“Quite enough, Priest Temu. But tell me, why were you sent to me? In such a hole as this even a Pharaoh would need no servant.”
“No, Brother, yet he might need a companion and—a deliverer.”
“Very much indeed, both of them, especially the last. But, Temu, how could even Roy himself open that door or break through these walls?”
“Quite easily, Scribe Rasa, by means of which we know nothing, and if only we have faith perhaps I can do the same, though not so easily and in another fashion. Hearken. During the many days I have spent in prison, bettering my soul with prayers and meditations, from time to time I have given instructions to that humble man who is our jailer, setting his feet in the way of truth. Thus in the end he has become well affected to those who profess our faith, to which I have promised that he shall be gathered in days to come. In reward he has imparted a certain secret to me which, as neither he nor any other will visit this place again to-night, I will now show to you, Brother Rasa. Help me, if it pleases you, to move this table.”
With difficulty it was dragged aside, for it was of massive stone. Then Temu took from his robe a piece of papyrus on which were marks and lines. By aid of these he made certain measurements and at length in the roughly paved floor found a stone for which he seemed to have been searching. At this stone he pushed from left to right, for there was a roughness on it against which he could rest the palm of his hand, thereby, it would appear, loosing some spring or bolt. Suddenly a section of the floor, a pace wide or more, tilted up, revealing a shaft cut in the rock, of which the bottom could not be seen, and against its side, also cut from the rock, stone bars set at intervals one above the other, down which it would be possible for an active man to climb.
“Is it a well?” asked Khian.
“Aye, Brother, a well of death, or so I think, though perhaps of that we shall learn more later. At least all is as the Great One whose face was veiled, told me, for it was he who gave me the plan and bade me trust the jailer and do as he instructed me.”
“And what is that, Temu?”
“Descend by this ladder, Brother, until at the foot of it we come to a tunnel; then follow the tunnel until it ends in what seems to be the mouth of a drain in the stone embankment of the river. Beneath this hole or drain-mouth a boat should be waiting, and in it a fisherman following his trade by night when the largest fish are caught. Into that boat we must enter and be gone swiftly before it is discovered that this place is empty.”
“Do we fly at once?” asked Khian.