Out of Time's Abyss
been captured by the Wieroo, for there appeared not the slightest cause
for hope in his present predicament. He had dropped the curved blade
beneath the hides when he had been jerked so violently from their
fancied security. It was almost in a spirit of resigned hopelessness
that he quietly accompanied his captors through various chambers and
corridors toward the heart of the temple.
Chapter 4
The farther the group progressed, the more barbaric and the more
sumptuous became the decorations. Hides of leopard and tiger
predominated, apparently because of their more beautiful markings, and
decorative skulls became more and more numerous. Many of the latter
were mounted in precious metals and set with colored stones and
priceless gems, while thick upon the hides that covered the walls were
golden ornaments similar to those worn by the girl and those which had
filled the chests he had examined in the storeroom of Fosh-bal-soj,
leading the Englishman to the conviction that all such were spoils of
war or theft, since each piece seemed made for personal adornment,
while in so far as he had seen, no Wieroo wore ornaments of any sort.
And also as they advanced the more numerous became the Wieroos moving
hither and thither within the temple. Many now were the solid red
robes and those that were slashed with blue--a veritable hive of
murderers.
At last the party halted in a room in which were many Wieroos who
gathered about Bradley questioning his captors and examining him and
his apparel. One of the party accompanying the Englishman spoke to a
Wieroo that stood beside a door leading from the room. "Tell Him Who
Speaks for Luata," he said, "that Fosh-bal-soj we could not find; but
that in returning we found this creature within the temple, hiding. It
must be the same that Fosh-bal-soj captured in the Sto-lu country
during the last darkness. Doubtless He Who Speaks for Luata would wish
to see and question this strange thing."
The creature addressed turned and slipped through the doorway, closing
the door after it, but first depositing its curved blade upon the floor
without. Its post was immediately taken by another and Bradley now saw
that at least twenty such guards loitered in the immediate vicinity.
The doorkeeper was gone but for a moment, and when he returned, he
signified that Bradley's party was to enter the next chamber; but first
each of the Wieroos removed his curved weapon and laid it upon the
floor. The door was swung open, and the party, now reduced to Bradley
and five Wieroos, was ushered across the threshold into a large,
irregularly shaped room in which a single, giant Wieroo whose robe was
solid blue sat upon a raised dais.
The creature's face was white with the whiteness of a corpse, its dead
eyes entirely expressionless, its cruel, thin lips tight-drawn against
yellow teeth in a perpetual grimace. Upon either side of it lay an
enormous, curved sword, similar to those with which some of the other
Wieroos had been armed, but larger and heavier. Constantly its
clawlike fingers played with one or the other of these weapons.
The walls of the chamber as well as the floor were entirely hidden by
skins and woven fabrics. Blue predominated in all the colorations.
Fastened against the hides were many pairs of Wieroo wings, mounted so
that they resembled long, black shields. Upon the ceiling were painted
in blue characters a bewildering series of hieroglyphics and upon
pedestals set against the walls or standing out well within the room
were many human skulls.
As the Wieroos approached the figure upon the dais, they leaned far
forward, raising their wings above their heads and stretching their
necks as though offering them to the sharp swords of the grim and
hideous creature.
"O Thou Who Speakest for Luata!" exclaimed one of the party. "We bring
you the strange creature that Fosh-bal-soj captured and brought thither
at thy command."
So this then was the godlike figure that spoke for divinity! This
arch-murderer was the Caspakian representative of God on Earth! His
blue robe announced him the one and the seeming humility of his minions
the other. For a long minute he glared at Bradley. Then he began to
question him--from whence he came and how, the name and description of
his native country, and a hundred other queries.
"Are you cos-ata-lu?" the creature asked.
Bradley replied that he was and that all his kind were, as well as
every living thing in his part of the world.
"Can you tell me the secret?" asked the creature.
Bradley hesitated and then, thinking to gain time, replied in the
affirmative.
"What is it?" demanded the Wieroo, leaning far forward and exhibiting
every evidence of excited interest.
Bradley leaned forward and whispered: "It is for your ears alone; I
will not divulge it to others, and then only on condition that you
carry me and the girl I saw in the place of the yellow door near to
that of Fosh-bal-soj back to her own country."
The thing rose in wrath, holding one of its swords above its head.
"Who are you to make terms for Him Who Speaks for Luata?" it shrilled.
"Tell me the secret or die where you stand!"
"And if I die now, the secret goes with me," Bradley reminded him.
"Never again will you get the opportunity to question another of my
kind who knows the secret." Anything to gain time, to get the rest of
the Wieroos from the room, that he might plan some scheme for escape
and put it into effect.
The creature turned upon the leader of the party that had brought
Bradley.
"Is the thing with weapons?" it asked.
"No," was the response.
"Then go; but tell the guard to remain close by," commanded the high
one.
The Wieroos salaamed and withdrew, closing the door behind them. He
Who Speaks for Luata grasped a sword nervously in his right hand. At
his left side lay the second weapon. It was evident that he lived in
constant dread of being assassinated. The fact that he permitted none
with weapons within his presence and that he always kept two swords at
his side pointed to this.
Bradley was racking his brain to find some suggestion of a plan whereby
he might turn the situation to his own account. His eyes wandered past
the weird figure before him; they played about the walls of the
apartment as though hoping to draw inspiration from the dead skulls and
the hides and the wings, and then they came back to the face of the
Wieroo god, now working in anger.
"Quick!" screamed the thing. "The secret!"
"Will you give me and the girl our freedom?" insisted Bradley.
For an instant the thing hesitated, and then it grumbled "Yes." At the
same instant Bradley saw two hides upon the wall directly back of the
dais separate and a face appear in the opening. No change of
expression upon the Englishman's countenance betrayed that he had seen
aught to surprise him, though surprised he was for the face in the
aperture was that of the girl he had but just left hidden beneath the
hides in another chamber. A white and shapely arm now pushed past the
face into the room, and in the hand, tightly clutched, was the curved
blade, smeared with blood, that Bradley had dropped beneath the hides
at the moment he had been discovered and drawn from his concealment.
"Listen, then," said Bradley in a low voice to the Wieroo. "You shall
know the secret of cos-ata-lu as well as do I; but none other may hear
it. Lean close--I will whisper it into your ear."
He moved forward and stepped upon the dais. The creature raised its
sword ready to strike at the first indication of treachery, and Bradley
stooped beneath the blade and put his ear close to the gruesome face.
As he did so, he rested his weight upon his hands, one upon either side
of the Wieroo's body, his right hand upon the hilt of the spare sword
lying at the left of Him Who Speaks for Luata.
"This then is the secret of both life and death," he whispered, and at
the same instant he grasped the Wieroo by the right wrist and with his
own right hand swung the extra blade in a sudden vicious blow against
the creature's neck before the thing could give even a single cry of
alarm; then without waiting an instant Bradley leaped past the dead god
and vanished behind the hides that had hidden the girl.
Wide-eyed and panting the girl seized his arm. "Oh, what have you
done?" she cried. "He Who Speaks for Luata will be avenged by Luata.
Now indeed must you die. There is no escape, for even though we
reached my own country Luata can find you out."
"Bosh!" exclaimed Bradley, and then: "But you were going to knife him
yourself."
"Then I alone should have died," she replied.
Bradley scratched his head. "Neither of us is going to die," he said;
"at least not at the hands of any god. If we don't get out of here
though, we'll die right enough. Can you find your way back to the room
where I first came upon you in the temple?"
"I know the way," replied the girl; "but I doubt if we can go back
without being seen. I came hither because I only met Wieroos who knew
that I am supposed now to be in the temple; but you could go elsewhere
without being discovered."
Bradley's ingenuity had come up against a stone wall. There seemed no
possibility of escape. He looked about him. They were in a small room
where lay a litter of rubbish--torn bits of cloth, old hides, pieces of
fiber rope. In the center of the room was a cylindrical shaft with an
opening in its face. Bradley knew it for what it was. Here the
arch-fiend dragged his victims and cast their bodies into the river of
death far below. The floor about the opening in the shaft and the
sides of the shaft were clotted thick with a dried, dark brown
substance that the Englishman knew had once been blood. The place had
the appearance of having been a veritable shambles. An odor of
decaying flesh permeated the air.
The Englishman crossed to the shaft and peered into the opening. All
below was dark as pitch; but at the bottom he knew was the river.
Suddenly an inspiration and a bold scheme leaped to his mind. Turning
quickly he hunted about the room until he found what he sought--a
quantity of the rope that lay strewn here and there. With rapid
fingers he unsnarled the different lengths, the girl helping him, and
then he tied the ends together until he had three ropes about
seventy-five feet in length. He fastened these together at each end
and without a word secured one of the ends about the girl's body
beneath her arms.
"Don't be frightened," he said at length, as he led her toward the
opening in the shaft. "I'm going to lower you to the river, and then
I'm coming down after you. When you are safe below, give two quick
jerks upon the rope. If there is danger there and you want me to draw
you up into the shaft, jerk once. Don't be afraid--it is the only way."
"I am not afraid," replied the girl, rather haughtily Bradley thought,
and herself climbed through the aperture and hung by her hands waiting
for Bradley to lower her.
As rapidly as was consistent with safety, the man paid out the rope.
When it was about half out, he heard loud cries and wails suddenly
arise within the room they had just quitted. The slaying of their god
had been discovered by the Wieroos. A search for the slayer would
begin at once.
Lord! Would the girl never reach the river? At last, just as he was
positive that searchers were already entering the room behind him,
there came two quick tugs at the rope. Instantly Bradley made the rest
of the strands fast about the shaft, slipped into the black tube and
began a hurried descent toward the river. An instant later he stood
waist deep in water beside the girl. Impulsively she reached toward
him and grasped his arm. A strange thrill ran through him at the