"Well, there was a huge palaver over us before the priests in the big temple, with Zara on her throne, and a fine, impressive scene it was, or, at least, it would have been had we not been so interested as to our own immediate future. At any rate, it was a comfort to know that there were no more tortures for the present, for nothing of the kind was to be seen. We were going to die; we could read our sentence in the eyes of the priests long before the elaborate mummery was over.
"I tell you it seemed hard to perish like that just at the time when we had penetrated nearly all the secrets we had come in search of. And it was no less hard to know that if the princess had postponed her visit another week she would have been too late. By that time we should have left Lassa far behind.
"The trial or ceremony, or whatever you like to call it, came to an end at length, and then we were brought up to the throne of the princess. You know the woman, you have looked upon the beauty and fascination of her face; but you have no idea how different she was in the home of her people. She looked a real queen, a queen from head to foot. We stood awed before her.
"'You have been offered terms and refused them,' she said. 'It is now too late.'
"'We could not trust you,' I replied boldly; we had nothing to gain by politeness. 'Better anything than the living death you offered us. And we can only die once.'
"The princess smiled in her blood-curdling way.
"'You do not know what you are talking about,' she said. 'Ah, you will find out when you come to walk the Black Valley!'
"She gave a sign and we were led away unbound. A quaint wailing music filled the air; the priests were singing our funeral song. I never fully appreciated the refined cruelty of reading the burial service to a criminal on his way to the scaffold till then. It makes me shudder to think of it even now.
"They led us out into the open air, still crooning that dirge. They brought us at length to the head of a great valley between huge towering mountains, as if the Alps had been sliced in two and a narrow passage made between them. At the head of this passage was a door let into the cliff and down through this door they thrust us. It was dark inside. For the first part of the way, till we reached the floor of the valley, we were to be accompanied by four priests, a delicate attention to prevent us from breaking our necks before we reached the bottom. But our guides did not mean us to perish so mercifully.
"'Listen to me,' Zara cried, 'listen for the last time. You are going into the Black Valley; of its horror and dangers you know nothing as yet. But you will soon learn. Take comfort in the fact that there is an exit at the far end if you can find it. When you are out of the exit you are free. Thousands have walked this valley, and over their dry bones you will make your way. Out of these thousands one man escaped. Perhaps you will be as fortunate. Farewell!'