The Old Man of the Mountain Part 17

"Next day they took me into the Temple, and I had a very interesting interview with the August and Venerable. As I told you, he did not turn on the Eye for my benefit; indeed, he was very courteous and suave, and I didn't pay much attention to his exposition of the Law of the Eye. It was only when I had committed the unpardonable offence of knocking down one of his priests, and he sent me down here, that I thought him anything but a plausible old humbug with ogreish tendencies.

"Prepared as I was, his little hypnotic tricks with the green eye had made no impression on me. The general atmosphere of mystery, and what I learned from the people on the plateau, convinced me that he was hiding some precious secret below stairs, and the sight of his golden throne made me suspect its nature. Never in my life was I better pleased than when they brought me down their subterranean stairs to learn wisdom!

And I hadn't been here an hour before my suspicions became certainty.

That Chinaman yonder will be engaged all day in letting lead plates down into the pit, and drawing them up pure gold. The plates are brought down from above: they explain the knocking you heard from the building near the old iniquity's paG.o.da. There is not a tool of any kind here: nothing but chopsticks, even, for eating our food; the lead is cut and hammered into plates above. The first day I was on the plateau I saw some of the prisoners staggering to that building under heavy loads. I conjecture that the Old Man has confederates somewhere outside, in China probably, who supply him at intervals with the lead, and receive the gold in return."

"It sounds incredible," exclaimed Forrester, interrupting his companion for the first time.

"The word 'incredible' ought to be banished from our vocabulary,"

Beresford rejoined emphatically. "Nothing is incredible. They'd have said the same thing only thirty years ago about petrol engines, wireless telegraphy, and aeroplanes. I am convinced that the search for the Philosopher's Stone, which baffled the alchemists for hundreds of years, was not the absurdity we have been taught to regard it. In some far distant age, someone discovered that Nature herself turned the base into the precious metal; the fact was rumoured abroad, though the scene of the trans.m.u.tation was never allowed to become known; and the alchemists wasted their lives in trying to do artificially what had already been done by natural process. Why, aren't our chemists at the present day groping in the same direction? Don't they tell us that all terrestrial things are merely forms of the same ultimate element, or manifestations of the same ultimate force? Doesn't every fresh discovery point that way?"

"But how is it done?"

"I don't know; the Old Man doesn't know; n.o.body knows. In that pit yonder, a hundred and fifty feet deep, as I calculate, there is a bed of some substance that possesses this marvellous property--call it radio-active if you like. It can't be radium, for the emanations of radium produce sores on the body, as you know, and these wretched Chinamen have no sores. Its effect, from what you tell me--and I confess your news astonished and appalled me--is far more terrible.

Evidently exposure to its direct ray causes instant demolition--annihilation is not the word; dust remains. Proximity to it brings about a sapping of the will; you yourself felt that in your cell; I feel it too. In the cavern yonder the effect is intensified. This mysterious power causes the mind to decay and the body to wither. How old do you suppose that Chinaman is?"

"He looks about seventy."

"He is twenty-eight! I don't know it from himself; he has no memory, cannot even tell you his name. But one of the others is his cousin--looks forty and is actually twenty-two. He has been here a year, taking his turn with the rest at the work; they have a day each.

And there's a mystery about the whole organisation which at present I can't fathom. All the prisoners here engaged in the horrible work are young Chinamen of good family. I was told that on the plateau. Why does the old villain employ none but his own countrymen? I shall find out by and by; I haven't been here long enough to learn much; the poor wretches are so mentally abject that I have to go slowly with them. I do know this: that they are all brought in by priests of the second order. When one dies--their bodies are cast into the pit--he is immediately replaced by another. It seems that some of these priests are constantly prowling about the country, s.n.a.t.c.hing up likely subjects here and there, some to recruit the labourers on the plateau, others for this diabolical work below. Your old Indian told me that every now and then a priest of the second order shaves his moustache and head, and enters the ranks of the first, after which he never goes into the world outside. It suggests that they are promoted after they have bagged a certain number of prisoners. How the priests are themselves recruited I don't know. They are all celibates; I suppose the Old Man has emissaries out proselytising. But these are all conjectures: I hope to find out a good deal more for certain before we get away."

"You know how to get away, then?" Forrester asked eagerly.

"I haven't given it a thought!" was the placid answer. "I pin my faith to old Runnymede--Redfern, Ruddyweed, Runnymede; you twig the process?"

"But if he doesn't come?--if he is dead?" cried Forrester, too much concerned with actualities to be interested in the evolution of nicknames. "We can't get down to the rift, even if we escape from here like the negrito."

"What negrito?"

"Didn't you know? One escaped the other day, got on to the plateau, and took refuge with the old zamindar. He was caught, and I believe it was he that we saw destroyed by the Eye."

"Dear me! That is very remarkable. I hadn't the least idea escape was possible. We must discover how the little fellow managed it, though it's of minor importance beside other things we have to learn. For instance, knowing what we do of the tremendous destructive power of that mysterious substance below ground, how did old what's-his-name above contrive to imprison a portion of it in his mitre without atomising himself? Clearly there must be _some_ things that it doesn't affect--like that slab yonder."

"Why, I remember! Look at this!" Forrester exclaimed, taking from his pocket the crumpled sheet which he had found so useful in his cell.

Unfolding it, he went on: "It was given me by the Indian girl, who received it from the negrito. She said that it saved from the Eye.

When I held it between my eyes and the monster on the wall I could scarcely see the glare. It was a G.o.dsend."

"Marvels upon marvels!" cried Beresford, fingering the crackling sheet curiously. "We must look into this. But here comes dinner: we shall have plenty of time!"

CHAPTER XIII

A DRY BONE

The dishes containing the midday meal were brought to the prisoners by the two negrito sentinels, who received them from the guard at the further end of the ledge. The food, abundant in quant.i.ty, consisted of a variety of Chinese viands, strange to the Englishmen's taste, but not unpalatable.

"The Old Man feeds us well," Beresford remarked, handling his chopsticks dexterously. "He doesn't want to hasten Nature's destructive work by starving us. Drinking-water, by the way, is got from a little stream that trickles into the lake just round the corner. I confess I shouldn't care to drink the water in which that antediluvian monster disports himself. We'll take a look at him presently--if we get a chance, for he appears to be rather shy: I suppose he feels hopelessly old-fashioned, or perhaps he has an aristocratic pride in his long descent, and scorns the company of such new creatures as mere men."

"Why isn't the place more stuffy than it is?" Forrester asked. "Where does the air come from?"

"That puzzled me at first, but I discovered the other day that there is a constant current of air, slight, but quite perceptible, over the surface of the lake, through this cavern, and into a narrow cleft which I'll show you by and by. There must be a pa.s.sage into the upper air.

The temperature is rather too high to suit me; but the air is pure enough, and many of the dungeons in medieval castles were much worse places--barring the peculiarly oppressive effect of the stuff below....

You don't get on very well with your chopsticks. Like everything else, they require practice."

"One thing I can't make out is why we are allowed such freedom. You seem to be at liberty to move about as you please, talk to the prisoners--you speak Chinese?"

"Yes, but only out of earshot of the priest in his sentry-box yonder. I don't want him to blab to the August and Venerable--not that it matters, perhaps. The explanation of our freedom is, of course, that it is only such freedom as birds have in a cage. The pa.s.sage by which we came is barred by the guards. There are no tools or implements of any kind which could be used as weapons; in fact, there's nothing here but ourselves and a few bamboo rods yonder against the wall, which I fancy must be used for keeping the sentry-box in repair. It's rather dull work for the priest, sitting there all day alone and mum; a new fellow comes every day."

After dinner Beresford led Forrester back to the trans.m.u.ting cavern, and across it into a pa.s.sage similar to that by which they had reached the spot. It was a cul-de-sac, except that at its further end there was a narrow cleft in the wall. The opening was barely a foot wide, and the sides were of solid rock. There were slight marks which seemed to indicate that at some time or other an attempt had been made to enlarge the opening by chipping; but the marks were very old, and it was clear that the task, if attempted, had been abandoned as hopeless. The cleft had a slight upward slope, but looking along it, Forrester saw no sign of daylight, nor did he hear any sound from the further end, which was not visible. They both agreed that no human being could possibly squeeze himself through so constricted a pa.s.sage.

Returning to the outer cavern, they went to the entrance and stepped on to the ledge outside. They peered across the gloomy lake, but failed to discover the monster whose image they had seen outlined on the wall.

"He is not at home to-day, evidently," said Beresford. "Well, we have exhausted the objects of interest: all that we can do for the rest of the day is to sit on our bunkers and 'tell sad stories of the death of kings' or anything else you like. Later on I'll tackle the prisoners again. I try to stir them up a bit and get them to talk, without much success so far except with Wing Wu and his cousin. They are so horribly depressed, poor wretches! By Jove! I do wish I had my pipe."

It was impossible to gauge the pa.s.sage of time. The successive days, as Beresford explained, were marked only by the arrival and departure of the guardian priests, and by the cessation from work of the man in the smaller cavern, who returned to his companions when a certain number of the leaden plates had been changed into gold. These were placed in charge of the priest on duty, who superintended their removal by the negritos when relieved next day.

That night, Beresford found the two younger Chinamen a little more communicative than they had been before. Wing Wu, indeed, evinced much pleasure in meeting Forrester again, and talked to him with a certain eagerness in English. He was the eldest son of a mandarin, he explained, and had kept a few terms at Oxford. Wen Shih, who had pa.s.sed with distinction the innumerable examinations inflicted on Chinese literati, had been for a few months his father's secretary. In some subtle fashion he had obtained a commanding influence over the young man. Always courteous and agreeable, he enjoyed the complete confidence of his master, and gradually Wing Wu found himself consulting the secretary in every circ.u.mstance of his life, however trivial, until he lost all independence of judgment and even of action. He was at Wen Shih's beck and call, did his behests even against his own will, and felt that Wen Shih dictated the words he uttered, and arranged his very thoughts.

"As I half suspected," said Beresford, who had been listening intently, "these peripatetic priests are accomplished hypnotists. Under hypnotic influence a susceptible subject will declare black white, swear that his own blood is ink, and imagine himself his own grandfather, or any other absurdity. Go on, please."

Wing Wu explained that one day Wen Shih announced that he was going a journey, and that the lad was to accompany him. The command was obeyed unquestioningly. All the details of the journey were a blank to Wing Wu until the adventure with the elephant, which seemed to have shocked him temporarily into his right mind. Here Forrester took up the tale, describing the peculiar dazed sensation which both he and Jackson had experienced once or twice on the march.

"He was trying his powers on you, of course," said Beresford. "Your friend Jackson was the most susceptible of the three, Mackenzie the least. You may be sure Wen Shih gave a full account of his experiments to his august master, and I can imagine the old villain taking a fiendish delight in sapping away at Mackenzie, the toughest of you. I only wonder he didn't send Mackenzie down here. We'll see if Chung Tong can tell us any more."

He addressed the cousin in Chinese, trying with infinite patience to allure his mind from the present circ.u.mstances to his past life. Chung Tong's story, such as it was, told haltingly, resembled Wing Wu's in almost every particular. He added a detail which Beresford seized on, keeping the man's wandering attention fixed on it as firmly as possible.

It came out that for many years past there had occurred at intervals mysterious disappearances in his family. Young men in the twenties had left their homes suddenly, leaving no clue to their destination, and never returning.

"A light dawns!" cried Beresford, in unacademic excitement. "The Old Man must have a spite against this particular family, and wreaks it upon them by stealing away these youths, doing them to death in this fatal laboratory of his. But why?--why? What have they done to incur vengeance so horrible?"

But no further information could be elicited from the prematurely aged young Chinaman. His enfeebled brain was exhausted by its unaccustomed groping into the past. Beresford did not press him, but worried the problem, as a dog worries a bone, for hours before he slept.

Next morning, the priest whose spell of duty had concluded, after a brief conversation with his newly arrived colleague, signified that Beresford was to accompany him on his return to the upper quarters.

Forrester shook when he understood.

"Must you go?" he implored, the scenes in the Temple appearing luridly before his mind's eye.

"I shall go," Beresford replied tranquilly. "Buck up, my dear fellow.

The August and Venerable won't demolish me yet. I expect it's a little cat-and-mouse performance. What if I bell the cat!"

"At any rate do take the screen with you!"

"Not at all. I don't want to lose that. We haven't discovered its secret yet. If I _shouldn't_ come back--well, keep up your courage.

Pin your faith to Redfern: I needn't say any more."

Forrester wrung his hand, and watched him pa.s.s along the half ledge, across the crazy bridge, over the rest of the ledge and into the pa.s.sage beyond. At the entrance Beresford turned and waved his hand, smiling with the serenity of a man whose mind is at ease.