“I wondered where Chenobi managed to dry his meat,” the scientist mused; “the thing’s clear now. Truly these Ayutis had no lack of inventive genius!”
Retracing their steps to the outer door, the little band crossed the square and entered one of the surrounding buildings, which—so Chenobi informed them—had been the palace of the kings. Here, as elsewhere—save for the temple, which appeared well preserved—time had laid its destroying hand, but there still remained much of the former beauty of the place. The pillars of its bold front were covered with carving that would not have disgraced the exterior of a cathedral, and the broad flight of steps leading up to it, though cracked and broken in places, still added somewhat to the dignity of its appearance.
These steps Wilson managed to climb, refusing the Ayuti’s offer of assistance. Across an inlaid pavement they went, and through a great entrance hall, in which stood numerous cunningly-carved statues. Some of these stone effigies had fallen from their pedestals, and now lay crumbling amid the dirt which ages of neglect had deposited over the floor. Assuredly, if Professor Mervyn ever wrote his proposed work on the wonders of the underworld, he would have no lack of matter. A description of the palace alone would almost have filled a volume. The throne-room they saw, with its curiously canopied throne, whereon a long line of kings had sat in royal state; the musicians’ gallery, from which sweet music had beguiled kingly ears grown weary with the pleading of innumerable malcontents; the banquet hall also, with its great stone tables, around which many a merry company had gathered. But now all were silent as the grave! The gay crowds which once had thronged these halls had vanished, and, ere many years had passed, the Ayutis would have ceased to exist; with Chenobi, the king, their dynasty and race alike ended.
Such thoughts as these poured into the minds of the adventurers as they moved through the silent halls. There seemed something uncanny, unnatural, about the place. It was as though the spirits of the long since dead still hovered round, and it was with a feeling of relief that the party left the palace.
Mervyn, his scientific zeal unquenched, was for visiting other of the buildings, but the united voices of his comrades were against this.
“No,” Seymour said, “if you go at all you must go alone. I’ve had quite enough of these ghostly halls. What say you, Silas?”
“The same,” replied the American. “The place kinder gets on your nerves. I shouldn’t advise you to poke around by yourself, Mervyn. There don’t seem any danger, but I wouldn’t put my money on it. If that old priest ain’t on our trail again before long my name ain’t Si. K. Haverly!”
Seymour slipped his arm through that of Chenobi, and, with the others close behind, they recrossed the square and ascended to the terrace. Here for some time the party occupied themselves in examining the colossal figure of the great idol. High above the flat roof of the temple the monstrous image towered. Through the twilight they could make out little of its features, but this much they observed, that it had but one eye, of enormous size, and placed in the centre of its forehead.
The singularity of this coincidence struck Mervyn at once. How it came about that a people so obviously intelligent as the Ayutis should worship the same deity as the wolfish barbarians of Nordhu he could not imagine. But, further, not alone was it the same in form, the inscription on the base of the altar proclaimed that the name was the same. Translated, it ran thus: “To Ramouni, God of Light. Worship and honour.”
Turning, the scientist questioned the Ayuti concerning the ancient worship of the dead race. Ere the king could answer a startling cry broke from Seymour: