The Bronze Bell Part 42

With the fourth ringing shout and showing of steel, a silence fell. The walls were veritably hedged with quivering blades, all a-gleam in the ghastly glare of green. Over the sculptured faces of the great idols flickering shadows played, so that they seemed to move and grimace, as if with approbation.

Amber was watching the serpent--dazed and weary as if with a great need of sleep. Even the salvos of shouts came to him as from a great distance. To the clangour of the Bell alone he had become abnormally sensitive; every fibre of his being shuddered, responsive to its weird nuances.

It returned to its solemn and stately intoning.

"Out of ye all have I chosen and fixed upon one who shall lead ye.

Through him shall my strength be made manifest, my Will be made known to my peoples. Him must ye serve and obey; to him must ye bow down and be humble. Say, are ye pleased? Will ye have him, my Children?"

Without an instant's delay a cry of ratification rang to the roof.

"Yea, O our Mother! Him we will serve and obey, to him bow down and be humble."

The Voice addressed itself directly to the kneeling man. He stiffened and roused.

"Thou hast heard of the honour we confer upon thee--I Medhyama, thy Mother, and these my children, thy brothers. Ye shall lead and shall rule in Bharuta. Are ye ready?"

Half hypnotised, Amber opened his mouth, but no words came. His chin dropped to his breast.

"Thy strength must be known to my peoples; they must see thee put to the proof of thy courage, that they may know thee to be the man for their leader.... Ye are ready?"

He was unable to move a finger.

"Stretch out thine arms!"

He shuddered and tried to obey. The Voice rang imperative.

"Stretch forth thine arms for the testing!"

Somehow, mechanically, he succeeded in raising his arms and holding them rigid before him. Alarmed by the movement, the cobra turned with a hiss, waving his poisonous head. But the Virginian made no offer to withdraw his hands. His eyes were wide and staring and his face livid.

A subdued murmur came from the men cl.u.s.tered round the idols, in semi-darkness.

The Bell boomed forth like an organ.

"O hooded Death.... O Death, who art trained to my service! Thou before whom all men stand affrighted! Thou who canst look into their hearts and read them as a scroll that is unrolled ... Look deep into the heart of my Chosen! Judge if he be worthy or wanting, judge if he be false or true ... Judge him, O Death!"

Before Amber the great serpent was oscillating like a pendulum, its little tongue playing like forked red lightning, its loathsome red eyes holding his own. Terror gripped his heart, and his soul curdled. He would have cried out, but that his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. He could not have moved had he willed to.

"Look well, O Death, and judge him!"

The dance of the Hooded Death changed in character, grew more frenzied; the white writhing coils melted into one another in dizzying confusion; figure merged into figure like smoke.... The suspense grew intolerable.

"Hast thou judged him, O Death?"

Instantly the white cobra reared up to its utmost and remained poised over Amber, barely moving save for the almost imperceptible throbbing of the hood and the incessant darting of the forked tongue.

"If he be loyal, then spare him ..."

The hood did not move. Amber's flesh crawled with unspeakable dread.

"If he be faithless, then ... _strike!_"

For another moment the cobra maintained the tensity. Then slowly, cruel head waving, hood shrinking, eyes losing their deathly l.u.s.tre, coil by coil it sank.

A thick murmur ran the round of the walls, swelling into an inarticulate cry, which beat upon Amber's ears like the raving of a far-off surf. From his lips a strangled sob broke, and, every muscle relaxing, he lurched forward.

Alarmed, in a trice the cobra was up again, hood distended to the bursting point, head swinging so swiftly that the eye could not follow it. In another breath would come the final thrust....

A firearm exploded behind Amber, singeing his cheek with its flame. He fell over sideways, barely escaping the head of the cobra, which, with its hood blown to tatters, writhed in convulsions, its malignant tongue straining forth as if in one last attempt to reach his hand.

A second shot followed the first and then a brisk, confused fusillade.

Amber heard a man scream out in mortal agony, and the dull sound of a heavy body falling near him; but, coincident with the second report, the brazier had been overturned and its light extinguished as if sucked up into the air.

CHAPTER XIX

RUTTON'S DAUGHTER

In darkness the blacker for the sudden disappearance of the light, somebody stumbled over Amber--stumbled and swore in good English. The Virginian sat up, crying out as weakly as a child: "Labertouche!" A voice said: "Thank G.o.d!" He felt strong hands lift him to his feet. He clung to him who had helped him, swaying like a drunkard, wits a-swirl in the brain thus roughly awakened from semi-hypnosis.

"Here," said Labertouche's voice, "take my hand and follow. We're in for it now!"

He caught Amber's hand and dragged him, yielding and unquestioning, rapidly through a chaotic rush of unseen bodies.

The firing had electrified the tense-strung audience. With a pandemonium of shrieks, oaths, shouts, orders unheard and commands unheeded, a concerted rush was made from every quarter to the spot where the doomed man had been kneeling. Men running blundered into running men and cannoned off at direct angles to their original courses, without realising it. Disorder reigned rampant, and the cavern rang with a thousand echoes, while the Bell awoke and roared a raging tocsin, redoubling the din. No man could have said where he stood or whither he ran--save one, perhaps. That one was at Amber's side and had laid his course beforehand and knew that both their lives depended upon his sticking to it without deviation. To him a rush of a hundred feet in a direct line meant salvation, the least deviation from it, death.

He plunged through the scurrying ma.s.ses without regard for any hurt that might come either to him or to his charge.

A red glare of torches was breaking out over the heads of the mob before they gained their destination. Amber saw that they were making for a corner formed by the junction of one of the pedestals with a rocky wall. He was now recovering rapidly and able to appreciate that they stood a good chance of winning away; for the natives were all converging toward the centre of the cavern, and apparently none heeded them. Nevertheless Labertouche, releasing him, put a revolver in his hand.

"Don't hesitate to shoot if any one comes this way!" he said. "I've got to get this door open and..."

He broke off with an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of grat.i.tude; for while he had been speaking, his fingers busily groping in the convolutions of the sculptured pedestal had encountered what he sought, and now he pulled out an iron bar two feet or so in length and as thick as a woman's wrist. Inserting this in a socket, as one familiar with the trick, he put his weight upon it; a carved sandstone slab slid back silently, disclosing a black cavernous opening.

"In with you," panted Labertouche, removing the lever. "Don't delay...."

Amber did not. He took with him a hazy impression of a vast, vaulted hall filled with a ruddy glare of torchlight, a raving rabble of gorgeously attired natives in its centre. Then the opening received him and he found himself in a black hole of an underground gallery--a place that reeked with the dank odours of the tomb.

Labertouche followed and with the aid of a small electric pocket-lamp discovered another socket for the lever. A moment later the slab moved back into place, and the Englishman dropped the metal bar. "If there were only some way of locking that opening," he gasped, "we'd be fairly safe. As it is, we'll have to look nippy. That was a near call--as near a one as ever you'll know, my boy; and we're not out yet. What are you doing?" he added, as Amber stopped to pick up the lever.

"It isn't a bad weapon," said the Virginian, "at a pinch. You'll want your gun, and that she-devil, Naraini, got mine."

"Keep the one I gave you and don't be afraid to use it. I've another and a couple of knives for good measure. That Mohammedan prince whom I persuaded to change places with me was a walking a.r.s.enal." Labertouche chuckled. "Come along," he said, and drew ahead at a dog-trot.

They sped down a pa.s.sage which delved at a sharp grade through solid rock. Now and again it turned and struck away in another direction.

Once they descended--or rather fell down--a short, steep flight of steps. At the bottom Amber stopped.