“Who is it?” asked Desmond.
“I’ll see.”—
“No don’t go—don’t go—it’s some trick—” but Alan had already pulled down the stones in front of the hinged stone.
“Ar-lane. Jez-mun.” Again the cry came. “Open—open I beg. I come to aid you.”
“I am going to speak to her,” said Alan grimly, and he put his lips close against the stone.
“Who are you and what do you want of us?”
A glad cry was his answer, and then followed quickly—“Let me through, O Ar-lane—I have come to seek thee.”
“What do you want of us?”
“Listen, O Ar-lane, I have fled from my home in the temple of Fire, and have come to thee. Years ago when a tiny child, I found the cavern and knew it well. But Am-rab the Wise, my tutor and priest, forbade me with threats of torture to wander there again. Since then I have not set eyes upon the place. Let me in, O Ar-lane, for the spring is broken on this side, and I cannot find it.”
Desmond was listening suspiciously. “What are you going to do?” he asked.