Part 24 (1/2)

”By every right. I am the Guardian of the Cave. I have lived five score years, and never once have I ventured beyond the entrance of the Caves of Zoroaster. Come, deliver up the Sunstone.”

”And if I refuse?” asked von Hardenberg.

”If you refuse,” said the man, ”you die!”

Von Hardenberg looked about him with a quick, furtive glance. Softly his hand crept to his belt, where he carried the holster of his revolver.

What happened next was the work of a few seconds. Those in the gallery had no time to interfere. As for the sheikh, he evidently intended that the tragedy should be played out to its end, to the falling of the curtain.

The old man, seeing von Hardenberg's action, lifted his great two-handed sword and flourished it on high. Then, with a spring like that of a tiger, he hurled himself upon the Prussian.

Three shots rang out in quick succession. There were three flashes of fire, like jets of flame, and then three puffs of smoke. The cave was filled with an echo that went on and on as if it would never cease.

And when the smoke cleared, there was the old man lying upon his face upon the floor, silent and still. A century had rolled above his head, for a hundred years he had stood guardian of the Caves of Zoroaster--and now his task was ended.

Harry sprang to his feet, and would have fired then and there at von Hardenberg had not Cortes held him down by force.

”It was murder!” he whispered.

”If you fire, we are lost,” cried Cortes. ”It is too dark to shoot straight, and the Black Dog will escape us.”

Harry resumed his kneeling position and waited.

A horrid silence reigned in the great, domed chamber. The scene was more tragic, more fantastic than ever. The shafts of light from above struck the body of the murdered man; the lamp still flickered before the altar. Even yet, the echoes of the shots were murmuring in the deeper recesses of the place.

Captain von Hardenberg stood stock-still, his revolver in his hand, thin wreaths of smoke issuing from the muzzle. From out of the heart of the stillness there came a chuckle: the Black Dog was pleased to laugh.

Murder was nothing to him. He had dealt for years in human lives. He was implacable, relentless. And even at that same moment he himself contemplated a greater crime, for the commission of which he was hiding in the darkness like a snake, biding his time to strike.

Captain von Hardenberg took two steps towards the body and turned it over with his foot.

”He is dead,” said he in German.

The old man, who had been so terrible in life by reason of his madness, now looked sane and beautiful in death. The worn, agonized expression had gone altogether from his features, which were now calm and wholly at peace. With his white hair and ragged clothes, he was like one of the patriarchs of old.

Captain von Hardenberg was not himself. It was plain to see that it was all that he could do to control within him a feeling that was akin to terror. He looked about him with widely opened eyes--at the vast pillars, at the darkened corners of the aisles, at the shafts of sunlight that pierced the darkness like the blades of swords.

With trembling hands he attempted to unb.u.t.ton his coat. His nerves were so shaken, and he in such feverish haste, that he could not at first succeed. In the end, as if grown desperate, he took a knife from his pocket, opened the largest blade, and cut off the b.u.t.tons one by one.

Then he ripped open his waistcoat, and, a moment after, drew forth the Sunstone and placed it on the altar by the side of the burning lamp.

And next he did a strange thing indeed. He burst suddenly into loud laughter--laughter that was hysterical, delirious.

He had gone through so much; he had faced so many dangers; he had been guilty of a score of crimes; he had lost everything--good name and honour and position--in order to possess himself of the treasure that lay beyond the red granite rock.

And now that all this wealth was as good as his, he could do little else but laugh, in a kind of wild delirium, whilst tear-drops in quick succession coursed down his cheeks.

After a while he mastered himself a little, but not completely. He went to the nine wheels and turned them all ways in a fever of excitement.

Then he remembered what he had to do. He studied the wheels and took notice of the cuneiform writing on the ”tyres”. At that he returned for the Sunstone and brought it to the Bramah lock.

But, since it was too dark there to see the writing on the stone, he took it back to the altar, and laid it down once more before the lamp.