"What is become of you, Mr. President? Where are you?" were our alarmed questions.
Instead of an answer, the legs were convulsed still more violently, and soon disappeared completely, after which we heard the voice of the colonel, as if coming through a long tube:
"A room... a secret cell.... Be quick! I see a whole row of rooms.... Confound it! my torch is out! Bring some matches and another torch!" But this was easier said than done. The torch-bearers refused to go on; as it was, they were already frightened out of their wits. Miss X—— glanced with apprehension at the wall thickly covered with soot and then at her pretty gown. Mr. Y—— sat down on a broken pillar and said he would go no farther, preferring to have a quiet smoke in the company of the timid torch-bearers.
There were several vertical steps cut in the wall; and on the floor we saw a large stone of such a curiously irregular shape that it struck me that it could not be natural. The quick-eyed Babu was not long in discovering its peculiarities, and said he was sure "it was the stopper of the secret passage." We all hurried to examine the stone most minutely, and discovered that, though it imitated as closely as possible the irregularity of the rock, its under surface bore evident traces of workmanship and had a kind of hinge to be easily moved. The hole was about three feet high, but not more than two feet wide.
The muscular "God's warrior" was the first to follow the colonel. He was so tall that when he stood on a broken pillar the opening came down to the middle of his breast, and so he had no difficulty in transporting himself to the upper story. The slender Babu joined him with a single monkey-like jump. Then, with the Akali pulling from above and Narayan pushing from below, I safely made the passage, though the narrowness of the hole proved most disagreeable, and the roughness of the rock left considerable traces on my hands. However trying archeological explorations may be for a person afflicted by an unusually fine presence, I felt perfectly confident that with two such Hercules-like helpers as Narayan and Ram-Runjit-Das the ascent of the Himalayas would be perfectly possible for me. Miss X—— came next, under the escort of Mulji, but Mr. Y—— stayed behind.
The secret cell was a room of twelve feet square. Straight above the black hole in the floor there was another in the ceiling, but this time we did not discover any "stopper." The cell was perfectly empty with the exception of black spiders as big as crabs. Our apparition, and especially the bright light of the torches, maddened them; panic-stricken they ran in hundreds over the walls, rushed down, and tumbled on our heads, tearing their thin ropes in their inconsiderate haste. The first movement of Miss X—— was to kill as many as she could. But the four Hindus protested strongly and unanimously. The old lady remonstrated in an offended voice:
"I thought that at least you, Mulji, were a reformer, but you are as superstitious as any idol-worshiper."
"Above everything I am a Hindu," answered the "mute general." "And the Hindus, as you know, consider it sinful before nature and before their own consciences to kill an animal put to flight by the strength of man, be it even poisonous. As to the spiders, in spite of their ugliness, they are perfectly harmless."
"I am sure all this is because you think you will transmigrate into a black spider!" she replied, her nostrils trembling with anger.
"I cannot say I do," retorted Mulji; "but if all the English ladies are as unkind as you I should rather be a spider than an Englishman."