CHAPTER V

A FRIEND FROM THE ENEMY

Desmond, still weak, raised himself up, and looked about him; and even as he did so, a huge boulder fell from the blocked secret entrance that led to the city of the underworld.

“They are bombarding the place,” said Alan looking startled, “let us go through there,” and he pointed to the little passage that had been revealed to them so strangely.

“We can blockade it from the other side,” said Desmond, “and at least it will give us more time.”

A close examination revealed to them a hinged slab of stone that swung easily to and fro, and the spring that fastened it in place was plain to see on the inner side. They crept into the passage, closed the stone after them, and piled rocks and stones in front of it as an extra protection. Again came a weary time of waiting—a time when the cave was filled with wild laughter and hideous ravings—when the furies of Hell itself seemed let loose on the other side. The purple fiends had forced an entrance, but too late. Their prey had escaped them.

Alan and Desmond lay and listened to the babel of their voices, for strangely enough the slightest sound from the other cave was magnified in this inner one. Then a silence fell, and they realized that the purple savages had once more gone. Hungrily they gathered roots and ate them greedily—when a woman’s cry, clear and distinct, startled them. Again and again it came—“Ar-lane! Jez-mun!”

Their names were called in the quaint pronunciation of the underworld folk.

“Who is it?” asked Desmond.

“I’ll see.”—

“No don’t go—don’t go—it’s some trick—” but Alan had already pulled down the stones in front of the hinged stone.

“Ar-lane. Jez-mun.” Again the cry came. “Open—open I beg. I come to aid you.”

“I am going to speak to her,” said Alan grimly, and he put his lips close against the stone.

“Who are you and what do you want of us?”

A glad cry was his answer, and then followed quickly—“Let me through, O Ar-lane—I have come to seek thee.”

“What do you want of us?”

“Listen, O Ar-lane, I have fled from my home in the temple of Fire, and have come to thee. Years ago when a tiny child, I found the cavern and knew it well. But Am-rab the Wise, my tutor and priest, forbade me with threats of torture to wander there again. Since then I have not set eyes upon the place. Let me in, O Ar-lane, for the spring is broken on this side, and I cannot find it.”

Desmond was listening suspiciously. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

And again came the pleading voice. “Let me in, O Ar-lane. Oh, let me in.”

Alan looked questioningly at Desmond and he gave his cousin a quick nod. “If it’s treachery we’re done,” he remarked, as he touched the spring and the stone moved.

As soon as it was wide open the woman entered. They did not know her, but her eyes were swollen from weeping and her face drawn with emotion, and they realized that she had suffered.

“Waste no time,” she commanded imperiously. “My flight is already spoken of in the temple. Should they seek me, it will need all our strength, all our cunning to hide from them. Close the door, O Ar-lane, and build up a wall of stones in front, that is strong, and then let us hasten on.” So once more the place was barricaded, and only when the barrier was complete did she deign to explain her presence.

“You know me not, O Men of the Upper World, for you have never set eyes upon me before; but I have seen you often. Behold, I am Jez-Riah, seed of the house of Bin-Nab, and hereditary Keeper of the Hall of Fire. It is the custom, know ye, in this land of ours, for the female seed of Bin-Nab to keep veiled after they have reached the age of ten. I cast aside my veil yester-eve, and immediately came to seek thee.”

“Why?” asked Alan curtly.

The woman was fair to look upon—her eyes were deep and luminous, and her tear-stained cheeks filled them with pity. Yet to be hampered with a woman seemed to take from them every chance of their ultimate escape.

Jez-Riah seemed to read their thoughts. “No, harden not your hearts against me, for I can help you,” said she earnestly.

“Why have you sought us?” asked Alan, this time less curtly.

“I know a road in here—a secret road, said to be a thousand and ten miles long; a stream of unknown depths, races along by the side of it—a stream that is swifter by far than the fastest of waters—there,” and she pointed in the direction from which she had come. “It leads to the tomb of Korah, so they say, but torture was threatened to all who would have ventured in search of it. O Ar-lane, you know not what our tortures are.”

“I have seen some,” said Alan grimly.

Jez-Riah laughed. “Nay, Ar-lane—you have never seen what I have seen. You have never witnessed the Curse of Fire.” As she spoke her eyes grew big and her expression distorted as she lived again the scenes she had so often witnessed. “I have seen men roasted alive. I have seen acid juices poured on the sufferers’ wounds. I have seen—” but Alan stopped her. “Enough!” he cried. “It’s horrible.”

She continued. “But tortures even worse were threatened for those who would seek the tomb of Korah. So none tried. I knew you would be safe for a while in these caves—but I knew too, that with some one to guide you, you might go farther even than you dared hope. I am weary of my life, I am an eighth child of a priestess of the direct line of Bin-Nab; but I have the blood of the living in my veins. I want to live the life of the People of the Sun—your people. That is the reason I cast my veil from me, O Men of the Outer World, and sought you. Oh cast not Jez-Riah from thee, but keep her as thy slave, for she will by of much use to thee.”

Jez-Riah had cast herself at the boys’ feet, and her tears and sobs were coming fast. Desmond and Alan felt strangely moved at the sight of this woman, so different from the women they were used to in the world above.

“I don’t think it’s trickery, Alan, do you?” said Desmond. In his heart Alan believed in the truth of the strange woman’s story, yet he knew from past experience that it was impossible to believe the inhabitants of the underworld.

He looked Jez-Riah up and down. “Any weapons?” he asked suddenly.

Jez-Riah held up her head proudly and her eyes flashed fire and she stamped her foot. “I come ‘feula-ri!’ Is it likely I am traitor, O Men who Doubt?”

Now the boys knew enough of the customs of the strange world in which they found themselves, that if the sacred word “feula-ri—” was spoken, no treachery was contemplated; for that word meant more to them than does the white man’s flag of truce. For in times of war, has not even the white flag been violated?

“I believe you, Jez-Riah,” said Alan suddenly. “Show us Korah’s tomb and perhaps we in turn may find a way to show you the sun and moon and stars. And green trees—and grass—and the sea—” He drew his breath sharply. His imagination had run away with him, and for the moment he could almost believe he heard the thunder of the waves as they came dashing in on some rocky shore; he saw the foam and the sun-decked beach. The birds seemed to be singing—and above it all came the unmusical cry of the gulls. He sighed.

“Don’t Lannie,” said Desmond affectionately. “I feel it too; shall we ever see those things again—shall we ever feel the breeze on our faces and the burning sun—”

Jez-Riah stood looking at them hungrily. “You speak your own tongue,” said she, “not mine. What say you each to the other that makes the lines of sadness on your faces grow so deep?”

“It’s nothing, Jez-Riah,” answered Alan.

“You are sorry I am here?”

“No, we are glad—and you must help us with your knowledge of the secret ways.”

“See, I will show you at once,” and she rose and crossed the cavern. She pressed a stone in the wall in front of them, and a boulder revolved on a hidden spring and showed a yawning cavity beyond. The noise of troubled waters came upon their ears—loud and thunderous.

“It is true,” she cried in triumph, “behold all I have said is true. The waters are calling—come,” and she went through into the blackness without a tremor of fear. And Alan and Desmond followed their strange companion without any misgivings for the future.

Providence had sent them an unlooked for guide. Hope, the star they had almost lost in the clouds of darkness that had overshadowed them, came back, shining in all the glory and radiance of renewed fervour. With a muttered “Thank God” the two boys stepped forward, lighter of step and gladder at heart than they had been for some time.

“Ar-lane—Jez-mun,” came a voice from the darkness. “I am Jez-Riah—Child of the future—Gate of Hope—Guide of Strangers. Fear nothing—the blackness will pass and we shall find the way easy to tread.”

And it was even as she had spoken. In a very little time they found themselves in a maze of natural lighted pathways similar to the ones from which they had come. The sound of the water grew louder. It thundered in their ears; it shrieked and roared as if some evil spirit was shaking the very earth itself. Jez-Riah was radiant.

“The stream of Korah is not far. I have heard it told that whoever braves that stream and finds the tomb of Korah, will live to see the sun. The sun that our prophet Zurishadeel sings of, the sun that the God of our forefathers created. The thought puts new life into me—Come.”

On, on they went, the noise getting louder and louder every moment, until, upon turning a corner, a wondrous sight met their eyes. Belching forth from the rocks themselves, forcing itself out from regions unseen, falling like a waterfall from some high precipice, the torrent rushed, making a lake of considerable dimensions, which was overflowing its banks—a wild, mad, boiling liquid. The spray rose a hundred feet in height, and splashed all round and the whole place was fearsome and ghostly.

At one end of the turbulent lake was a tiny outlet, perhaps two feet wide, through which the waters ran at breakneck speed. The fearsome noise, the sight of the rushing waters, the intense weirdness of the scene, kept both boys speechless with awe at their surroundings, but Jez-Riah was on her knees, bathing her face in the water, letting it trickle over her hair, drinking it from cups made of her two hands. And above the din and clamour they heard her singing a weird hymn of praise to the accompaniment of the music of the waters. The boys listened eagerly, and again and again they heard the refrain—

“Korah—Korah—father of our people—the waters will lead us to where thy bones lie, “Korah—Korah—thou hast not forsaken us—I am bathing in the waters of faith and purity.”

Then Jez-Riah flung off her draperies and plunged into the boiling waters. The boys watched in breathless amazement as she battled with the whirlpools, but she proved stronger than they, and swam on until she reached the mighty waterfall. Round and round she was carried and whirled but she reached her goal at last—a tiny slab of rock protruding out of the waters and under the shadow of the mighty cascade itself. Standing upon it she began a weird dance—a fanatical dance of joy. The foaming waters almost hid her from their gaze, the spray rose in front of her like a filmy gauze. At moments, however, her lithe body was exposed to view, and the boys marvelled at her agility. She did not seem to tire, but danced on, her voice raised in a strange hymn of praise. Praise of the waters, praise of the light, praise to the God of the Sun. Then came a mighty prayer that the secret ways might be opened to her—and that she might lead the strangers to safety. And even as she sang and prayed, her limbs were moving fast in dance and the waters were dashing over her and chilling her.

When she had finished her prayer she sank to her knees in an abandonment of grief and asked pardon for her one great sin—the sin she committed in leaving the temple, where she was Watcher to the Fire.

There was a long silence—only broken by the voices of the torrent raised in its ceaseless dirge.

Alan moved. “Is she safe?” he asked “What will happen to her?”—but even as he spoke the lithe body had dived once more into the waters and was swimming almost with ease to the shore. Jez-Riah stood proudly before them, her dripping hair a mantle that covered her. “Go—rest,” she commanded. “I commune with Korah,” and fleet of foot, strong in purpose, she darted down one of the passages near by, and was soon lost to sight.