Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/19

 brought up by Maurice’s Chinese servant, in a native boat, which was to go up to the lake on the following day.

This was the dawning of our fourth day at the ruins—the others had been spent in exploring the great temple, studying its bas-reliefs and unreadable inscriptions, silent  memorials of a forgotten race.

Yes, the enjoyment should have been all mine, not his; and to a certain extent it was so. Even in my unhappy frame of mind I could not gaze down from that height  unawed at the mighty monuments of a lost people which  lay beneath us; nevertheless they had failed to amuse me as  I had hoped.

“Hark!” exclaimed Maurice suddenly, as we stood there gazing off upon that ocean of green, tinged at the horizon  with a broad dash of orange, deepening in its lower lines  into crimson; “hark, George! Don’t you hear someone on the platform above us? I am certain I heard a step.”

“I thought I heard something a moment or two ago,” I replied, “but I hear nothing now.”

“Nor I, but I did as I spoke.”

“It is very unlikely that any of those lazy priests can have gone up before us,” said I, alluding to the dull-eyed  old Cambodians, who, dwelling in the group of low thatched huts far below us, have charge of the temple. “Unless something special calls them they have shown no anxiety to  leave their rice and betel since we’ve been at Angkor.”

“True, George; and yet I heard”

“What my dear fellow?”

“Some one praying, I think—at least it sounded that way, though I couldn’t understand the words.”

“Then your hearing is a precious sight more acute than mine, Maurice,” I answered. “I thought I heard some one shuffling about on the platform above us, but praying—nonsense! Don’t fancy those fellows would climb that terrible stairway simply to mutter a prayer which could be just as well mumbled before the big statue of Buddha in the room below.”

Maurice laughed shortly and leaning forward attempted to look up to the next platform above. He was, however, able to distinguish nothing.

Understand the design of the three great towers of the Nagkon Wat; it is necessary for the full comprehension of  that which is to follow. Briefly I may describe them as