Part 15 (1/2)

”You are the most unsatisfactory husband a woman ever had,” Amense said angrily. ”I do believe you would be perfectly happy shut up in your study with your rolls of ma.n.u.script all your life, without seeing another human being save a black slave to bring you in bread and fruit and water twice a day.”

”I think I should, my dear,” Ameres replied calmly. ”At any rate, I should prefer it vastly to such a waste of time, and that in a form to me so disagreeable as that I have had to endure to-day.”

CHAPTER IX.

A STARTLING EVENT.

It was some days later that Chebron and Amuba again paid a visit to the temple by moonlight. It was well-nigh a month since they had been there; for, save when the moon was up, the darkness and gloom of the courts, lighted only by the lamps of the altars, was so great that the place offered no attractions. Amuba, free from the superst.i.tions which influenced his companion, would have gone with him had he proposed it, although he too felt the influence of the darkness and the dim, weird figures of the G.o.ds, seen but faintly by the lights that burned at their feet. But to Chebron, more imaginative and easily affected, there was something absolutely terrible in the gloomy darkness, and nothing would have induced him to wander in the silent courts save when the moon threw her light upon them.

On entering one of the inner courts they found a ma.s.sive door in the wall standing ajar.

”Where does this lead to?” Amuba asked.

”I do not know. I have never seen it open before. I think it must have been left unclosed by accident. We will see where it leads to.”

Opening it they saw in front of them a flight of stairs in the thickness of the wall.

”It leads up to the roof,” Chebron said in surprise. ”I knew not there were any stairs to the roof, for when repairs are needed the workmen mount by ladders.”

”Let us go up, Chebron; it will be curious to look down upon the courts.”

”Yes, but we must be careful, Amuba; for, did any below catch sight of us, they might spread an alarm.”

”We need only stay there a minute or two,” Amuba urged. ”There are so few about that we are not likely to be seen, for if we walk noiselessly none are likely to cast their eyes so far upward.”

So saying Amuba led the way up the stairs, and Chebron somewhat reluctantly followed him. They felt their way as they went, and after mounting for a considerable distance found that the stairs ended in a narrow pa.s.sage, at the end of which was an opening scarce three feet high and just wide enough for a man to pa.s.s through. This evidently opened into the outer air, as sufficient light pa.s.sed through to enable them to see where they were standing. Amuba crept out through the opening at the end. Beyond was a ledge a foot wide; beyond that rose a dome some six feet high and eight or ten feet along the ledge.

”Come on, Chebron; there is plenty of room for both of us,” he said, looking backward. Chebron at once joined him.

”Where can we be?” Amuba asked. ”There is the sky overhead. We are twenty feet from the top of the wall, and where this ledge ends, just before it gets to the sides of this stone, it seems to go straight down.”

Chebron looked round him.

”This must be the head of one of the statues,” he said after a pause.

”What a curious place! I wonder what it can have been made for. See, there is a hole here!”

Just in front of them was an opening of some six inches in diameter in the stone.

Amuba pushed his hand down.

”It seems to go a long way down,” he said; ”but it is narrowing,” and removing his arm he looked down the hole.

”There is an opening at the other end,” he said; ”a small narrow slit.

It must have been made to enable any one standing here to see down, though I don't think they could see much through so small a hole. I should think, Chebron, if this is really the top of the head of one of the great figures, that slit must be where his lips are. Don't you think so?”

Chebron agreed that it was probable.

”In that case,” Amuba went on, ”I should say that this hole must be made to allow the priests to give answers through the mouth of the image to supplications made to it. I have heard that the images sometimes gave answers to the wors.h.i.+pers. Perhaps this is the secret of it.”