Jez-Riah had been listening to the two boys speaking and sighed deeply. They were talking in their own language and had forgotten all about their strange companion.
“What will happen to her if we ever do reach the upper world?” said Desmond suddenly.
Alan looked soberly at the quaint little purple creature who had so grown into their lives, who had been so useful to them, who had become almost a friend. They treated her as they would some great, faithful hound who was devoted to them alone. She was like a dumb animal in her unwavering loyalty to them, and indeed would have laid down her very life for her friends.
“She’ll have no easy time, poor thing,” said Alan, “but I’ll use every scrap of my energy to prevent an Earl’s Court Exhibition for her.”
Again Jez-Riah sighed and a tear rolled down her cheek.
“What ails thee?” asked Alan in her own language.
“I am sad and sorrowful, O Ar-lane,” she replied. “The memory of a prophecy has come to me. I shall see the stars of Heaven—the Sun in the Sky—but with pain alone will such sights come to me.”
“We’ll keep pain from you,” said Alan kindly. “If you are to see the stars, then that means we shall all find a way out from here.”
The boys set to work to try and find Korah’s remains and an outlet to the world above. Many times they slept, and their last waking thought was—“Shall we find a way out to-morrow?” They counted the skeletons and piled them reverently in one corner. They counted the remains of twenty-two women, forty-nine men and about thirty children, some of whom appeared to be but newly born.
They gathered the precious stones, and placed perhaps a gallon measureful in a basket Jez-Riah had plaited out of the roots of the mautzer—her fingers were busy the whole time they were exploring the cavern and its contents.