The valley of eyes unseen
'D'you mean to tell me we didn't see him betrothed to her?'
'We certainly did not. Helene is a twin sister of the Princess. The
resemblance is exact enough, though, I'll admit.'
This might have been true or not, but it was certainly new to me. 'Why
didn't you tell me before?' I said.
'You hardly gave me a chance,' replied Poyning coldly. 'You seemed so
ready to believe me a cad.'
'I'm sorry for that,' I said. 'But you know what that woman is. Have
you considered what's likely to happen to both of us--and perhaps
Philipson too--if you're caught in a business like to-night's?'
'I know a good deal more of her than you do, Mirlees,' he said quietly.
'I know that I love her more than my own body and soul, and that if
loving her means death to me I shall meet it--with open arms.'
I was silent for some moments. There was a ring in Poyning's words that
I knew, that told me beyond any shade of doubt that he was fallen into
the state which knows no prudence nor does it listen to logic.
'But remember,' he continued, 'it's my risk, not yours. If I come to
grief over this, I fail to see why you should be any the worse off
unless you're caught in it with me. Now let me go. I'm going to run
into fresh danger.'
'Where are you going?'
'Listen, Mirlees. We all three had an object when we came on this
adventure. Philipson's was a lost kingdom, yours a great discovery,
mine--my own quest. I'm going on it to-night.'
'What is it?'
'I'm going to the tomb on the southern foothills. Don't ask me why,
for I can't tell you, and don't try to come with me. If there's danger
attaching to it, I'll face it alone.'
I stood still, considering the position. Stephen Poyning, aged about
twenty-one, well favoured in mind and body and with all the world
before him, was saying yes to a perilous adventure. Myself, thirty-six,
a widower, with something at least of my life-work behind me and no
very great prospects of happiness in front, was declining the gambit.
Had it been daylight I've no doubt he would have seen me redden a
little.
'I don't know that it's altogether outside the scope of _my_ quest,' I
said.
He paused, undecided. 'What do you mean?' he queried.
'This. I don't attach as much importance to that grave as you seem to,
Poyning, but the identity of the stranger who lies in it is still a
riddle I'd be sorry to leave the valley without solving. I therefore
suggest that if anybody's to go to the tomb at all, we might as well
both go.'
For all his valiant flourishes I caught a note of relief in Poyning's
answer. 'You're a good fellow, Mirlees,' he said, 'and I've talked
like a yahoo to-night. But why should you risk your life too--for I'm
convinced it may easily amount to that?'
I picked up the lanthorn--it was a lanthorn--that he had dropped.
'Let's get away,' I said, 'or it will be daylight before we're out of
the city.'
'Very well,' he assented, 'though frankly I'd rather you didn't.' He
was groping on the pavement at his feet. 'Wait a minute, or I shall be
no better off than I was last time.'
'You've been there before?'
'Some weeks ago. But the place was very effectively locked. Now--ah,
here it is.' He picked up a long silvery-looking strip of metal and
slipped it into the bosom of his robe.
'How far is the tomb?'
'Five good miles, not counting climbing. It took me four hours before,
but then I lost time finding the way.'
We set off at once through the silent streets of the city, stealing
from shadow to shadow and pausing every now and then to assure
ourselves that the attendant, who had so mysteriously disappeared, was
not following us now. If he was, I never from first to last detected
the least trace of him. We made fair time, considering the need of
caution, and were soon come to the standing crops southward of the
city, then on to the grassy foothills. For all the signs of life we
saw, we might have been in the middle of a desert.
Poyning's recollection of the ground stood him in good stead. He had
learned on his former sally that the best way to find the tomb was to
strike for the new stream that had recently burst out of the mountains
and follow it up. This water, though much shrunken from what it had
been when we saw it from the watch-tower, still showed well in the
moonlight, and sounded distinctly on the still night air, and we found
it without much difficulty. The going was bad, however; over and above
the earthworks which the engineers had thrown up, the hillside itself
was rough and strangely soggy for ground at such a slant, and it must
have been fully two hours before we sighted the tomb. It rose from
behind a low hump on the hillside, a small but beautifully designed
building, with pillars and steps in the eternal marble; except that
the entrance in the middle of the façade was a good deal larger in
proportion, the structure might have passed for a model of our own
house. Poyning discovered the aperture for the key, thrust in the
long silver bar, tried it one way and another, and I heard the gentle
screech of metal against metal. We leaned our shoulders against the
dark teak-like wood. It gave. The tomb was open before us.
'Wait,' I said, catching his arm. 'There's no need to scatter clews
abroad.'
With that I carefully confused our tracks round the door, loosened
my sandals, and stepped out of them barefoot on to the lowest marble
stair, motioning Poyning to do the same. Then we entered.
The mausoleum was in pitchy darkness, for there was no aperture but
the door, and that we shut as soon as we had passed inside. I heard
Poyning's heart pounding, and saw his hand shake like a man in an ague
as he struck a light with his flint--the people of the valley used a
very ingenious implement of this type to kindle fire--and lit the lamp.
He held it up, and together we swept our gaze round the interior of the
tomb.
There was little to see. The floor, walls and ceiling were plain
polished marble, while the nave was almost filled by a bier, of the
same material but beautifully carved with groups representing, as it
seemed to me, ancient myths of the nether world. Upon this rested
a sarcophagus, in shape surprisingly reminiscent of an Egyptian
mummy-case, and fashioned of an opaque plaster so cunningly finished
that at the first glance you would have said that it too was solid
marble.
Poyning stared at this for fully a minute, his features drawn into an
expression I had never seen on them before. He then raised the lamp
to the blank walls, and we scanned them closely all over, but it was
Poyning who spotted the inscription. I had to look twice before I could
locate it at all--the carving was so fine and small. It was a short
legend, but it seemed to me to compress into ten short words a whole
world of grimness.
"A stranger strayed into the valley and died. Disturb him not."
That was all: no date appeared, no name, no clew of any sort to the old
tragedy.
Poyning continued to examine the interior of the tomb inch by inch.
Suddenly I saw him drop to one knee.
'Come round to this side,' he said, in a high, cracked voice.
He was pointing to something on the marble floor. There was no
mistaking that mark. It was the print of a bare foot, larger than
Poyning's but not so large as mine.
'It isn't fresh,' said Poyning. 'Nor is it very old. Somebody else has
been here, recently, somebody who also preferred to leave no trace of
his visit. Only he wasn't quite careful enough. What did he come for?'
'God knows.'
'I think I do, too. It seems pretty evident.'
'What do you mean?'
Poyning rose and tapped the sarcophagus. 'This was not here when we
came into the valley,' he said. 'It's been made since. Why? Hide the
lamp, Mirlees. I'm going out.'
I screened the light under my robe, while Poyning opened the door and
left the chamber. When he returned he was carrying a heavy snag of
stone.
'This appears to be the only way now,' he muttered, and to my dismay
began to tap the plaster casing, first gently, then harder. The white
material cracked right across. Poyning laid down the stone and tugged
at the broken plaster with his hands. A big, cup-shaped shard came
away. He bent over the exposed face, and staggered back with a hoarse
scream. It is scarce to be wondered at that Poyning did this.
There was an inner casing of some crystal-like material, also moulded
to mummy-case shape, and through this we could see distinctly--even
too distinctly--the head of the dead man. The body had evidently been
embalmed with skill, for the face was preserved as if life had only
just gone out of it. That rather added to the ghastliness. I have said
I do not wonder that Poyning screamed. I could have screamed aloud
myself, for on those dead features was imprinted the most intense
despairing horror I have ever seen: it was the countenance of a damned
soul being dragged down into hell. At the moment of death, I imagine,
those eyes had been wide and staring, for it had been necessary to sew
the lids together to close them. But most frightful of all, to both
of us, was the identity of that face. In spite of all its horrible
distortion, it was quite unmistakably the face of an older Stephen
Poyning.
He stared transfixed at the apparition for a moment, stooped and kissed
the crystal casing above the forehead, and rushed out of the tomb.
I replaced the broken plaster, cleared away as best I could the
evidences of our invasion, and followed him, going back to lock the
door when I had got the key from Poyning. Not a word did he utter as we
hurried sliding and stumbling down the hill. When I told him to wash
the mud from his sandals in the rushing stream he did so mechanically,
in silence, and strode on, his face set in a granite mask that
concealed anguish and horror alike.
I judged well to approach our house with extreme caution. The breaking
of the plaster envelope to the sarcophagus might remain undiscovered
for years, but it also might come to light to-morrow, in which case
our having been abroad would naturally draw the first suspicion upon
ourselves. Poyning, however, seemed to have thrown prudence behind him.
He stalked up the steps as if the hour had been noon, flung open the
doors and entered.
None of the attendants appeared to be about, or even awake, and I had
certainly seen nobody outside the house. It looked as if we had been
lucky enough to elude observation from start to finish of the gruesome
adventure.
Poyning was in the very act of striking his flint when I snatched it
out of his hand. 'It's late, you know, old man,' I said. 'Better go to
bed in the dark to-night.'
Even as I said this I had a most strange and uncanny sense that we were
being looked at. I peered all round the dark central hall of the house,
but could see nothing; at last, however, against the slender white
pillars that marked the entrance to our inner chambers and were faintly
discernible even in the gloom, my eyes came to rest on something a
shade whiter. There was at the same moment a sharp sound like the hiss
of a snake. Then I'm afraid my nerves, already strung taut by what we
had seen that night, got the better of me.
'Who's there?' I cried, in a voice I wouldn't have known for my own.
There came no answer. I struck the flint I had taken from Poyning, and
kindled the big hanging lamp over my head.
The flame flickered, then rose steadily, and as the chamber grew
brighter a tall form stood out clear between the pillars of the party
wall. It was Kalliboas, his great frame quivering, his stern features
livid with fury.
CHAPTER XIII
SUSPENSE
For one instant I had a thought of trying to carry it off on an
assumption of innocence, but Kalliboas very soon convinced me of the
futility of that.