not so deep as I supposed, forblazing cat-eyes encircled me in my dreams, and a constant felinehowling seemed to fill the night.
When I awoke the sun was blazing down upon the rock outside my tent,and, springing out of bed, I perceived, with amazement, that themorning was far advanced. Indeed, I could hear the distant voices ofthe donkey-boys and other harbingers of the coming tourists.
Why had Hassan es-Sugra not awakened me?
I stepped out of the tent and called him in a loud voice. There wasno reply. I ran across the plateau to the edge of the hollow.
Condor's shaft had been reclosed to the top!
Language fails me to convey the wave of anger, amazement, incredulity,which swept over me. I looked across to the deserted camp and back tomy own tent; I looked down at the mound, where but a few hours beforehad been a pit, and seriously I began to question whether I was mad orwhether madness had seized upon all who had been with me. Then, peggeddown upon the heap of broken stones, I perceived, fluttering, a smallpiece of paper.
Dully I walked across and picked it up. Hassan, a man of someeducation, clearly was the writer. It was a pencil scrawl in doubtfulArabic, and, not without difficulty, I deciphered it as follows:
"Fly, Neville Effendi! This is a haunted place!"
Standing there by the mound, I tore the scrap of paper into minutefragments, bitterly casting them from me upon the ground. It wasincredible; it was insane.
The man who had written that absurd message, the man who had undonehis own work, had the reputation of being fearless and honorable. Hehad been with me before a score of times, and had quelled pettymutinies in the camp in a manner which marked him a born overseer. Icould not understand; I could scarcely believe the evidence of my ownsenses.
What did I do?
I suppose there are some who would have abandoned the thing at onceand for always, but I take it that the national traits are strongwithin me. I went over to the camp and prepared my own breakfast;then, shouldering pick and shovel, I went down into the valley andset to work. What ten men could not do, what two men had failed to do,one man was determined to do.
It was about half an hour after commencing my toils, and when, Isuppose, the surprise and rage occasioned by the discovery had begunto wear off, that I found myself making comparisons between my owncase and that of Condor. It became more and more evident to me thatevents--mysterious events--were repeating themselves.
The frightful happenings attendant upon Condor's death were marshalingin my mind. The sun was blazing down upon me, and distant voices couldbe heard in the desert stillness. I knew that the plain below wasdotted with pleasure-seeking tourists, yet nervous tremors shook me.Frankly, I dreaded the coming of the night.
Well, tenacity or pugnacity conquered, and I worked on until dusk. Mysupper despatched, I sat down on my bed and toyed with the Browning.
I realized already that sleep, under existing conditions, wasimpossible. I perceived that on the morrow I must abandon my one-manenterprise, pocket my pride, in a sense, and seek new assistants, newcompanions.
The fact was coming home to me conclusively that a menace, real andnot mythical, hung over that valley. Although, in the morning sunlightand filled with indignation, I had thought contemptuously of Hassanes-Sugra, now, in the mysterious violet dusk so conducive to calmconsideration, I was forced to admit that he was at least as brave aman as I. And he had fled! What did that night hold in keeping for me?
* * * * *
I will tell you what occurred, and it is the only explanation I haveto give of why Condor's shaft, said to communicate with the real tombof Hatasu, to this day remains unopened.
There, on the edge of my bed, I sat far into the night, not daring toclose my eyes. But physical weariness conquered in the end, and,although I have no recollection of its coming, I must have succumbedto sleep, since I remember--can never forget--a repetition of thedream, or what I had assumed to be a dream, of the night before.
A ring of blazing green eyes surrounded me. At one point this ring wasbroken, and in a kind of nightmare panic I leaped at that promise ofsafety, and found myself outside the tent.
Lithe, slinking shapes hemmed me in--cat shapes, ghoul shapes,veritable figures of the pit. And the eyes, the shapes, although theywere the eyes and shapes of cats, sometimes changed elusively, andbecame the wicked eyes and the sinuous, writhing shapes of women.Always the ring was incomplete, and always I retreated in the onlydirection by which retreat was possible. I retreated from thosecat-things.
In this fashion I came at last to the shaft, and there I saw the toolswhich I had left at the end of my day's toil.
Looking around me, I saw also, with such a pang of horror as I cannothope to convey to you, that the ring of green eyes was now unbrokenabout me.
And it was closing in.
Nameless feline creatures were crowding silently to the edge of thepit, some preparing to spring down upon me where I stood. A voiceseemed to speak in my brain; it spoke of capitulation, telling me toaccept defeat, lest, resisting, my fate be the fate of Condor.
Peals of shrill laughter rose upon the silence. The laughter was mine.
Filling the night with this hideous, hysterical merriment, I wasworking feverishly with pick and with shovel filling in the shaft.
The end? The end is that I awoke, in the morning, lying, not on mybed, but outside on the plateau, my hands torn and bleeding and everymuscle in my body throbbing agonisingly. Remembering my dream--foreven in that moment of awakening I thought I had dreamed--I staggeredacross to the valley of the excavation.
Condor's shaft was reclosed to the top.
