The tomb of Ts'in
The end must come slowly if he spoke the truth. Soo was looking above
the bottle thoughtfully: his gaze was fixed. She followed the
direction of his eyes. From a round hole recently cut in the ceiling
suspended a thick silken rope which hung directly over the mouth and
came down to within a foot of the neck.
She had seen it before, and thought that it had been placed there to
afford her assistance in making her entry into the bottle, whilst the
ladder was removed, and still remained.
Soo’s voice came to her soothingly.
“I see you have noticed it. That cord will give you some moments of
interesting thought. Above this room is a smaller one, and in that
small chamber is a large cage,” he said, “and in that cage is a
python. I presume you know what a python is. It is a snake of unusual
size, and, in this particular case, unusually hungry. As to the habits
of the python I am not well acquainted, but I hope to discover much
interesting data from a closer observance than hitherto I have been
able to secure.”
He smiled.
She saw the smile almost before she had heard the last words.
“At your leisure”--he inclined his head--“you will clap your hands
three times, and my servants, who will be on duty day and night, will
release the reptile.”
What did he mean?
She was soon to learn.
“I do not know what are the effects such confinement as yours will
have upon you,” he said, “but I rather think that after the end of
twenty-four hours you may easily welcome the happy release, even
though it be in so unpleasant a form.”
He sat watching her with the drowsy eyes of a man under the influence
of some narcotic. The sight of her fascinated him. All that was
Oriental in him, all that loved suffering for suffering’s sake, was
alive to the possibilities which the situation offered. He had planned
this end for her with such elaboration; and now found something
wanting--something dramatic, something sudden.
Twenty-four hours was a long time, he might be sleeping when she gave
the signal. She might die of fright or of exhaustion--these Western
women were particularly fragile. Through the glass walls of her prison
she watched the man, saw the curious look in his face, and knew
instinctively that the respite he had given her he had already taken
away. Something froze within her, her heart almost stopped beating as
he raised his hand.
“I do not think I can afford to wait,” he said apologetically.
He did not clap, for there came a slight knock at the door through
which she had entered. He turned his frowning face to the portal.
“Come in!” he said quickly in Chinese.
It might be a message from the Mandarin of Hoo Sin. It might even be
an Imperial rescript. The summons was not obeyed, and then he
remembered that he had dropped the bar across the entrance. He rose
slowly and walked across the room and slipped the lacquered bolt
aside.
The sliding doors slipped apart, and Captain Talham stepped into the
room, a revolver in each hand.
This the girl saw, and fainted.
CHAPTER XX.
SOO “SAVES-FACE.”
Left alone in the darkness of the tomb the two men stood motionless.
Tillizinni was the first to realise the awfulness of their position.
None knew the secret of the door save themselves.
The men at the foot of the hill, if they were not already destroyed by
Soo’s soldiers, would wait til the morning, and then with true Chinese
philosophy would report the occurrence to the Mandarin of Hoo Sin.
By that time the two pioneers would be dead.
There was very little air in the chasm, and apparently no inlet. The
door itself was almost hermetically sealed; they would exhaust the
supply which they had unconsciously brought in with them in less than
an hour. Talham was the first to recover himself. He ran up the
remainder of the steps until he came to the blank wall of the silver
door and carefully examined its face with his lamp. The two edges of
the door fitted in a flange, and there was no place where a lever,
even if they had possessed one, could have found a purchase. As it
happened, they had left all their tools at the bronze door.
“Keep to the spirit steps,” said Talham, “and go down below again. We
may find something there. I think you will have plenty of opportunity,
at any rate,” he added grimly, “to discover the lighting secret of
this place.”
Back they went again to the chamber of the dead. The little
quicksilver rivers were running merrily, as they had for two thousand
years, and they might run for all eternity until through countless
thousands of years the quicksilver became volatised.
There were stacks of ancient arms placed near the stone door, but none
of these would be of any use to the men.
They made a diligent search for some other means of exit, but in vain.
There was no time to waste in purely scientific exploration.
They had obviated the necessity for one of them standing on the lower
step, by lifting thereon one of the heavy irons which stood at the
four corners of the pedestal, and this weight was apparently
sufficient to keep the light going.
“I’m afraid we’re caught,” said Talham at last, and Tillizinni nodded.
It was a curious end to all his extraordinary adventures, yet if an
end could be attractive, surely this was one, to go down in this
treasure-house of the past--to go out in the shadow of the great
Emperor’s tomb.
A romancer to the finger-tips, Tillizinni found some consolation in
the prospect, but Talham was devoid of sentiment.
“It isn’t the death I mind,” he said quietly; “but we ought not to
have come, we should have made straight for Yvonne. We know she is in
that fiend’s power; how could I have been so mad as to have neglected
her for one moment--all the treasures in the world were not worth it.”
On one of the steps he had placed the jade box. He lifted it up and
looked at it resentfully, and raising it above his head he sent it
crashing down amongst the artificial landscape which covered one half
of the floor. The box burst and a roll of parchment fell out.
“Leave it alone,” said Talham roughly, “there is only one thing in the
world that counts.”
He did not say what that one thing was, but Tillizinni guessed.
Another examination of the chamber offered no better result. At the
foot of the bier Tillizinni found a square box, which he prised open
without any difficulty. It was filled to the brim with pearls of
varying sizes from that of the average pea to pearls as large as
pigeons’ eggs.
If only they could make their escape from here the box would represent
an enormous fortune.
If Talham despised the secret of the philosopher, here might be some
compensation for all his trouble if they made their escape. The
chances were very slight, but----
Tillizinni took a handful of the gems, and put them in the loose
pocket of his coat. He took another and another, until the pocket
bulged.
He made his way back with difficulty to where Talham stood by the
lower step. The air was getting foul, and he found a difficulty in
breathing; the end would come very soon--the scientist in him told him
that.
“Have you found anything?”
Talham did not answer.
He was looking stupidly at one of the two ornaments which flanked the
lower steps leading into the death chamber.
“What is it?” asked Tillizinni.
Talham nodded sleepily.
Tillizinni examined the object of his interest a little closer.
It was one of the two huge birds of bronze. It seemed alive as it
stood there, balanced on one leg.
“I didn’t notice those before,” said Talham. Neither had the other, a
fact easily explained as they stood in the shadow cast by the two
great War Gods which towered left and right of the tomb’s entrance.
“I think this is where we go out,” muttered Talham. His heart was
beating at a terrific rate; his head was swimming. He was affected
sooner than the smaller man, and staggered, and would have fallen but
for Tillizinni’s arm.
“You had better sit down,” said Tillizinni quietly.
He would take his own advice later; seated with his back to the wall
he would wait for death.
But Talham shook his head; he took a step and swayed, reached out his
hand to steady himself, and caught the bronze bird by the neck.
He threw his head back suddenly.
“A pelican,” he said thickly. “A pelican! my God! I didn’t see a
pelican----”
There was no other word. He threw all his weight upon the neck of the
bronze bird, and it bent down towards him as if working upon an
invisible pivot.
There was a rumble at the head of the stairs; a draught of sweet,
fresh air rushed down to the men, and Talham fell on his hands and
knees and breathed it in greedily.
“So that was it,” he gasped. “Now, Soo, look out for me!” and he went
reeling up the stairs like a drunken man, Tillizinni following.
They went out into the starlit night to find their patient men still
sitting in the gulley waiting for orders.
Whilst the men were mounting, Talham went back to the tomb alone. He
was absent for five minutes.
“Oughtn’t we do something to hide the door?” asked Tillizinni. “There
will be an awful row when it is found open.”
Talham turned on his saddle.
“It will be hidden in a minute,” he said.
At that moment there was a dull, muffled roar which set the horses
prancing.
“I dynamited the first chamber,” said Talham “That’s the end of the
Emperor’s tomb.”
* * * * *
Soo stared blankly at the intruder, but he did not lose his presence
of mind.
“Captain Talham, I believe,” he said. “How very interesting!”
He smiled at the stern-faced man before him.
“I had intended coming to-morrow to find your unhappy bodies”--he saw
Tillizinni at the entrance and nodded in a friendly way--“and
incidentally to help myself to such of the treasures of the great
Emperor’s. May he dwell in the seventeenth heaven for a million
years”--he bowed his head in mock reverence; “but that one pleasure,
at least, is deferred.”
“All your pleasures are deferred,” said Talham sternly. “You will
never again discover the tomb of the dead Emperor--neither you nor any
other man. The outer chamber has ceased to be.”
Soo lifted his eyebrows.
“Indeed!” he said incredulously.
“I have dynamited the entrance,” said Talham in his thorough way.
“That ends the business of the Emperor’s tomb, and----”
Then it was that he saw the bottle. The room was in half darkness as
he had entered; only one faint light showed, and this was beside the
place where Soo had sat.
The reflection of the light upon the polished face of the glass
prevented him from seeing its interior. He took a step forward.
“My God!” he said. “Yvonne!”
He turned and pointed the revolver at the other’s head. His face was
white and drawn.
“Damn you!” he said.
“She is not dead--she is alive,” said Soo quickly.
“Alive!” Talham dropped his revolver.
“For the moment, yes,” said Soo, and clasped his hands.
Talham heard the shriek of the girl, saw the wild agony in her face,
and realised that this was a signal for some act of treachery. But it
was Tillizinni who saw the dangling rope, and heard the rustle of a
heavy body moving on the floor above. It was Tillizinni who saw the
wedge-shaped head with the cruel, cold eyes peep down through the hole
and stretch out its sinuous body towards the rope.
He knew instantly the significance of that dangling cord.
“Quick!” he cried, and threw the whole of his weight against the
bottle. It slid over the polished floor a dozen paces.
“Stop him!” said Tillizinni.
Soo was making for the door. He turned when the revolvers were
levelled, and lifted his hands.
“There will be no trouble,” he said.
Even in that moment of his deadly peril he did not lose his nerve. He
seemed to take a delight in recalling the suavities of his Western
veneer.