The end of all this business was that a peace was made between us andthe Council of the Abati. After their pompous, pedantic fashion theyswore solemnly on the roll of the Law that they would aid us in everyway to overcome the Fung, and even obey such military orders as wemight give them, subject to the confirmation of these orders by a smallcouncil of their generals. In short, being very frightened, for a timethey forgot their hatred of us foreigners.
So a scheme of operations was agreed upon, and some law passed by theCouncil, the only governing body among the Abati, for they possessed norepresentative institutions, under which law a kind of conscription wasestablished for a while. Let me say at once that it met with the mostintense opposition. The Abati were agriculturalists who loathed militaryservice. From their childhood they had heard of the imminence ofinvasion, but no actual invasion had ever yet taken place. The Fung werealways without, and they were always within, an inland isle, the wall ofrock that they thought impassable being their sea which protected themfrom danger.
They had no experience of slaughter and rapine, their imaginations werenot sufficiently strong to enable them to understand what these thingsmeant; they were lost in the pettiness of daily life and its pressinglocal interests. Their homes in flames, they themselves massacred, theirwomen and children dragged off to be the slaves of the victors, a poorremnant left to die of starvation among the wasted fields or to becomewild men of the rocks! All these things they looked upon as a mere tale,a romance such as their local poets repeated in the evenings of awet season, dim and far-off events which might have happened to theCanaanites and Jebusites and Amalekites in the ancient days whereof thebook of their Law told them, but which could never happen to _them_, thecomfortable Abati. In that book the Israelites always conquered in theend, although the Philistines, alias Fung, sat at their gates. For itwill be remembered that it includes no account of the final fall ofJerusalem and awful destruction of its citizens, of which they hadlittle if any knowledge.
So it came about that our recruiting parties, perhaps press gangs wouldbe a better term, were not well received. I know it, for this branch ofthe business was handed over to me, of course as adviser to the Abaticaptains, and on several occasions, when riding round the villages onthe shores of their beautiful lake, we were met by showers of stones,and were even the object of active attacks which had to be put down withbloodshed. Still, an army of five or six thousand men was got togethersomehow, and formed into camps, whence desertions were incessant, onceor twice accompanied by the murder of officers.
"It's 'opeless, downright 'opeless, Doctor," said Quick to me, droppinghis h's, as he sometimes did in the excitement of the moment. "What canone do with a crowd of pigs, everyone of them bent on bolting to his ownsty, or anywhere except toward the enemy? The sooner the Fung get themthe better for all concerned, say I, and if it wasn't for our Ladyyonder" (Quick always called Maqueda after "our Lady," after it had beenimpressed upon him that "her Majesty" was an incorrect title), "my adviceto the Captain and you gentlemen would be: Get out of this infernal holeas quick as your legs can carry you, and let's do a bit of hunting onthe way home, leaving the Abati to settle their own affairs."
"You forget, Sergeant, that I have a reason for staying in this part ofthe world, and so perhaps have the others. For instance, the Professoris very fond of those old skeletons down in the cave," and I paused.
"Yes, Doctor, and the Captain is very fond of something much better thana skeleton, and so are we all. Well, we've got to see it through, butsomehow I don't think that every one of us will have that luck, thoughit's true that when a man has lived fairly straight according to hislights a few years more or less don't matter much one way or the other.After all, except you gentlemen, who is there that will miss SamuelQuick?"
Then without waiting for an answer, drawing himself up straight as aramrod he marched off to assist some popinjays of Abati officers, whomhe hated and who hated him, to instil the elements of drill into a newlyraised company, leaving me to wonder what fears or premonitions filledhis honest soul.
But this was not Quick's principal work, since for at least six hoursof every day he was engaged in helping Oliver in our great enterprise ofdriving a tunnel from the end of the Tomb of Kings deep into the solidrock that formed the base of the mighty idol of the Fung. The taskwas stupendous, and would indeed have been impossible had not Orme'sconjecture that some passage had once run from the extremity of the cavetoward the idol proved to be perfectly accurate. Such a passage indeedwas found walled up at the back of the chair containing the bones of thehunchbacked king. It descended very sharply for a distance of severalhundred yards, after which for another hundred yards or more its wallsand roof were so riven and shaky that, for fear of accidents, we foundit necessary to timber them as we went.
At last we came to a place where they had fallen in altogether, shakendown, I presume, by the great earthquake which had destroyed so muchof the ancient cave-city. At this spot, if Oliver's instruments andcalculations could be trusted, we were within about two hundred feetof the floor of the den of lions, to which it seemed probable that thepassage once led, and of course the question arose as to what should bedone.
A Council was held to discuss this problem, at which Maqueda and a fewof the Abati notables were present. To these Oliver explained that evenif that were possible it would be useless to clear out the old passageand at the end find ourselves once more in the den of lions.
"What, then, is your plan?" asked Maqueda.
"Lady," he answered, "I, your servant, am instructed to attempt todestroy the idol Harmac, by means of the explosives which we havebrought with us from England. First, I would ask you if you still clingto that design?"
"Why should it be abandoned?" inquired Maqueda. "What have you againstit?"
"Two things, Lady. As an act of war the deed seems useless, sincesupposing that the sphinx is shattered and a certain number of priestsand guards are destroyed, how will that advance your cause? Secondly,such destruction will be very difficult, if it can be done at all. Thestuff we have with us, it is true, is of fearful strength, yet who canbe sure that there is enough of it to move this mountain of hard rock,of which I cannot calculate the weight, not having the measurements orany knowledge of the size of the cavities within its bulk. Lastly, ifthe attempt is to be made, a tunnel must be hollowed of not less thanthree hundred feet in length, first downward and then upward into thevery base of the idol, and if this is to be done within six weeks, thatis, by the night of the marriage of the daughter of Barung, the workwill be very hard, if indeed it can be completed at all, althoughhundreds of men labour day and night."
Now Maqueda thought a while, then looked up and said:
"Friend, you are brave and skilful, tell us all your mind. If you sat inmy place, what would you do?"
"Lady, I would lead out every able-bodied man and attack the city of theFung, say, on the night of the great festival when they are off theirguard. I would blow in the gates of the city of Harmac, and storm it anddrive away the Fung, and afterwards take possession of the idol, and ifit is thought necessary, destroy it piecemeal from within."
Now Maqueda consulted with her councillors, who appeared to be muchdisturbed at this suggestion, and finally called us back and gave us herdecision.
"These lords of the Council," she said, speaking with a ring of contemptin her voice, "declare that your plan is mad, and that they will neversanction it because the Abati could not be persuaded to undertake sodangerous an enterprise as an attack upon the city of Harmac, whichwould end, they think, in all of them being killed. They point out, OOrme, that the prophecy is that the Fung will leave the plain of Harmacwhen their god is destroyed and not before, and that therefore it mustbe destroyed. They say, further, O Orme, that for a year you and yourcompanions are the sworn servants of the Abati, and that it is yourbusiness to receive orders, not to give them, also that the conditionupon which you earn your pay is that you destroy the idol of the Fung.This is the decision of the Counc
il, spoken by the mouth of the princeJoshua, who command further that you shall at once set about thebusiness to execute which you and your companions are present here inMur."
"Is that _your_ command also, O Child of Kings?" answered Oliver,colouring.
"Since I also think that the Abati can never be forced to attack thecity of the Fung, it is, O Orme, though the words in which it is couchedare not my words."
"Very well, O Child of Kings, I will do my best. Only blame us not ifthe end of this matter is other than these advisers of yours expect.Prophecies are two-edged swords to play with, and I do not believe thata race of fighting men like the Fung will fly and leave you triumphantjust because a stone image is shattered, if that can be done in the timeand with the means which we possess. Meanwhile, I ask that you shouldgive me two hundred and fifty picked men of the Mountaineers, not ofthe townspeople, under the captaincy of Japhet, who must choose them, toassist us in our work."
"It shall be done," she answered, and we made our bows and went. As wepassed through the Council we heard Joshua say in a loud voice meant forus to hear:
"Thanks be to God, these hired Gentiles have been taught their place atlast."
Oliver turned on him so fiercely that he recoiled, thinking that he wasabout to strike him.
"Be careful, Prince Joshua," he said, "that before this business isfinished you are not taught yours, which I think may be lowly," and helooked meaningly at the ground.
So the labour began, and it was heavy indeed as well as dangerous.Fortunately, in addition to the picrate compounds that Quick called"azure stinging bees," we had brought with us a few cases of dynamite,of which we now made use for blasting purposes. A hole was drilled inthe face of the tunnel, and the charge inserted. Then all retreated backinto the Tomb of Kings till the cartridge had exploded, and the smokecleared off, which took a long while, when our people advanced with ironbars and baskets, and cleared away the debris, after which the processmust be repeated.
Oh! the heat of that narrow hole deep in the bowels of the rock, andthe reek of the stagnant air which sometimes was so bad that the lightswould scarcely burn. Indeed, after a hundred feet had been completed,we thought that it would be impossible to proceed, since two men diedof asphyxiation and the others, although they were good fellows enough,refused to return into the tunnel. At length, however, Orme and Japhetpersuaded some of the best of them to do so, and shortly after this theatmosphere improved very much, I suppose because we cut some cranny orshaft which communicated with the open air.
There were other dangers also, notably of the collapse of the wholeroof where the rock was rotten, as we found it to be in places. Thenit proved very hard to deal with the water, for once or twice westruck small springs impregnated with copper or some other mineral thatblistered the feet and skin, since every drop of this acid water had tobe carried out in wooden pails. That difficulty we overcame at last bysinking a narrow well down to the level of the ancient tunnel of which Ihave spoken as having been shaken in by the earthquake.
Thus we, or rather Oliver and Quick with the Mountaineers, toiled on.Higgs did his best, but after a while proved quite unable to bear theheat, which became too much for so stout a man. The end of it was thathe devoted himself to the superintendence of the removal of the rubbishinto the Tomb of Kings, the care of the stores and so forth. At leastthat was supposed to be his business, but really he employed most of histime in drawing and cataloguing the objects of antiquity and the groupsof bones that were buried there, and in exploring the remains of theunderground city. In truth, this task of destruction was most repellentto the poor Professor.
"To think," he said to us, "to think that I, who all my life havepreached the iniquity of not conserving every relic of the past, shouldnow be employed in attempting to obliterate the most wonderful objectever fashioned by the ancients! It is enough to make a Vandal weep, andI pray heaven that you may not succeed in your infamous design. Whatdoes it matter if the Abati are wiped out, as lots of better people havebeen before them? What does it matter if we accompany them to oblivionso long as that noble sphinx is preserved to be the wonder of futuregenerations? Well, thank goodness, at any rate I have seen it, which ismore, probably, than any of you will ever do. There, another brute isdumping his rubbish over the skull of No. 14!"
Thus we laboured continually, each at his different task, for the workin the mine never stopped, Oliver being in charge during the day andQuick at night for a whole week, since on each Sunday they changed withtheir gangs, Quick taking the day shift and Oliver the night, or _viceversa_. Sometimes Maqueda came down the cave to inspect progress,always, I noticed, at those hours when Oliver happened to be off duty.Then on this pretext or on that they would wander away together to visitI know not what in the recesses of the underground city, or elsewhere.In vain did I warn them that their every step was dogged, and thattheir every word and action were noted by spies who crept after themcontinually, since twice I caught one of these gentry in the act. Theywere infatuated, and would not listen.
At this time Oliver only left the underground city twice or thrice aweek to breathe the fresh air for an hour or two. In truth, he had noleisure. For this same reason he fitted himself up a bed in what hadbeen a priest's chamber, or a sanctuary in the old temple, and sleptthere, generally with no other guard but the great dog, Pharaoh, hisconstant companion even in the recesses of the mine.
It was curious to see how this faithful beast accustomed itself to thedarkness, and made its other senses, especially that of smell, servethe purpose of eyes as do the blind. By degrees, too, it learned allthe details of the operations; thus, when the cartridge was in place forfiring, it would rise and begin to walk out of the tunnel even beforethe men in charge.
One night the tragedy that I feared very nearly happened, and indeedmust have happened had it not been for this same hound, Pharaoh. Aboutsix o'clock in the evening Oliver came off duty after an eight-hourshift in the tunnel, leaving Higgs in command for a little while untilit was time for Quick to take charge. I had been at work outside all dayin connection with the new conscript army, a regiment of which wasin revolt, because the men, most of whom were what we should callsmall-holders, declared that they wanted to go home to weed their crops.Indeed, it had proved necessary for the Child of Kings herself to besummoned to plead with them and condemn some of the ringleaders topunishment.
When at length this business was over we left together, and the poorlady, exasperated almost to madness, sharply refusing the escort of anyof her people, requested me to accompany her to the mine.
At the mouth of the tunnel she met Oliver, as probably she had arrangedto do, and after he had reported progress to her, wandered away with himas usual, each of them carrying a lamp, into some recess of the buriedcity. I followed them at a distance, not from curiosity, or because Iwished to see more of the wonders of that city whereof I was heartilysick, but because I suspected that they were being spied upon.
The pair vanished round a corner that I knew ended in a _cul-de-sac_, soextinguishing my lamp, I sat down on a fallen column and waited till Ishould see their light reappear, when I proposed to effect my retreat.Whilst I sat thus, thinking on many things and, to tell the truth, verydepressed in mind, I heard a sound as of some one moving and instantlystruck a match. The light of it fell full upon the face of a man whomI recognized at once as a body-servant of the prince Joshua, thoughwhether he was passing me toward the pair or returning from theirdirection I could not be sure.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"What is that to you, Physician?" he answered.
Then the match burnt out, and before I could light another he hadvanished, like a snake into a stone wall.
My first impulse was to warn Maqueda and Oliver that they were beingwatched, but reflecting that the business was awkward, and that the spywould doubtless have given over his task for this day, I left it alone,and went down to the Tomb of the Kings to help Higgs. Just afterwardsQuick came on duty, long before his time, the f
act being that he had noconfidence in the Professor as a director of mining operations. When heappeared Higgs and I retreated from that close and filthy tunnel,and, by way of recreation, put in an hour or so at the cataloguing andarchaeological research in which his soul delighted.
"If only we could get all this lot out of Mur," he said, with a sweep ofhis hand, "we should be the most famous men in Europe for at least threedays, and rich into the bargain."
"Ptolemy," I answered, "we shall be fortunate if we get ourselves aliveout of Mur, let alone these bones and ancient treasures," and I told himwhat I had seen that evening.
His fat and kindly face grew anxious.
"Ah!" he said. "Well, I don't blame him; should probably do the samemyself if I got the chance, and so would you--if you were twenty yearsyounger. No, I don't blame him, or her either, for the fact is thatalthough their race, education, and circumstances are so different, theyare one of Nature's pairs, and while they are alive nothing will keepthem apart. You might as well expect a magnet and a bit of iron toremain separate on a sheet of notepaper. Moreover, they give themselvesaway, as people in that state always do. The pursuit of archaeology hasits dangers, but it is a jolly sight safer than that of woman, though itdid land me in a den of lions. What's going to happen, old fellow?"
"Can't say, but I think it very probable that Oliver will be murdered,and that we shall follow the same road, or, if we are lucky, be onlybundled out of Mur. Well, it's time for dinner; if I get a chance I willgive them a hint."
So we made our way to the old temple in the great cave, where we keptour stores and Oliver had his headquarters. Here we found him waitingfor us and our meal ready, for food was always brought to us by thepalace servants. When we had eaten and these men had cleared away, welit our pipes and fed the dog Pharaoh upon the scraps that had beenreserved for him. Then I told Oliver about the spy whom I had caughttracking him and Maqueda.
"Well, what of it?" he said, colouring in his tell-tale fashion; "sheonly took me to see what she believed to be an ancient inscription on acolumn in that northern aisle."
"Then she'd have done better to take me, my boy," said Higgs. "What wasthe character like?"
"Don't know," he answered guiltily. "She could not find it again."
An awkward silence followed, which I broke.
"Oliver," I said, "I don't think you ought to go on sleeping here alone.You have too many enemies in this place."
"Rubbish," he answered, "though it's true Pharaoh seemed uneasy lastnight, and that once I woke up and thought I heard footsteps in thecourt outside. I set them down to ghosts, in which I have almost come tobelieve in this haunted place, and went to sleep again."
"Ghosts be blowed!" said Higgs vulgarly, "if there were such things Ihave slept with too many mummies not to see them. That confounded Joshuais the wizard who raises your ghosts. Look here, old boy," he added,"let me camp with you to-night, since Quick must be in the tunnel, andAdams has to sleep outside in case he is wanted on the army business."
"Not a bit of it," he answered; "you know you are too asthmatical to geta wink in this atmosphere. I won't hear of such a thing."
"Then come and sleep with us in the guest-house."
"Can't be done; the Sergeant has got a very nasty job down there aboutone o'clock, and I promised to be handy in case he calls me up," and hepointed to the portable field telephone that fortunately we had broughtwith us from England, which was fixed closed by, adding, "if only thatsilly thing had another few hundred yards of wire, I'd come; but, yousee, it hasn't and I must be in touch with the work."
At this moment the bell tinkled, and Orme made a jump for the receiverthrough which for the next five minutes he was engaged in giving rapidand to us quite unintelligible directions.
"There you are," he said, when he had replaced the mouthpiece on itshook, "if I hadn't been here they would probably have had the roofof the tunnel down and killed some people. No, no; I can't leave thatreceiver unless I go back to the mine, which I am too tired to do.However, don't you fret. With a pistol, a telephone, and Pharaoh I'msafe enough. And now, good night; you fellows had better be getting homeas I must be up early to-morrow and want to sleep while I can."