CHAPTER VIII

THE LAW OF THE EYE

Some two hours later, Mackenzie awoke, heaving a great sigh.

"Hech! But I've a sore head the morn," he murmured, rubbing his eyes drowsily as he looked around him. The sight of bare blank walls instead of the walls of his bungalow, decorated with colour plates from the illustrated papers, caused him to sit up suddenly and rub his eyes again. It was a minute or two before full consciousness and the recollection of recent incidents returned to him. Then he remembered that his last waking moments had been spent in the rift; but he had awaked in a stone-walled, stone-floored cell, cubical in shape, and ten feet in each dimension.

His comrades, still asleep, lay at full stretch on the floor, on either side of him.

"Eh, Dick! Bob! waken yourselves," he called.

There was no response.

He got up, moved, somewhat totteringly, to Forrester, and prodded him in the ribs.

"Waken!" he called again. "Man, what's wrong with you?"

He gazed anxiously into his friend's face as Forrester slowly opened his eyes. Turning away, he hastened to Jackson, poked him, bawled in his ear, felt his pulse; then, assured that he was not dead, as he had begun to fear, raised him in his arms and shook him vigorously.

"Haven't got the ball, you ass!" Jackson spluttered.

"This isn't rugger, old man," said Forrester with a light laugh, coming to his side. "Wake up and see where the beggars have carried us."

Jackson recovered his wits more tardily than the others.

"His face is green," Forrester whispered uneasily.

"So is yours," said Mackenzie.

"And yours too, by Jove!" cried Forrester, after a good look at him. "What the mischief have they been doing to us?"

"I cannot say. I know that my head is sore."

"I've a headache, if that's what you mean," said Forrester.

"So have I, splitting," added Jackson, sitting up, but still resting his hands on the floor. "By Jinks, the stone is warm!"

"It is that," said Mackenzie, feeling it. "They're wishful we shan't take a chill, by the look of it."

They gazed around their narrow chamber. Walls and floor appeared to be of solid rock. In the centre of one wall was a door of stout timber, without lock or handle. High in another was an opening, like the arrow slits in medieval castles, through which a white light filtered.

"Get on my back, Dick, and keek out," said Mackenzie.

In a moment Forrester was mounted.

"I see nothing but a blank wall twenty feet away," he called down. "And not much of that. It looks like the wall of the rift. I tell you what: this room must be cut out of the wall this side. When you called it a castle, you spoke better than you knew, Mac."

"Ay, so it seems," Mackenzie replied, as Forrester sprang down. "But I'm fair flummoxed. The room's perfectly light, though yon slit isn't more than twelve by two. Where does the light come from? It's greenish, too, which accounts for our delicate complexions. And look! you see that?"

He pointed to the faint shadow of a fourth human figure that passed across the wall opposite to the window. It flitted through their own shadows, and disappeared.

A moment's glance assured them that it had not been cast from without; yet the wall appeared solid, in no degree transparent.

There was no furniture in the room. Silently they sat upon the floor, watching the wall nervously for a return of the mysterious inexplicable shadow. But it did not reappear. The strange light, the stranger apparition, brought back upon them redoubled the uneasiness they had felt ever since they entered the rift, and especially after seeing the ghostly procession on the wall. At that moment they could have believed that they lay in the haunt of some necromancer, whose magic art might manifest itself in terrors unconceived.

"They must have hocussed us," murmured Forrester at length, his thoughts reverting to his last conscious moments in the rift.

"Ay, put us to sleep with some narcotic gas," said Mackenzie. "What'll they do next?"

"What have they done with our men?" said Jackson.

"Separated the goats from the sheep," replied Mackenzie sardonically. "They are evidently respecters of persons!"

"But----"

Forrester's voice ceased. The door had swung open, and there entered two small black men, almost wholly naked, with the uncouth bodies, hideous features, and coarse woolly hair of the wild pigmy races. Each carried a large bowl, one containing water, the other a sticky mess resembling porridge, and three spoons. Through the open doorway, in a brighter greenish light, the prisoners descried a group of similar negroes, armed with short spears and knives, like the dwarfs of the procession. The two food-bearers laid down the bowls and went out silently, the door swung to, a bolt grated in its sockets, and the prisoners were again alone.

Forrester bent over the larger bowl, smelling its contents.

"D'you think it's poisoned?" he asked.

"No, no," replied Mackenzie. "They wouldn't keep us alive to poison us out of hand. I'm for having a go. We've had nothing to eat since noon."

He spooned up a quantity of the stuff and tasted it.

"Sticky but not bad: would be the better of a pinch of salt. Hunger is the best condiment; dip your spoons."

By the time they had finished their meal and emptied both the bowls the daylight had faded, and the window slit was black. Yet the greenish rays that pervaded the room were as strong as ever. They sat discussing the strange phenomenon. Mackenzie advanced the theory that the rock was phosphorescent, and Jackson claimed that he had disproved it when, after rubbing his hand on the warm floor, there was no emanation of light from his fingers. Presently, tired out, and lulled by the warm close air, they fell asleep.

They were awakened by finding themselves gently shaken. The door had been silently opened, and two visitors were in the room. The prisoners recognised them at once. They were the two Chinamen with whom they had unforgettable links.

"Arise!" said the lad in his hushed faltering tone. "Arise! The August and Venerable commands you to his presence."

"The August and Venerable isn't this one-armed villain after all," whispered Forrester. "We must go with them: there's no help for it."

They noticed that the one-armed man had changed his dress. He wore now a long, white, full-sleeved garment with a green girdle about his waist. He signed to them to precede him through the open doorway. On passing out into a vaulted corridor, which, like their room, seemed to have been hewn out of the solid rock, they found awaiting them an escort of a dozen little black men like those they had already seen, and similarly armed. They followed them through corridor after corridor, the floors of which sloped gradually upward, then into a kind of ante-chamber, and finally into a huge rectangular hall. The greenish light had grown stronger and stronger as they proceeded, and the hall was brilliantly illuminated, though the illumination had no visible source. Like diffused daylight, when the sun has gone down, it came apparently from no definite direction: it was everywhere.

At first the three white men took in no details of the scene before them. They were dazzled by the brightness, oppressed with a sense of mystery, an apprehension of they knew not what, the dead silence that prevailed. But when their first sensations had passed, they gazed about them with a tingling curiosity. The walls, glowing with the all-pervading greenish light, were decorated with Chinese designs. The predominant feature of the scheme was a figure which at first sight might have been mistaken for the conventional Chinese dragon; but, on closer examination, it seemed to the spectators to resemble more nearly the reconstruction of some prehistoric sea-monster, such as European zoologists have attempted on the basis of fossil discoveries. The figures were arranged in a regular order. Some were large, some small, but all were of the same type, and they were rendered more life-like, and at the same time more hideous, by the fact that their eyes glowed with a green light much more intense than the light that filled the hall itself.

Silent though it was, the hall was not unpeopled. Drawn up in two crescent ranks stood, motionless as statues, perhaps two hundred Chinamen, young and old. The cheeks of all alike were clean shaven, but there were differences between the first two ranks. The heads of those in the first were absolutely hairless: their scalps shone like balls of old polished ivory. They were clad in long sleeveless robes resembling ecclesiastical copes, white with an edging of gold, and a large blue monster, like those on the walls, ramping across the middle of the back. The men in the second row were moustachioed, and had a topknot of hair. Their principal garment was a full-sleeved tunic, white also, but without embroidery of any kind. It was among these that Wen Shih, the one-armed Chinaman, placed himself after leaving his young compatriot and the three Englishmen with their escort just inside the doorway.

The silent assembly faced a huge dais or throne at the farther end of the hall, rising six or eight feet from the floor. It was of Chinese design; the material of which it was made shone like gold; and its surface was marked with images of the symbolic monster, sculptured in high relief.

The Englishmen noticed that, immediately opposite the throne, there was a gap in the ranks of the company, eight or ten paces wide. Beyond this gap--that is, nearer to the end of the hall at which they had entered--stood a low pedestal, like the pedestal of a statue. But there was no statue upon it. Nor was the throne occupied. The eyes of the silent throng, indeed, appeared to be fixed on a doorway in the wall behind and above the throne. It was covered with a cream-coloured hanging of some rich material, ornamented with monsters embroidered in gold. From it to the rear of the throne a broad stairway led.

The hush of expectancy which brooded over the whole assembly seized upon the three strangers. Their fascinated eyes were drawn as by some magnetic attraction to the curtained doorway. Not one of them was tempted to speak: they were possessed by awe the same in kind as that which holds the worshippers in some vast cathedral.

Presently they became aware of a trembling in the air immediately above the throne, like that which is sometimes seen above the funnel of a locomotive engine at rest. By degrees a screen of mist, delicate as muslin, formed itself in front of the throne, the outlines of which became blurred and were finally blotted out altogether. There was a momentary rustle, like the breaking of surf upon a long shore; then the same deathly stillness; the Chinamen had bent forward simultaneously with the precision of trained soldiers, until their brows touched the floor. Of all the men in the hall, only the three Englishmen at the end stood upright upon their feet.

They gazed in mute amazement, tensely awaiting the explanation of this extraordinary scene. Presently they caught the gleam of gold through the shimmering screen; the mist slowly dispersed; the outlines of the throne were once more clear and distinct; and they thrilled as with an electric shock when they beheld, seated motionless upon the throne, a remarkable figure.

It was the figure of an old, old man, low in stature, bent and frail, but indued with a certain impressiveness and majesty. A long ivory-hued cope, stiff with gold, and emblazoned with purple monsters, descended to his feet, concealing a frame which the three spectators divined to be spare and emaciated. His head was covered with a towering head-dress like a bishop's mitre, but loftier, fantastically shaped, and gleaming with gold and jewels.

But the eyes of the beholders were drawn away from his gorgeous trappings to his countenance. Ivory pale, lined and wizened with great age, it was rendered strangely impressive by the eyes, which beamed with the lustre and brilliance of youth. His glance passed over the prostrate forms of the assembly, and fastened for one brief moment on the three straight figures at the end of the hall. Then in a clear bell-like voice, surprising in so old a man, he uttered one word. The men prostrate below him rose to their feet; there was a brief pause; then for the space of several minutes a sort of litany was chanted, the old man reciting a sentence, the others making responses in monotone. There was no gesture, no movement save the motions of their lips.

When the litany came to an end, at a word from the old man Wen Shih left his place in the second rank, and approached the Englishmen. He made them understand by signs that they were to accompany him to the foot of the throne. Moving as under a spell, they passed through the gap, scarcely conscious of the eyes of the men around, and halted a few paces from the seated patriarch. Wen Shih returned to his place. All was silent as the grave.

The old man gazed fixedly at them for a moment, and his searching look, bright as an eagle's, yet cold and paralysing, filled them with a chill foreboding. His lips moved, and in spite of themselves they started in amazement as they heard the first words that fell.

"What brings you striplings here?"

The face was Chinese, beyond possibility of error; but the words were English, slowly spoken, with only a faint trace of a foreign accent. The tone was authoritative, compelling, that of one who would not be gainsaid. Forrester, always the readiest of the three, felt instinctively that no prevarication would avail, that the best chance of coming safely through whatever ordeal was before them lay in perfect frankness. Steadying his voice, and looking up into the old man's face, he explained, so rapidly that his words as it were tumbled over one another, that he had come with his comrades for the purpose of liberating a fellow countryman whom they believed to be held captive in this region, and he begged that the prisoner might be surrendered, and that all might be suffered to depart in peace.

The old man's countenance was utterly expressionless. It gave as little sign as a mask of what was passing through his mind. Forrester having ended, somewhat breathlessly, the low mellow voice spoke again.

"All are welcome to the Temple of the Eye. I repel none, I invite none. Those who come by their own choice, or are led hither by the hand of Fate, must abide by their choice, or by Fate's decree. The rest of their lives hereafter must they spend in the service of the Temple, fulfilling such offices as they may be best fitted to undertake. That is the Law of the Eye."

His utterance was slow and deliberate, like that of a man searching for words at one time familiar, but now half forgotten. The cold dispassionate tones struck a chill upon the listeners' hearts. They had in them the ring of finality, of inexorableness: the old man might have been the very mouthpiece of Fate pronouncing doom.

The three men felt the utter hopelessness of argument or protest. Their spirits, under the spell of that calm silvery voice, died within them. When Wen Shih came again to them to lead them back to their former station, they accompanied him with the tranced meekness of men drugged for the gallows.

A few moments after they reached the end of the hall they were roused from their stupor by the appearance of a small black man, led between two bald white-clad Chinamen like those in the first rank. His limbs were quivering, his teeth chattered; his staring eyes regarded the awful Presence on the throne with the same helpless terror as a bird fascinated by the baleful eye of a snake. The priests of the Eye lifted him on to the pedestal in a line with the gap, and fastened his collapsing form upright to a light framework which they slid up from the base. Then they placed themselves on either side, and made three low obeisances to the venerable figure on the throne.

The man on the left uttered a few sentences in Chinese, and bowed again. His fellow followed with a word or two. It seemed to the Englishmen that they were giving testimony against the quivering figure on the pedestal above them. The second man ceased, and made his obeisance; then both took places quietly at the ends of the front row near the gap.

The Englishmen expected that the criminal, if such he was, would be called on for his answer to the charges made against him. But the old man said never a word. Amid a breathless stillness he arose slowly and majestically to his feet. Was he about to pronounce judgment? The Englishmen wondered what the punishment was to be. Recollections of the horrors of Chinese torture made them quake; but there was no sign of instruments of torture, no movement in the silent ranks, except that they turned and faced the victim. Their garments rustled, then all was still as before.

The old man moved his head from side to side, the movements being so slight that they might have passed unnoticed by any one observing him less closely than the three Englishmen. Presently all motion ceased. The silence seemed even deeper than before. Then, with startling suddenness, from a point in the old man's head-dress, immediately above the centre of his brow, a swift thin beam of bright green light flashed along the hall, over the gap, past the pedestal, and on to the wall. It was gone in a moment. A low sound like the indrawing of breath ran through the assembly. A flicker of emotion stirred the stolid faces of the Chinamen; a look of horror distorted the more expressive faces of the negrito guards. And the Englishmen were suddenly aware that the pedestal was vacant. The limp shrinking form had vanished; only a little dust hung in the air.

While the Englishmen were still in their amazement, the ranks faced about again, and the two priests who had led the victim to the spot drew near to it with the solemn gait of acolytes. One carried a golden trowel, the other a small gold-handled brush. Standing on either side of the pedestal, the one swept a quantity of dust on its surface into the trowel held by the other. The latter, holding the trowel at arm's length in front of him, bore it slowly towards the throne, and after a profound obeisance offered it to the old man, and withdrew. Lifting his skinny right arm, the old man extended the trowel towards the assembled priests, moved it from side to side, lightly sprinkling the dust on the floor, and in his cold clear voice spoke with impressive deliberateness a single sentence. Once more the assembly fell prostrate, the air above the throne quivered, and the mist gradually rose before it, blotting it and its motionless occupant from sight.