Mackenzie took a hoe from a bench; Hamid was armed with a kitchen chopper. They went out, followed by Forrester with his spear. Stealthily crossing the garden, they scaled the wall, dropped lightly on to the grass, and crept across to the door of Hamid's quarters. From this they passed into the kitchen, and thence into the passage.
At the further end was a door on which was a huge lock. But, as Hamid had noticed on his daily visits to the inner apartments, the lock had long since fallen into disrepair, and been replaced by a single latch worked from the inside--eloquent testimony to the fear inspired by the Eye. The point of Forrester's spear, passed through the space between the door and the side-post, sufficed to raise the latch. Mackenzie cautiously pushed the door open, not without a slight creaking, and signed to Hamid to pass through before him.
The cook, nerved by the presence of the sahibs, led them into a corridor dimly lit by small oriental lamps. On bare feet they stole along by the wall, towards the door at the further end. A priest was squatting there, with knees up, and head down bent. Mackenzie drew from his pocket a woollen pad--it had been borrowed from his blanket--and two or three short pieces of cord. These he handed to Forrester with a significant look. Then, stealing forward in advance of Hamid, he crept up to the dozing sentry, and with a sudden swoop clutched him round the throat before he had time to utter a sound. Forrester, just behind, stooped and thrust the gag into his gaping jaws. They turned him face downwards, and a few rapid twists of the cord left him trussed like a fowl at the doorway.
Stepping over him, they pushed the door gently. Mackenzie peeped round its edge. The ante-chamber within was empty. Through this they tiptoed. The door at the further end yielded to their touch, and they passed into a second ante-chamber, lit by more lamps than the first. A slight but prolonged creak as the door opened came near to being their undoing, for thirty feet ahead, at the entrance to the Old Man's apartment, sat a second sentry, whom Mackenzie had not allowed for; and the sound roused him from his slumber. He rose lazily, without any sign of alarm, expecting vaguely, perhaps, that his colleague without was coming to pass an hour with him. But Mackenzie realised that nothing but extreme quickness could save the situation, and even as he darted forward to tackle the man, the latter let out a loud shout of alarm. It was his first and last cry. Mackenzie drove at him with the full strength of muscles hardened by weeks of spade work, and he fell like a log.
Meanwhile Hamid, with Forrester close at heel, had run on into the inner chamber--the sanctum in which the Old Man of the Mountain slept, ate, and meditated on the Law of the Eye. Like all old men, he was a light sleeper. His functionary's cry had awakened him, and as the two men burst in, they saw his thin, wizened, almost ghoulish frame half risen from his golden couch. The lamplight fell upon his blazing eyes, wide with wonder, resentment and, when he caught sight of Forrester, fury. Hamid shrank before his paralysing glare, retaining enough presence of mind, however, to lift his trembling arm and point to the golden lattice behind which the fantastic head-dress reposed in its recess, illuminated by its own special lamp.
The Old Man observed the movement. His expression changed; it might have been said that terror spoke for the nonce from that cold, mask-like countenance. With agility amazing in so decrepit a figure he leapt from his couch, and darted towards the sacred recess. But Forrester was too quick for him. He sprang to the wall, turned his back so as to cover the lattice completely, and raised his spear to meet the expected attack.
He sprang to the wall, and raised his spear to meet the expected attack.
For one moment the Old Man glared upon him with eyes that cut like knives. Then, with a sudden swift movement that took Forrester utterly by surprise, he sprang towards a richly gilded hanging that covered the adjacent wall. Forrester wrenched open the lattice, seized the head-dress to make sure of it, and, oblivious for the moment that his incautious handling of it might shiver him to dust, darted after the retreating figure. The hanging swung aside, closing immediately behind the Chinaman. Forrester heard a slight click, and when he drew the curtain aside, was confronted with nothing but a bare wainscoting of panelled wood. The Old Man was gone.
CHAPTER XIX