He walked over to the three. They stood beside the embers of the fire, silent and motionless. He shivered—they were so much like dead men, listening for some dread command. He felt pity for them.
He filled a cup with coffee and put it in Soames' hand. He did the same for Starrett and Dancret. Hesitantly, jerkily, they lifted the tins to their mouths, and gulped the hot liquid. He handed them food, and they wolfed it. But always their faces kept turning to the burros with their golden loads. Graydon could stand it no longer.
"Start!" he called to Suarra. "For God's sake, start!"
He picked up the rifles of the others and put them in their hands. They took them, as mechanically as they had the coffee and the food.
Now Suarra's enigmatic attendant took the lead, while between him and the girl plodded the burros.
"Come on, Soames," he said. "Come, Starrett. It's time to go, Dancret."
Obediently, eyes fixed upon the yellow hampers, they swung upon the trail, marching side by side—gaunt man at left, giant in the center, little man at right. Like marionettes they marched. Graydon swung in behind them.
They crossed the white sands, and entered a trail winding through close growing, enormous trees. For an hour they passed along this trail. They emerged from it, abruptly, upon a broad platform of bare rock. Before them were the walls of a split mountain. Its precipices towered thousands of feet. Between them, was a narrow rift which widened as it reached upward. The platform was the threshold of this rift.
He whom Suarra had called the Lord of Folly crossed the threshold, behind him Suarra; and after her the stiffly marching three. Then over it went Graydon.
The way led downward. No trees, no vegetation of any kind, could he see—unless the ancient, gray and dry lichen that covered the path and whispered under their feet could be called vegetation. But it gave resistance, that lichen; made the descent easier. It covered the straight rock walls that arose on each side. The light that fell through the rim of the gorge, hundreds of feet overhead, was faint. But the gray lichen seemed to take it up and diffuse it. It was no darker than an early northern twilight; every object was plainly visible. Down they went and ever down; for half an hour; an hour. Always straight ahead the road stretched, never varying in the width and growing no darker.
The road angled. A breast of rock jutted abruptly out of the cliff, stretching from side to side like a barrier. The new path was darker than the old. He had an uneasy feeling that the rocks were closing high over his head; that what they were entering was a tunnel. The gray lichen dwindled rapidly on the walls and underfoot And as they dwindled, so faded the light.
At last the gray lichen ceased to be. He moved through a half darkness in which barely could he see, save as shadows, those who went before. And now he was sure that the rocks had closed overhead, burying them. He fought against a choking oppression that came with the knowledge.
And yet—it was not so dark, after all. Strange, he thought, strange that there should be light at all in this covered way—and stranger still was that light. It seemed to be in the air—to be of the air. It came neither from walls nor roof. It seemed to filter in, creeping, along the tunnel from some source far ahead. A light that was as though it came from radiant atoms that shed their rays as they floated slowly by.
Thicker grew these luminous atoms whose radiance only, and not their bodies, could be perceived by the eye. Lighter and lighter grew the way.
Again, and as abruptly as before, it turned.
They stood within a cavern that was like a great square auditorium to some gigantic stage. Perhaps it was the smooth wall of rock a hundred yards ahead that gave Graydon that suggestion. It was like a curtain, raised an inch above the floor. Out of that crack flowed the radiant atoms whose slow drift down the tunnel filled it with the ever–growing luminosity. Here they streamed swiftly, like countless swarms of fireflies each carrying a tiny lamp of diamond light.
As he searched for some outlet to the place, the rocky curtain moved. It slid soundlessly aside for a yard or more. He turned—beside him gaunt man, little man, giant man, stood with blank, incurious eyes—
He thought he saw the red staff of the Lord of Folly pass over their heads…how could that be?…there stood the silent figure in motley, rod in hand, far off at the entrance of the cavern.
He heard the nasal cursing of Soames, a bellow from Starrett, the piping of Dancret. He swung round to them. Gone, all gone, was that unnatural deadness which had so perplexed him, gone all vagueness of action and of purpose. They were alive, alert—again their old selves.
"What the hell's this place, Graydon? How the hell did I get here?" Soames caught his wrist in iron grip. Suarra answered for him.
"This is the treasure house I promised you—"
"Yeah?" the savage snarl silenced her. "I'm talkin' to you, Graydon. How did I get here? You know, Danc'? You, Bill?"
Their own amazed faces gave him his answer. He swung the rifle against Graydon's side.
"Come clean!"
Again Suarra answered, tranquilly.
"What matter how you came, since you are here—the four of you. There, where the light streams out, is the cavern where the jewels grow from the walls like fruit, and the gold streams like water. They are yours for the taking. Go take them."
He lowered the rifle; studied her, wickedly.
"And what else is there, sister?"
"There is nothing else there," she said. "Except a great face carved of stone."
Slow seconds passed as he weighed her.
"Only a face carved of stone, eh?" he said at last "Well, then—we will all go to look at it together. Call your man over here."
"No," she said, steadily. "We go no farther with you. You must go alone. I have told you and I tell you again—you have nothing to fear except what may be in yourselves. You fools!" She stamped her foot in sudden wrath—"If we had wished to kill you, could we not have abandoned you to the Xinii? Have you forgotten last night when you pursued the llama? I have fulfilled my promise to you. Argue no more. And beware of me—beware how you anger me further!"
Now Graydon saw Soames' face whiten as she spoke of the llama, and saw him glance furtively at Dancret and Starrett who, too, had paled. The New Englander stood for a minute in thought. When he spoke it was quietly, and not to her.
"All right. As long as we've come this far we won't go without takin' a look at the place. Danc', take your gun an' go over there where we came in. Cover the old dummy, an' keep watch. Bill an' me'll hold on to the girl an' you. Mister Graydon, you go an' take a peep at the joint, an' tell us what you see. You can take your gun. If we hear you shootin', we'll know there's somethin' there except gold and jewels an'—what was it—yeah, a stone face. March, Mister Graydon—on your way."
He gave him a push toward the radiant opening, and he and Starrett closed in on each side of the girl Graydon noticed that they were careful not to touch her. He caught a glimpse of Dancret at the cavern's opening. Suarra lifted her face to him. In her eyes were sorrow, agony—and love!
"Remember!" he said. "I am coming back to you!"
Soames could not know the hidden meaning of that farewell; he took its obvious one.
"If you don't," he sneered, "it's goin' to be damned hard on her! I'm tellin' you, fellow."
Graydon did not answer. He walked over to the curtain's edge, swinging his automatic free as he went. He went past the edge, and full into the rush of the radiance. The opened passage was little more than ten feet long. He reached its end, and stood there, motionless. The pistol dropped from his nerveless hand, and clattered upon the rock.
He looked into a vast cavern filled with the diamonded atoms. It was like an immense hollow globe that had been cut in two, and one–half cast away. The luminosity streamed from its curving walls, and these walls were jet black and polished like mirrors. The rays that issued from them seemed to come from infinite depths within them, darting up and out with prodigious speed—like rays shot up through inconceivable depths of black water beneath which blazed a sun of diamond incandescence.