“Save David from him!” she cried involuntarily.
“You see him—you know him!”
“He came in with us. He is there—look! I don’t know by what invisible power you have conjured up this apparition, but it is real. He is the one man I have feared—and he is coming here!”
Sajipona laughed softly to herself.
“Ah!” she cried, “now you have our secret. Here in this ancient hall, under this sun we have worshiped for countless ages, nothing is hidden. But the man you fear, that you see there, will bring freedom to us both.”
Whatever Sajipona meant by her enigmatical words, the fact was there, the living, moving likeness of Raoul Arthur, in the light-woven tapestry at Una’s feet. Eagerly she watched him. It was certainly Raoul, Raoul hurrying towards her, growing more distinct, more threatening with every moment. Behind him streamed a shadowy line of men—swiftly, confidently—following a trail amid the jagged rocks and precipices of the cave that might well have daunted the boldest spirits, but which seemed powerless to retard their progress. As Una’s eyes became accustomed to the shifting panorama before her, sundry details came into view that at first had been unnoticed. She was familiar with the curious phenomena wrought by the camera obscura, and this singular portrayal on the gleaming floor of Sajipona’s palace seemed at first not unlike that simple method of reproducing objects invisible to the spectator. But as the present picture grew and then faded away, to be followed by others in this magic pool of light, she knew that what she now beheld was quite beyond the power of the cunningly placed lens used in experiments with the camera obscura to portray. The latter, she remembered, could reproduce objects only when they came within a certain definite distance from the lens itself. But here Raoul Arthur and his companions moved across a constantly changing, lengthening space. Moreover, she recognized the path they were following as the one over which she had traveled at a point far away from the palace. They had reached, indeed, the very spot where she and Narva had first caught sight of that topmost pinnacle of the cave, behind and above which flamed the great ball of fire, the sun of this subterranean world. As Sajipona’s palace stood at the base of this pinnacle, she calculated, from her own experience of the journey, that Raoul and his followers were coming directly towards them.
“There is nothing to fear,” resumed Sajipona, as if in answer to her thoughts. “Be glad of their coming. But—for your own people I am afraid.”
“Ah, my poor uncle! I have brought him into all this danger,” exclaimed Una. “Where is he? How can I save him?”
“Look!”