Ay! checkmate it was! for who dared attempt to pass that gleaming curtain after Chenobi’s warning as to its deadly power. Nordhu had played his card and played it well.
With a laugh of triumph he turned and strode down the tunnel, leaving his pursuers standing helpless and amazed at his handiwork.
“I almost feel inclined to risk it,” growled Seymour, as the sound of the priest’s footsteps died away.
“You must not,” cried Mervyn excitedly; “remember what the king said, as——”
But there was no need for the scientist to reiterate Chenobi’s warning.
While yet the words trembled on his lips the fact that the Ayuti had not exaggerated the terrible power of the liquid light was brought to the notice of all in a fearful manner.
Released from the fascination of the priest, the hounds had again grown restless, baying clamorously, yet not daring to venture near the curtain of falling light. Suddenly, while Mervyn spoke, from far away came a cry, faint, but easily recognisable as the voice of Nordhu. At the sound one of the dogs made a rash spring forward, as though he would have plunged through the cataract on the trail of the priest. Over the brink of the hole he leapt, his fore-paws outstretched, but touched the fringe of the falling liquid; then he was shrivelled up into a shapeless black mass, and was swept downward by the cataract.
“Great Heaven!” the scientist cried: “poor brute!”
The other hounds, awed by the fate of their fellow, drew back whining.
“What a fearful power!” Wilson exclaimed. “It must be some form of electricity, I should imagine.”