"Then you'll let her go if I pay you? I'll raise any amount, I'll do anything you ask, if you'll set her free."
"No amount of money in the world could buy her from the Brotherhood of the Door," answered Chandra Dass steadily. "For she belongs now, not to us, but to They Beyond the Door. Within a few hours she and many others shall stand before the Door, and They Beyond the Door shall take them."
"What are you going to do to her?" cried Ennis. "What is this damned Door and who are They Beyond it?"
"I do not think that even if I told you, your little mind would be able to accept the mighty truth," Chandra Dass said calmly. His coal-black eyes suddenly flashed with fanatic, frenetic light. "How could your poor, earth-bound little intelligences conceive the true nature of the Door and of those who dwell beyond it? Your puny brains would be stricken senseless by mere apprehension of them, They who are mighty and crafty and dreadful beyond anything on earth."
A cold wind from the alien unknown seemed to sweep the lamplit room with the Hindoo's passionate words. Then that rapt, fanatic exaltation dropped from him as suddenly as it had come, and he spoke in his ordinary vibrant tones.
"But enough of this parley with blind worms of the dust. Bring the weights!"
The last words were addressed to the Malay servants, who sprang to a closet in the corner of the room.
Inspector Campbell said steadily, "If my men find us dead when they come in here, they'll leave none of you living."
Chandra Dass did not even listen to him, but ordered the dark servants sharply, "Attach the weights!"