Ascending the long, easy flight of steps, the little procession, led by the officer, presently reached the broad platform on the top, and found themselves confronting a pair of enormous bronze doors which completely filled the gateway, and which swung slowly open, apparently by some mechanical means, to admit them. Passing through the gateway, and noting, as they went, the extraordinary strength and solidity of the doors, they found themselves in a kind of tunnel, or passage, some twenty feet long, in the structure of the gateway, with a sunlit vista of a paved street, bordered on either hand by lofty shade trees, with houses behind them, and thronged with people. Another minute and they had emerged from the archway and were in the street itself, which they now perceived to be one of the business streets of the island, for the houses on either side of it were arranged as shops, the whole of the lower part of each being open, affording a view of the various wares for sale, displayed upon a gently sloping platform, at the rear end of which sat the owner, cross-legged, Eastern fashion, arrayed in long flowing robes of brilliant hues. The fronts of the shops were unglazed, and unprotected by screen or barrier of any kind, nor did the shopkeeper make the slightest attempt to solicit custom; his property was simply protected from the ardent rays of the sun by a gaily coloured blind, or awning, and he sat silently and gravely awaiting the arrival of such customers as might chance to require the particular kind of wares that he had for disposal. These wares, it soon appeared, consisted chiefly of fruit; bread, in the form of small, fancifully shaped loaves; cakes; sweetmeats; drinks of various kinds, mostly compounded of powders while the customer waited—there seemed to be a brisk demand for these—fish, presumably from the lake, alive and swimming about in a large tank from which they were withdrawn as required by means of a hand net; light flimsy muslins, white or dyed in a number of brilliant colours; lengths of exquisite embroidery in gold, silver, or silk thread, and in some cases studded with what looked very much like uncut gems; saddlery and harness, some of it richly mounted or embroidered with gold; queershaped household utensils made of copper or some other metal that had the colour and sheen of gold; jewellery, necklaces, bracelets, armlets, anklets, earrings, and finger rings of gold, and vari-coloured stones that might or might not be gems; and articles of clothing, including sandals of all kinds, from the perfectly plain piece of board, secured by a single strap, to articles of the most elegant design and costly workmanship.
The little party traversed this street for about a quarter of a mile, attracting little or no notice from the passers-by as they went, and then turned abruptly out of it into a wide road leading gradually uphill. The houses which bordered this road were all private residences, detached from each other, and each embosomed in its own spacious garden, aflame with flowers of the most brilliant hues and exquisite perfume, several of the species being quite unknown to the Englishmen. The people who were encountered in this road, or were seen passing in or out of the houses, or moving about in the gardens, appeared to be of decidedly higher caste than any that the travellers had thus far seen. Their skins were not so swarthy, their features were more refined, many of the women being exceedingly beautiful, although the good looks of the men were to a considerable extent marred by an expression which may best be described as latent, cold-blooded ferocity. All these people wore garments of exceedingly fine material, mostly white, richly trimmed with elaborate embroidery in colours or gold, the women’s dress being a long, sleeveless garment reaching from the throat to the feet and confined at the waist by an ornamental belt, handsome sandals, much jewellery, and the head bare, the heavy masses of dark hair being wound upon the head very becomingly, and intertwined with ribbon or strings of coloured beads. The costumes of the men were of two kinds: the elders wore for the most part a long, flowing burnous kind of garment with enormous loose sleeves reaching to the wrists, while the younger men wore a kind of tunic confined at the waist by a belt and reaching just below the knee. All wore either sandals or buskins, and all were bareheaded, the hair of the men being exceedingly thick, allowed to grow long enough to reach the shoulder, and mostly dressed in thick clusters of tight, straight curls. The general type of countenance, as Grosvenor again took occasion to remark to Dick, was distinctly Hebraic.
The road which the party now followed twisted and turned hither and thither, apparently with the object of securing a uniform gradient, but it led continuously upward, until at length it conducted them to an enormous, massively constructed building of brown granite that towered, tier after tier, for five tiers in height; the top tier consisting of a comparatively small edifice with a metal roof which shone in the afternoon sun like burnished gold. This building somehow suggested the idea of a temple, partly, perhaps, because of the fact that it was the topmost portion of the building which occupied the extreme apex of the island; but the newcomers had scant opportunity to take in its details, for they were marched straight to a low doorway cut in the tremendously thick wall of the lower story of the building, which gave them admission to a long labyrinth of twisting passages, lighted only by the smoky flare of half a dozen torches. This network of passages they traversed for a distance which both of them estimated at fully five hundred yards, finally arriving at a small door which was flung open by a man who had accompanied the party from the outer door. The officer motioned his prisoners to enter, and, there being no alternative, they did so, the bearers following with their belongings. These last being deposited on the ground, the bearers retired, the door was slammed-to and barred on the outside, and the two adventurous young Englishmen found themselves alone in a cell or dungeon about eight feet square, devoid of every suggestion of furniture, and lighted only by a small aperture, some six inches square, pierced in an outer wall of the building which must have been at least twelve feet thick.
Chapter Fifteen.
The Trial and Verdict.
“Well, Dick,” exclaimed Grosvenor, as the door was closed upon them and they looked round them in the dim light percolating through the long, narrow aperture in the wall which afforded their only supply of air and illumination, “what is your present opinion of things in general?”
“Well,” returned Dick reflectively, “the outstanding fact which dominates all others is that we have actually penetrated to the very heart of the mysterious country which our friend Mitchell predicted we should never reach, and have therefore triumphantly accomplished the chief object of our journey, despite all the difficulties that we have encountered. For the rest, this cell, although it is somewhat lacking in comfort and convenience as a dwelling, is at least clean, dry, and pleasantly cool compared with the temperature outside. And—that is about all I have to say on the matter at present, I think.”
“Um!” retorted Grosvenor with a suspicion of peevishness in his voice; “that is not very much. What do you think they mean to do with us? That is what I am trying to get at. Of course I remember that the gist of Mitchell’s homily to us was: ‘Don’t go, if you value your lives, because those people don’t like strangers.’ But if a fellow seriously considered a little matter like that, exploration would soon be a thing of the past, for I’ve noticed that many of the johnnies whose countries we have passed through haven’t liked strangers. Yet we’ve contrived to pull through all right thus far; and of course I have been hoping that our luck would still hold good, and that when we arrived in this country something would happen to enable us to create a favourable impression upon the chappies, causing them to decide that we are the exceptions to the general rule, and are worthy to be treated as honoured guests and all that sort of thing—eh, what? But when I look round me and take in the details of this apartment it seems to me that things have somehow gone wrong; I can’t help thinking that they must have a more comfortable guest chamber than this somewhere in this old caravanserai—eh? What do you think?”