“He’s spotted the cordon,” Sir Lionel growled, “and he’s called his men off.”
“We have stuck strictly to the terms of the understanding. He must have anticipated that we should do our utmost to arrest his agents immediately the ten-minute truce ended.”
“Then he finds he can’t cope with the situation. He’s backed out—”
“My God!” I groaned, “where’s Rima? She can’t possibly be here!”
“Wait and see!” snapped Nayland Smith.
His words were spoken so savagely that I recognized the tension under which he was labouring and regretted my emotional outburst.
Tm sorry. Sir Denis,” I said. “It’s vital to me, and——” “It’s equally vital to me! I’m not risking Rima’s life for any pet theory, Greville. I’m doing my damnest to make sure she’s returned safely.”
His words made me rather ashamed of myself. “I know,” I replied. “I’m terribly worked up.” “Barton,” came a tense order, “get in touch with Hewlett, and stand by, here. You too, Petrie.”
“I hate you for this,” said the chief violently. “Hate on! You are too damned impetuous for the job before us....»
Together, he and I set out.
I glanced back once, and Sir Lionel and Dr. Petrie presented a spectacle which might have been funny had my sense of humour been properly alert. Dimly visible, for the night was velvety dark, they stood looking after us like schoolboys left outside a circus....
And presently I found myself alone with Nayland Smith at the foot of that vast, mysterious building which has defied the researches of Egyptologists and exercised the imaginations of millions who have never seen it. Personally, I had lived down that sense of mystery which claims any man of average intelligence when first he confronts this architectural miracle.
Sir Lionel had carried out an inquiry here in 1930, just prior to our excavations on the site of Nineveh. I knew the Great Pyramid inside out, remembering the job more vividly because Rima had been absent in England during the time, the chief having given her leave of absence which he refused to grant to me.
We had reached the steps which led to the opening; and:
“You’re in charge now,” said Nayland Smith. “Lead, and I’ll follow. Give me the case.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH
INSIDE THE GREAT PYRAMID
In that little bay in the masonry which communicates with the entrance we stood and, turning, looked back.
Sixty men surrounded us; but not one of them was in sight. At some point there in the darkness, Sir Lionel and Dr. Petrie were probably watching. But in the absence of moonlight we must have been very shadowy figures, if visible at all. I looked down upon the mounds and hollows of the desert, and I could discern away to the left those streets of tombs whose excavation had added so little to our knowledge. There were two or three lighted windows in Mena House....
“Go ahead, Greville,” said Nayland Smith. “From this point onward I am absolutely in your hands.”
I turned, switching on the flash lamp which I carried, and began to walk down that narrow passage, blocked at its lower end, which leads to the only known entrance to the interior chambers. Familiar enough it was, because of the weeks I had spent there taking complicated measurements under Sir Lionel’s direction—measurements which had led to no definite results.
We came to the end where the old and new passages meet. Our footsteps in the silence of that densely enclosed place aroused most eerie echoes; and in the flattened V where the ascent begins:
“Stand still, Greville,” Sir Denis directed.
I obeyed. My light already was shining up the slope ahead. In silence we stood, for fully half a minute.
“What,” I asked, are you listening for?”
“For anything,” he replied in a low voice. “If I had not spoken to Dr. Fu Manchu in person on the telephone to-day, Greville, I should be prepared to swear that you and I were alone in this place to-night.”
“I have no reason to suppose otherwise,” I replied. “The pickets have seen no one enter. What have we to hope for?”
“Nothing is impossible—particularly to Dr. Fu Manchu. He accepted my terms and the meeting place. In short he declared himself. And, though contrary to normal evidence, I shall be greatly surprised if when we reach the King’s Chamber, we do not find his representatives there with Rima.”
I could not trust myself to reply, but led on, up the long, sloping, narrow way which communicates with the Great Hall, that inexplicable, mighty corridor leading to the cramped portals of the so-called King’s Chamber. At the mouth of that opening beyond which the Queen’s Chamber lies, Nayland Smith, following, grasped my arm and brought me to a halt.
“Wait,” he said; “listen again.”
I stood still. Some bats, disturbed by our lights, circled above us. My impatience was indescribable. I imagined Rima, a captive, being dragged along these gloomy corridors. I could not conceive it; I did not believe she was in the place.
But until I had reached that dead end which is the King’s Chamber, my doubts could not be resolved; and this delay imposed by Nayland Smith was all but intolerable, the more so since I could not fathom its purpose.
I have never known a silence so complete as that which reigns inside the Great Pyramid. No cavern of nature has ever known it, for subterraneously there is always the trickle of water, some evidence of nature at work. Here, in this vast monument, no such sounds intrude.
And so, as we stood there listening, save for the whirl of bat wings, we stood in a silence so complete that I could hear myself breathing. When Nayland Smith spoke, although he spoke in a whisper, his voice broke that utter stillness like the blow of a hammer.
“Listen! Listen, Greville! Do you hear it?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH
WE ENTER THE KING’S CHAMBER
Very dimly it came to my ears. From whence it proceeded I could not even imagine....In those surroundings, at that hour, it possessed a quality of weirdness which was chilling:
The dim note of a gong!
Its effect was indescribably uncanny; its purpose incomprehensible. In the harsh light of the flash lamps I saw Nayland Smith’s features set grimly.
“For heaven’s sake, what’s that?” I whispered.
“A signal,” he replied in a low voice, “to advise someone we are here. God knows how any of them got in, but you see, Greville, I was right. We are not alone!”
“There’s something horrible about it,” I said uneasily.
I glanced upward into the darkness we must explore.
“There is,” Nayland Smith agreed quietly. “But it has a good as well as a bad aspect. The good that it seems to imply ignorance of our cordon; the bad, that it proves certain persons to have entered the Pyramid to-night unseen by the pickets.”
Silence, that dead silence which is characteristic of the place, had fallen about us again like a cloak. Honestly, I believe it was only the thought of Rima which sustained me. It was at this moment that the foolhardiness of our project presented itself starkly to my mind.
“Aren’t you walking into a trap. Sir Denis?” I said. “I don’t count from the point of view of Dr. Fu Manchu, but——”