CHAPTER XVI

THE HOLE IN THE WALL

Mackenzie, meanwhile, had been playing a very busy and at the same time a very discreet part above ground, with timorous but efficient assistance from Hamid Gul. It was the latter who, at night, when all was quiet, stole from the kitchen into the passage, and tied the string to a bar of the golden grating, so cleverly that only the closest scrutiny could have detected it. Having ascertained by means of this device the whereabouts of Forrester, and the burrowing in which he and Beresford were engaged, Mackenzie, in his calm sagacious way, set himself to think out a plan for turning that work to account.

At first he decided to employ Hamid Gul only as postman. It was of vital importance that the Old Man should entertain no suspicion of his cook. There seemed little risk of Hamid's night-work at the grating being detected. An Indian servant moves more silently than a cat. On the other hand, if he pried and prowled in the pagoda or its precincts, for the purpose of discovering the means of access to the rift, or the other particulars about which Mackenzie was curious, he would almost certainly attract the notice of the Chinese, and ruin everything. For the same reason Mackenzie took care that his necessary meetings with Hamid should take place at different times of the day, at different spots, and in the utmost secrecy.

His own actions were dictated by shrewd policy. To begin with, he told Jackson no more, not that he distrusted him, but that he feared the possibility of his disclosing something if for any reason the priests should again practise their hypnotic powers on him. Then, he assumed in public the mien of a slave, utterly cowed, bereft of will power, who lived only to get through his appointed task, and had no other aim than to merit his masters' approval. So well did he act his part that after a few days' observation, the priests concluded that their taming process had been thoroughly effective, and paid no more attention to him than to any other of the men who toiled and sighed on the plateau. That the dejection which Mackenzie feigned was in Jackson's case real confirmed them in their delusion. Sher Jang, meanwhile, went about his tasks with philosophic submissiveness; but in his heart of hearts he believed that the sahibs, whose movements he watched unobtrusively, would some day get the better of the Chinese dogs, and he was ready instantly to obey the call which he felt would surely come.

When Mackenzie was satisfied that he was accounted well broken in, he took to roaming at night about the precincts of the pagoda. He had already settled in his mind that the way to the rift could lie only through the pagoda or one of the neighbouring buildings, and his chief aim must be to discover that. It was also of vital importance to find as nearly as possible the spot where the chimney would cut through the earth; one step towards that discovery was the knowledge that its base was fifty yards from the cleft, and therefore presumably from the grating in the passage. He had been much puzzled by the almost incessant knocking that proceeded in day-time from the low building behind the orchard, but dismissed that matter as of no account so far as he and his friends were concerned.

The wall enclosing the pagoda and its appurtenances was twelve feet in height: too high to look over, too smooth to scale. The gate by which Hamid issued to the fields was unlocked for him by a priest, and locked after him. Mackenzie meant to get inside the wall. It would not be difficult, perhaps, to make a ladder, but before taking this in hand he might as well see if there was a less ostentatious mode of entry.

Strolling at the rear of the orchard late one dark night, he was guided by the sound of running water to the stream which he and Forrester had observed on their first day upon the plateau. He followed the course of this, and discovered that it entered the enclosure on the north side by a culvert beneath the wall. The darkness rendered it impossible to measure with the eye the width and depth of the arch, but on stooping and feeling along the stonework, he found that the stream poured through an iron grating. Since the water was perfectly clear, the grating must have been designed, not as a strainer, but as a defence against intrusion. The Old Man was obviously a stickler for privacy.

Mackenzie pushed and shook the grating, to ascertain whether it was firmly fixed. It held fast, but slipping his hand under the water, he discovered that the submerged part was worn thin with long corrosion, and that there were several gaps in it where the iron had been completely rusted away. With a little exertion he managed to break off a considerable portion of the grating below water, leaving a space large enough for a man to crawl through. It had occurred to him at once that this was a safer means of getting inside than by a ladder, which would always make him a conspicuous object to anyone who chanced to be looking that way from the buildings.

There was no time like the present. Without removing his clothes, Mackenzie slipped into the stream, spread himself flat, and, taking a long breath, wriggled under water through the arch. When he stood up, he found that the top of the grating was considerably higher than his head, but that his head was higher than the earthen embankments of the stream on either side. The depth of the water was no more than three feet; but the embankments were no doubt intended to protect the buildings from flood in those seasons when the stream, swollen by the melting snow on the mountains, became a torrent.

Standing in the running water, he peered over the embankment on his right. The pagoda loomed up black against the sky some distance away. Between it and him were much lower buildings. No light was to be seen. All was quiet. He would have liked to push his exploration further, but felt that in his ignorance of the place the risk of mistake and detection was too great. Hamid's co-operation would be necessary if he was to profit by his secret entrance, and he resolved to come to an arrangement with the cook for the following night.

Returning to his hut by the same route, he stripped off his drenched clothes, spread them on the ground at the back, out of sight, to dry, rolled himself in his blanket, and was soon asleep.

"How far are your quarters from the wall?" he asked Hamid next day, meeting him among the raspberry canes.

"Thirty good paces, sahib," replied the man.

"I wish you to meet me to-night at the wall, where the stream flows under. Have you a clock?"

"An hour-glass, sahib."

"Then let the time be two hours after lock-up. And bring a blanket with you."

"I am your servant, sahib, but if I may humbly ask----"

"Ask nothing. You can get out quietly?"

"Truly, sahib, but if bald-head nabbed me----"

"Hech! Are you afraid? Have you ever seen any of them about after nightfall?"

"Answer to both questions in negative, sahib."

"Where do they sleep?"

"Other side of Old Man's house, sahib; also across garden on left."

"Very well then. You can slip out of your quarters at any time--that's so?"

"Quite O.K., sahib."

"Very well. Be at yon arch two hours after lock-up, with a dark blanket, you mind."

"I am your servant, sahib."

But Hamid asked himself with much trouble of mind what notion the Mac Sahib had in his noddle.

Jackson's curiosity had been awakened by Mackenzie's prolonged absence on the previous night.

"Where are you off to, Mac?" he asked, seeing his companion prepare to go out again into the dark.

"I'll bide a wee before I answer you, Bob. You can't help, and if I come a mucker the less you know about it the better."

On reaching the culvert, he stripped off all his clothes and laid them beneath a bush. Too many wettings would so alter their appearance, he thought, as to draw the attention of the priests. Naked he slipped into the water, crawled through the arch, and on lifting himself slightly, saw Hamid crouching beneath the shelter of the embankment. He quitted the stream, flung about him the dark-blue blanket which the Bengali had brought, and putting his fingers to his lips, motioned to Hamid to lead him along the watercourse.

Hamid was shivering with amazement and nervousness, but he obeyed in utter silence. They waded slowly through the stream, whose gurgling drowned the sound of their own movements. Presently they ducked to avoid a low bridge that led from one part of the grounds to the other. The dull thud of footsteps brought them to a sudden halt, and they crouched under the bridge, listening anxiously as the walker passed over their heads. They caught a glimmer of light, and as the footsteps receded, Mackenzie peeped out, and saw a priest, swinging a small lantern, moving towards a building a good distance on their left. He entered it, and disappeared.

"Last man out!" whispered Hamid.

After waiting a few minutes, they continued their way along the stream. It flowed through a wide inner enclosure, in which were scattered a number of small structures like summer-houses. Two slight bridges spanned the stream, and here and there were irregular masses which in the darkness could not be clearly distinguished, but which appeared to be rockeries. Quaintly shaped bushes outlined their dark forms against the walls of the distant buildings. Mackenzie concluded that this was either the Old Man's private garden, or the garden of the priests. Hamid could not tell him; he had been strictly forbidden to stray in this direction, or even to look over the low wall that surrounded the enclosure.

The watercourse was not straight. It turned now to the right, now to the left; its general course carried it obliquely across the garden, towards the angle of the wall. Thus the buildings on the right were not parallel with it. Mackenzie stopped, to take his bearings. Hamid pointed out his own quarters, the kitchen adjoining, and the wall of the passage connecting with the dwelling of the Old Man. The pagoda reared itself high above the other buildings. Beyond it lay the barrack-like lodgings of the first order of priests; those of the second order were on the opposite side of the enclosure, and were approached by means of the bridges.

"How far along the passage is the grating?" Mackenzie asked in a whisper.

"About half-way, sahib."

"And on which side?"

"Side nearest us, to be sure, sahib."

"Wait here for me, and hold this."

He placed in Hamid's hands the end of a coil of string, climbed over the embankment, and made his way with stealthy speed towards the middle point of the passage wall, as nearly as he could judge it, paying out the string as he went. On reaching the wall, he turned swiftly back, coiling the string round his finger. When he regained Hamid's side, he knew that the distance between the wall and this point of the embankment was a little more than sixty yards. The chimney which his friends were cutting would reach the surface somewhere on the circumference of a circle of which the middle of the wall was the centre, and which would come within about ten yards of his present position. He followed that imaginary line with his eye. It passed close to one of the summer-houses, ran across a bed of plants, then over the grass on which he had walked, touched the embankment some yards to the right, owing to the oblique course of this, and finally reached a point near the door of the cook's lean-to. To gauge the position of the chimney more precisely was impossible, because, though he knew that it was on the near side of the passage, he knew no more than that it was fifty yards from the grating.

Making a mental note of the course of the circumference on which lay the locus of the hole sometime to be pierced, he considered for a few moments whether to steal towards the door of the pagoda, and try to discover whether it was guarded. But by this time he was shivering with cold. His reconnaissance had not been unfruitful, and he decided to return at once to his hut. He parted from Hamid at the culvert, handed him the blanket, again entered his cold bath, and picking up his clothes, ran lightly over the ground to his lodging. Only on those two night expeditions had he taken off his clothes since his departure from the village in the forest.

Next morning Hamid handed him a note which he had drawn up in the bone. It was the longest he had yet received: Forrester had grown bolder, more reckless, perhaps, with the lapse of time. It read: "Always light below. Can't tell when it becomes dark outside. Give us a sign."

"Things are moving," he thought. "They are afraid of cutting through in the daylight. How in the world can I give them a sign? Hamid lets down the bone at all hours. Ah, well, I must think it out."