“The Lady Yva will show you,” he answered, waving his hand, and once more bent over his endless calculations.
Yva beckoned to us and we turned and followed her down the hall. She led us to a street near the gateway of the temple and thence into one of the houses. There was a portico to it leading to a court out of which opened rooms somewhat in the Pompeian fashion. We did not enter the rooms, for at the end of the court were a metal table and three couches also of metal, on which were spread rich-looking rugs. Whence these came I do not know and never asked, but I remember that they were very beautiful and soft as velvet.
“Here you may sleep,” she said, “if sleep you can, and eat of the food that you have brought with you. Tomorrow early I will call you when it is time for us to start upon our journey into the bowels of the earth.”
“I don’t want to go any deeper than we are,” said Bastin doubtfully.
“I think that none of us want to go, Bastin,” she answered with a sigh. “Yet go we must. I pray of you, anger the Lord Oro no more on this or any other matter. In your folly you tried to kill him, and as it chanced he bore it well because he loves courage. But another time he may strike back, and then, Bastin—”
“I am not afraid of him,” he answered, “but I do not like tunnels. Still, perhaps it would be better to accompany you than to be left in this place alone. Now I will unpack the food.”
Yva turned to go.
“I must leave you,” she said, “since my father needs my help. The matter has to do with the Force that he would let loose tomorrow, and its measurements; also with the preparation of the robes that we must wear lest it should harm us in its leap.”
Something in her eyes told me that she wished me to follow her, and I did so. Outside the portico where we stood in the desolate, lighted street, she halted.
“If you are not afraid,” she said, “meet me at midnight by the statue of Fate in the great temple, for I would speak with you, Humphrey, where, if anywhere, we may be alone.”