Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/201

 hovering above a lake into which water was pouring from another lake at a higher level. At the outer edge of this upper lake, between two precipices, I perceived a wall made  up of rough stones, in the middle of which was a yawning  gap with the water rushing through. Then I comprehended exactly what had occurred.

I looked down into the water. It formed no obstacle to my vision. I could see that the bottom of the lake was strewn all over with small objects made to represent the  human head in profile. There were thousands upon thousands of them. Many were of gold, others of a black, dirty substance, which I instantly knew had once been glittering  silver, now changed by the action of the water; but by far  the largest number were of stone.

“What are these? How came they here?” I asked myself.

The answer came to me, not in words, but by an inward consciousness which it seemed impossible to question, and I  knew that they were the offerings of an ancient race which  had vanished thousands upon thousands of years before  many of our western thinkers are willing to admit the earth  existed; cast into the lake to propitiate the spirit believed to  hold its waters in check. I knew also, by the same mysterious sense, that it was this race which had built the dam, the vaults beneath the lamasery and the strange shute into  which I had seen my body go.

Still thinking of these things, I suddenly found myself in motion again, and before I knew it was back in the courtyard; passing directly through the temple wall, which  offered no more resistance than so much air; I was in the  underground chamber once more.

Here matters had changed. The water lay six inches deep upon the floor, and Padma was in the act of inhaling  the gas. He was alone save for the lama upon whom the lot had fallen. Suddenly I saw his body sink into this  man’s arms and another Padma rise beside it, appearing as  a whitish cloud emanating from the region of the spleen,  but quickly taking on the old lama’s familiar form and  floating away.

I watched him as he vanished through the solid walls of the chamber and then turned to look at what was left  behind.

The lama was dragging the body towards the trap into which the water was now pouring in a steady stream. He