Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 1 (1925-01).djvu/66

Rh Twice as he sat there waiting, the old priest passed him, going about the village upon his own affairs. Martin watched him covertly, and finally slipped his stool inside the shadows of the hut, so that the old man would think he had gone to bed. He did not like those keen, prying eyes, which seemed able to read his most secret thoughts.

When at last he considered it safe, he rose and wrapped his thick cape of vicuna hair about him and slipped away in the darkness. It was typical of the man that he did not cast one fleeting, farewell glance back upon the woman whose love and devotion had saved his life.

P the familiar path he went swiftly and surely, to where the great pool lay at the base of the waterfall. He paused for a moment and looked behind. All was silence and darkness.

Then he stepped quickly behind a great clump of bushes, which grew at the edge of the water, so close that the water of the fall sprayed over it as it fell. Martin almost laughed aloud at the utter simplicity of the thing. The broad path, worn by many, many feet, led just here, where the ground was tramped hard and firm, for it was just at this point that the villagers stood to dip the water from the deep pool. Martin had stood here himself a hundred times, had dipped water again and again upon this very spot and never dreamed that behind the innocent clump of shrubs lay the entrance to the desire of his heart.

Now he slipped quickly behind the bushes. Deep down, half buried in the foliage, there was a rectangular opening into the face of the cliff. Martin stooped and crawled through; he found himself at the bottom of a long flight of narrow stairs cut from the solid rock. Here and there, as he climbed, he saw that narrow fissures in the roof of the passageway let in air, and sometimes he caught a glimpse of the starlit sky. The stairs under his feet were worn smooth. Through hundreds of years had the devotees of that strange cult been passing up and down this subterranean way.

On and on he climbed, most of the way leading upward, but now and then long stretches ran fairly level. He hurried, but he had grown soft through the weeks of his idleness and he found himself panting for breath and obliged to stop often to rest. Yet he must reach the temple and get away again before the priest came for the morning service, and he drove his weary body forward with the lash of his will.

Suddenly, just when he felt himself unable to go farther, the passageway opened out into a great square chamber, hollowed out of the solid rock. He recognized it, from pictures that he had seen of the old temples, as the anteroom where the people gathered for the outer service.

From the ceiling of this room hung dozens of lamps from which wicks set in oil sent out a flickering light. The lamps were curiously wrought, with fine tracing and delicate cut work. Each would be a museum piece of rare value.

The room itself was bare of furniture. Evidently the audience knelt upon the stone floor throughout the service. In the middle of the wall nearest the opening through which Martin had come, a spring of clear, sparkling water gushed out of the rocky wall. The water fell into a deep niche, which had been hollowed out of the wall, and the overflow was carried away by hidden drainage pipes. Before this niche two tall golden lamps burned brightly.

With a little gesture of delight Martin ran to the spring and buried his hot face in the cold water, drinking deeply again and again. The long, hard climb had parched his throat and the cool water was like nectar.