Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/195

 directly through that other cavern where lurks the gas. Since your friend has cut off the other road, this is our only hope. We shall inhale the gas one by one, sending the bodies through this opening. Is it your wish to accompany us, or do you fear? ”

“I fear, but I shall go,” I answered. “That is providing my friend”

“That is already settled, my son. Explain to the sister.” “I have explained.”

“And your servant?”

“Understands as well as I have the power to make him; but tell me father, the lama who drew the fatal lot—must he  die?”

“He must, my son. Who is to put his body into the opening? He cannot do it himself after inhaling the gas.”

“Cannot your spirit friends assist?”

The priest shook his head.

“Under certain circumstances that might be done, but it needs a harmony of thought, a calmness of soul, to enable  them to take on the power which we are not able to furnish  under such circumstances as these.”

“One question more—the bodies in the boxes? Those planetary corpses—are they to be left behind?”

“We cannot take them. It is impossible. We have scarcely time to save ourselves.”

“Then souls from the planets can never visit this earth again?”

“Never in these bodies, my son. Psam-dagong is doomed.”

“And there is no other channel of communication?”

“None that I am aware of; none known to the followers of Buddha. I cannot answer for the rest of the world. But time presses. A beginning must be made.”

He ceased to speak, and approaching the altar opened the little door in its side and arranged the golden tube as it  had been before.

“Ni-fan-lu!” he called.

Ni-fan-lu stepped forward. His face was pale, but he was entirely calm.

Padma in loud and distinct tones spoke a few hurried words, whereupon the lamas all bowed profoundly, their  hands crossed upon their breasts. He then laid his own hand upon the plug and Ni-fan-lu bent down, fixed his