Perhaps it was because the crowd was so terrifically large. Or, there may have been something in the destiny of things that would not permit the chief actors to feel nervous. Certain it is that neither of the two men experienced the least stage fright. Had they been on display before a crowd one-tenth the size, anywhere else, both would have been ill at ease. This was different—enormously so.
No longer was there any circulation in the crowd. People remained in their places now, just as they expected the end to find them. Chick and Harry marvelled at their composure, strangely in contrast with the ceaseless activities of the temple pheasants darting everywhere overhead.
Suddenly Harry remarked:
“I've got an idea, Chick! It's this: How does the professor expect to send a message to Hobart?” Chick could not guess.
But already Harry had taken his sheet of instructions from his pocket, and was rolling it into a compact pellet. Then he went to Queen, and with a ribbon borrowed from the Nervina, tied the message tightly to the dog's collar.
“Hobart will be certain to see it,” said he. “I wonder if the doctor's figured it out yet?”
“He's playing with a tremendous force,” observed Chick, thoughtfully. He reached out and touched the snow-stone with his foot, just as he had done before, and fancied that he could feel that electric thrill even through the leather of his shoes. “Still, it's worth any risk he may be taking down in that chamber. If only he could send Queen through! Hobart—”
He never finished the sentence. He staggered, thrown off his balance by reason of the fact that he had been resting the weight of one foot on the stone and—it moved!
Moved—shifted about its axis, just as it had done forty-eight hours previously, when the Aradna had dropped through.
And Chick had only a flash of a second for a glimpse of the startled faces of Harry, the Nervina and the Geos, the huge multitude below the stair, Queen on the other side, and the fateful Prophecy on the walls above him, before—