The Old Man of the Mountain Part 26

A minute later he emerged quietly into the courtyard, hidden from the priests by the intervening garden wall. Hastening to a spot where the whole upper portion of the paG.o.da was in view, he gazed up. The roof was built in three great tiers, one above another. From the second to the third a winding stair led to the summit, upon which there was a small square platform, fenced with a bal.u.s.trade of ornamental gold work.

The bent form of a frail old man was painfully climbing the last few steps. Mackenzie watched him. He gained the top, leant for a moment on the bal.u.s.trade to rest, then stood with hands uplifted, looking in the distance like a quaint figure carved in ivory. His bald scalp had no protection; his wizened features were twisted in agony and despair. And there the Old Man remained, mute and motionless, gazing down upon the upturned faces of his two hundred priests.

Mackenzie slipped back. As he was relocking the door, Beresford said quietly:--

"I'm not a panic-monger; but do you know that if those yelling shavelings out yonder break through our hole, in a couple of seconds we shall all be blown sky-high?"

"Good heavens above!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mackenzie, aghast. "And we can't prevent 'em!"

"Only by warning them. I speak Chinese: I will go out and tell them."

"You'd never get the chance. They'd tear you limb from limb before you'd got a word out. But I tell you, now. There's a fellow here.

Come away!"

He hurried Beresford through the hall and the Old Man's room to the door, outside which the bound priest still lay.

"Tell yon c.h.i.n.ky," he said: "then I'll kick him out."

Beresford very gravely explained to the shuddering Chinaman what the result of an incautious step would be, and advised him to set a guard over the hole. Then the man was bundled out, and the door again made fast.

Mackenzie told what he had seen.

"Was the Old Man urging them to fight?" asked Forrester.

"No; he's done! Not a kick in him, seemingly. Without the Eye he's just a poor wee body. What they'll do I cannot tell; but we'll have another look for the stairway in the meantime."

Leaving Forrester still wrestling with the problem of the Eye, Mackenzie and Jackson ranged through the building from end to end in search of doors in the walls or trapdoors in the floors. After several fruitless minutes they were returning to the sanctum, and suddenly became aware that the noise outside had subsided.

"What's that mean?" cried Jackson.

The words had scarcely left his lips when the great door at the end of the aisle resounded under a loud and violent knocking.

"It means war, I doubt," Mackenzie answered. "Go and join Mr.

Beresford, Bob. I'll bring the others with some of those arms you discovered. We must keep the c.h.i.n.kies out at all costs."

He raced back to the inner room. Forrester had already left the head-dress, and seized an ancient pike.

"No, no, d.i.c.k!" cried Mackenzie. "Stick to your job, man. I'm no good at puzzles myself. We will need that Eye! Hamid, you and your chopper, away to the kitchen door. I doubt they won't come that way because the pa.s.sage is narrow. If they do, make a bit use o' your chopper, then run and tell me. Awa' wi' ye! You, mister" (addressing Wing Wu), "lift yon musket, or a scimitar, or whatever ye like best, and come. Forget all about the priests and their conjuring tricks; you've got an arm; then fight like the de'il."

While speaking he had clutched an armful of weapons, and led the way back to the great door, with Wing Wu close at heel. Like Jackson, the young Chinaman was a new man now that he was no longer subject to the baneful influence of the priests.

"Here, take your pick," Mackenzie cried on reaching the others, displaying the weapons. "By good luck the door's thick; it will stand a fair amount of battering. Mister, can't you get yon friend of yours to take a hand?"

He pointed to Chung Tong, who had roused himself to work steadily through the eatables brought by Hamid Gul. Wing Wu spoke to him, urging, imploring him to choose his weapon; but he turned a dull eye, and munched on.

"Give me a lift, Mac," said Jackson. "I'll see what they're doing."

On Mackenzie's shoulders he looked through a window.

"The garden is swarming with them," he said. "They're hoisting one another over the wall. They're armed with all sorts of things--picks, rakes, hammers, swords, knives; some seem to have bars of gold! They're all making for the door."

"Are they avoiding our hole?" Beresford asked anxiously.

"Yes; there are two men standing over it, warning off the others as they run by."

"What did you mean about an explosion, sir?" Mackenzie asked of Beresford.

"There's a pit in the cavern. Out of it come rays like those from the Eye. They decompose water: what you sent down nearly made an end of us.

A greater quant.i.ty would have shivered the whole place to atoms."

Mackenzie drew a long breath.

"They know it, thank goodness!" he said. "Anything new, Bob?"

"No: they're still running this way. There must be some near the door I can't see. They all look as if they're expecting something to happen."

The last words were drowned by an explosion that shook the building.

"Gunpowder! The door!" cried Mackenzie.

Jackson sprang down. They were all far enough from the door to be out of danger. There were cracks in the timber, but it still held together.

A howl of wrath and bafflement rose from hundreds of throats outside.

"They'll try to burst in," said Mackenzie. "I'll take the left: you the centre, Bob: Mr. Beresford the right. Mister Chinaman," he added with a grim smile, "will act as reserve."

They placed themselves, awaiting the a.s.sault. Some minutes pa.s.sed.

Outside there was confused and fitful shouting. Then all at once the door creaked under a heavy blow.

"A battering ram!" cried Jackson.

"Ay! Stand clear!"

The blow was repeated again and again. Splinters and slabs of wood fell inward; and at each successive breach a yell of triumph broke from the mob outside. Without firearms the defenders could do nothing to check the destruction. At last the remnants of the door crashed in, and the a.s.sailants in a serried ma.s.s crowded the entrance.

The full light of morning was behind them: the defenders had some slight advantage in the dimness of the aisle, lit only by a few narrow windows high up in the outer wall. It soon became clear, too, that the priests were not accustomed to the use of weapons. For generations, no doubt, the servants of the Eye had relied on it as their sufficient defence.

But they were Chinamen, infuriate, reckless; their ferocity made up their lack of skill, and as they came on with strident yells, wielding whatever weapons they had been able to s.n.a.t.c.h up, the Englishmen recognised that they had need of all their strength, experience, and resource to stem the human torrent.

Mackenzie had a heavy musket, Jackson an antique sword, Beresford a pike--unfamiliar weapons, all of them. But there was no s.p.a.ce for the display of science, even if they had had it. The Chinamen dealt in smashing blows and sweeping cuts. In grim silence the white men parried, thrust, jabbed, smote, to such purpose that in a few minutes a barrier of p.r.o.ne figures was heaped up between them and their howling foes. And all the time, unknown to them, their reserve was strengthened. At the first sight of the invading priests all listlessness fell from Chung Tong. He sprang up, seized a sword, and stood beside his cousin, glaring at his oppressors, and only waiting an opportunity to wreak on them the vengeance long stored in his brooding soul.

For the first few minutes the defenders held their own. There was a slackening in the attack; the bolder spirits in the van had fallen, and barred the way against their comrades behind. But as the ranks thinned slightly, two or three carrying muskets pushed their way from the rear, and thrusting the barrels between the men before them, fired haphazard into the aisle. Mackenzie let out a cry, reeled, and had not recovered himself when one of the priests with a yell of fiendish joy lunged at him with a pike. In the nick of time Jackson threw himself forward, struck the weapon up with his sword, and gave the Chinaman the point.

Wing Wu seized the chance. He leapt to the spot Jackson had vacated, and brought the b.u.t.t of his musket down on the skulls of the enemy with a vigour that Mackenzie himself might have envied. Chung Tong could no longer remain idle. Slipping in between his cousin and Beresford he laid about him, with more fury than l.u.s.tiness. The a.s.sailants fell back; the men who had fired withdrew to reload; and the defenders, thankful for a breathing s.p.a.ce, tried to gather their flagging energies to meet an a.s.sault which they felt would tax them to the uttermost, and in all probability would overwhelm them.

Meanwhile, in the inner sanctum, Forrester had been trying with feverish impatience to discover the secret of the Eye. At the sound of the explosion he could scarcely refrain from rushing to the door; the din and clash of fighting made him tingle; he almost s.n.a.t.c.hed up the weapon nearest to hand and hurried to share the risk and the strife. But he knew how much depended, in the last resort, on the Eye; his sense of discipline was strong; and having tacitly accepted Mackenzie's leadership he checked his impulse and bent all his energies again upon the baffling problem.

When, however, he heard the shots his endurance gave out. Smothering a cry, he placed the head-dress on the table, seized a sword, and was on the point of rushing out towards the scene of action. But in a flash of thought he remembered the Old Man, who might have descended from his perch and be lurking within the panelled wall, ready to spring out and seize his precious instrument. To leave it unguarded would be madness.

There was a moment's hesitation; then Forrester lifted the head-dress, rammed it carefully but firmly down upon his head, and thus covered, sped towards the great door sword in hand.

He dashed through the arch into the aisle at the moment when the priests were swarming again to the attack. As he reached the upper step, to encourage his hard-pressed friends he let forth a great shout, that rose shrilly above the cries of the enemy. Placed somewhat higher than they, he was in full view. The leading priests glanced towards him. They recoiled, stared for an instant in silent stupefaction, then with one consent cast down their weapons, and flung themselves prostrate on the floor.