Astounding Stories, July, 1931 Part 8

A small party, led by the stocky figure of the captain of the Pharaoh's guard, wound its way through a network of corridors, past jagged walls down which water slowly dripped, across a swaying bridge of hides that spanned an awful chasm in the volcano's very heart, and came at last to a large dark hole in the rock.

The captain turned. "In there!" he commanded harshly. The two figures, man and girl, were dumped like sacks of flour into the gloomy chamber. The men who had carried them turned and tramped away; the captain faced one who had stayed.

"Guard them with thy life, Sitah. Thou knowest the payment for carelessness."

Sitah nodded grimly. He was fully armed, with spear and sword. He sat down outside the dark hole, and the captain retraced his steps. The pad of his feet on the floor died away, and then, for a long time, there was silence.

Perhaps every five minutes Sitah turned and stared down into the hole behind, ears craned for the slightest sound. But none came. The two inside, no doubt, were asleep.

It was very hot, down in the deep-buried corridor, and though Sitah was accustomed to the heat, he soon found his eyelids drooping and his whole body crying out for sleep. But he did not go to sleep. He knew too well what would befall him in Aten's hands if he did. He had seen many old men and women die in those hands, on ceremony days--old people who croaked in helpless agony as the keen knife blade dropped slowly down toward them, paused a second, inches from their hearts, and then plunged in with a rush. Old men and women, useless, their years of service gone. Yes, and many unwanted girl children....

That was what the Sun G.o.d demanded. His hands reached ever for human bodies. It was cruel, but he was a G.o.d; and who was to question the will of a G.o.d?

Sitah was very glad when, after six hours of lonely vigil, another guard relieved him and took his place outside the dark hole. Sitah spoke humorously to him, a grim kind of humor, as befitting one who has seen much death.

"They sleep, Hapu," he said, nodding into the prison. "But soon a longer sleep will come for them--the sleep of the knife!" He chuckled as he made his way far below, to his bed. A few hours of rest and he would be in fine fettle for the ceremony.

The relieving guard grunted and peered into the cell. He saw two dark figures outstretched, mere blobs of black, a little blacker than the shadows. Yes, they slept....

He sat down on the bench Sitah had just vacated. He had four hours to wait. Then the priests, led by Hrihor, would come, and the ceremony would begin, and the G.o.d's hands would move together. It would be a fine show! He looked forward to it keenly. It would be delicious to see that girl Taia bared to the knife. It would please the G.o.d: seldom did his hands hold such a beautiful sacrifice. And the queer stranger, too--he would probably die very noisily. When he saw the knife sliding down, he would regret his blasphemy and shriek for forgiveness!

For along time Hapu sat quite motionless. He was a good watchdog.

Hours pa.s.sed; his vigil was nearing its end; the priests would soon come. Soon--

A slight noise came from the cell behind him.

He whirled around. The noise came again, louder. A voice cried out.

"Water! Water! I am dying!"

Hapu grunted. It was the stranger's voice. The stranger must not die; it would spoil the ceremony; Aten would be wroth. He stared into the hole.

One of the figures was tossing, writhing painfully. The agonized cry echoed again. "Water! Please! I am dying!"

Hapu strode into the cell.

For a moment he stood still, peering down at the tossing figure. His brain suddenly shouted alarm. This was no human body! "What--" he began.

But the question was never finished. Something hard crashed into the back of his skull; his spear dropped with a clank, and he slumped to the floor.

Out of the shadows, behind, a man emerged and bent down over the outstretched figure of the guard. A smile appeared on the man's lean face: the guard was out--cold. It took Wes Craig just a moment to ascertain this; then he tiptoed over to a dark form that lay on the floor--the girl, whose pale, anxious face peered up out of the shadows. Craig cut her bonds with the guard's sword and raised her to her feet. She stood close to him, clinging to him, trembling, almost not believing she was free.

Her eyes were filled with awe as she looked up into the American's eyes. "First thou didst restore me to life," she whispered, "and now thou hast broken thy bonds. Surely, thou must be a G.o.d!"

Wes smiled. "It was simple, Taia. Look! This buckle on my belt--'tis sharp. I edged it round and cut the rope. It was slow work, else we would have been free long before."

"But I saw thee toss and writhe on the floor, and cry out for water!"

Craig kicked a pile of furs that had been heaped one on top of the other, and tied together with thread from an unraveled woolen mitten.

"This was my body," he said coolly. "Furs. The cell must be a storeroom for them--lucky for us. I was standing with a rock in my hand near the door, when I cried out for water.... We shall not die in Aten's hands, Taia! See--I have a sword. With luck--"

There was a warmer quality than reverence in Taia's eyes when she spoke--though she did not realize it. "Then come quickly, O Stranger!"

she said. "The guard has been changed once; the time for sacrifice nears!"

Craig nodded. Only a sword was in his hand; his automatic, he found, had been taken from him while he lay unconscious in the Temple, probably desired as a curious heathen object. The discovery, made when he had cut his bonds, had been a serious blow to his hopes: with a sword, he was only a human being, but with a gun he might have pa.s.sed as supernatural to this primitive race.

But it could not be helped. He peered to each side, gestured to the girl, and together they started up the sloping incline of the corridor.

The heat of the earth was great, down where they were, and it made the pa.s.sageway muggy and odorous. Fitful shadows were flung by widely separated oil lamps as they pressed forward--grotesque splotches of black that half a dozen times tightened the American's grasp on his sword, sure that a guard had come upon them. He knew that their margin of time in which to effect escape was small, and he gradually quickened their pace, sacrificing caution for speed. Taia's hand was in his left; and he had just turned to her to ask if they were taking the best course up to the surface, when suddenly she stopped short.

"Hearken!" she whispered, frightened.

Wes craned his ears. For a moment there was nothing but silence. Then a faint sound trembled through the shadows. It could only have been that of many approaching footsteps.

"The priests!" Taia murmured, tightening her grip on his hand. "They come!"

There was a sharp bend in the corridor fifty feet ahead; from behind it a growing clatter of sandals echoed through the rock-walled pa.s.sageway. Craig paused, irresolute. "Are we blocked, ahead?" he asked.

"Yes," her low voice hurriedly told him. "But we can go back, cross the bridge of the chasm and go up the other side. But others may be there, and--"

A shout cut her words short. Dim figures appeared around the bend in the pa.s.sage. They were discovered!

Wes Craig's face set grimly; he worked his hand into a good grip on the sword handle, looked levelly at the gathering crowd ahead and said:

"I think it best to face them now, Taia. I can hold them for minutes at least; thou canst perhaps escape. Rest a.s.sured I shall take that High Priest with me, when I cross thy River of Death!"

"But where can I go?" cried the girl. "Nay, Divine One--I shall stay at thy side!"

The excited yells of Hrihor, urging the others forward, came plainly to their ears. Swords glittered in the gloom of the corridor, and like a foam-tipped wave that slowly gathers speed the group of priests and soldiers charged down on the man and girl. Craig saw that she would not run.

"Then come!" he shouted, and swung her around. With desperate speed they retraced their steps. They soon pa.s.sed their cell, and recklessly leaped through the deceptive shadows on the far side, on down the corridor.

The High Priest and the others followed close behind. His crafty face was distorted with rage, and he kept screaming to his men: "The wrath of the G.o.d on thee if they escape!" Craig's ears caught that, and he found time for a bitter smile. _If!_ If only they had left him his automatic! A few bullets flung into them would even matters a trifle.

The corridor twisted and slanted ever downward. They panted around a corner and came to the brink of a dark pit. "Down!" cried the girl.

She led the way, nimbly dropping down the fifteen-foot rawhide ladder that was there. Halfway down the ladder Wes reached up with his sword and cut it from where it was fastened. He fell to the bottom of the hole with a grunt. As he extricated himself from the ladder's entangling meshes be yelled up, "Come and get us, you cutthroats--if you can!" and was off after the lithe form of the girl.

But the action helped them but little, and added only a few feet to the distance between them and their pursuers, for they boldly made the deep drop without sending for another ladder. Taia was sobbing for air, and Wes himself beginning to feel the bitter pang of hopelessness when they rounded a corner and came to a great chasm--a wide cleft in the very heart of the volcano. A terrific heat came from its maw of unbroken black, and a peculiar, choking odor, sulphurous. Across it was a slender framework of hides and thongs--a mere catwalk over the terrible depths below.