"It's not meant in kindness," Beresford remarked to Forrester, "but I couldn't have wished for anything better. I shall work quicker than the Chinamen, and when my tale of bricks is complete I shall have a good part of the day to myself. Lend me that screen of yours, will you?"
Forrester waited impatiently for the day to end. When Beresford returned, very white and tired, he said:--
"I've something to tell you. Give me forty winks after supper and I'll be as fresh as a lark."
A little later, in their quiet corner, Beresford began:--
"That slab! I'm convinced that it's nothing but a sort of cement, made of the dust that has fallen from the roof, and that this screen is of the same material. I believe that the mysterious force from below, while it turns lead into gold, makes powder of all other substances exposed to its rays. This dust is no longer subject to its influence, and forms a shield against it. But for the dust, it would have bored a hole right through the roof to the upper air ages ago; but the coating of dust on the sides and roof of the cavity has preserved it. Of course, the slight earth tremors that are constantly occurring, unnoticed by us, shake down particles of the dust, and leave portions of the rock surface exposed to the action of the rays. So there's a very gradual process of eating away going on, and in course of time the rock above the cavern will be pierced clean through."
"I see," said Forrester. "The force must have been in action for ages, so that it may be ages before the hole is made. Anyway, it doesn't matter to us."
"I'm not so sure of that," returned Beresford quietly. "If we could only hasten the process, and get a ladder, we might pay our venerable host a surprise visit one of these days, for I'm pretty sure, thinking over the direction of the passages we came through on the way here, that we're almost directly under the Temple. That itself is underground, or it wouldn't glow with the green light; and you may be sure it's connected with the Old Man's pagoda. It would give me great joy to intrude upon his solitude, and see him in his bath, so to speak."
"I'd rather give him a wide berth," said Forrester. "Anyhow, it doesn't seem possible."
"We have no ladder, and certainly we can't emulate the Earth-shaker, and engineer a series of mild earthquakes expressly for our own convenience. Ah well! like the heathen, I daresay we imagine a vain thing. What's that line of Virgil?--animum pictura ... you remember the passage; where Æneas is looking at the frescoes in Dido's palace, 'and with an empty picture feeds his mind.' Well, better feed the mind even on fancies than let it starve, like these poor Chinamen. And now for sleep."
It became clear that the Old Man had set himself pitilessly to undermine Beresford's courage. Instead of taking his turn with the Chinamen in rotation at the enervating work in the inner cavern, Beresford was given the task every second day. Robust as he was, and endowed with great strength of will, the electric atmosphere wrought its devitalising effect on him, and Forrester, after a week, noticed with sickening dread that his eyes were less bright, his cheeks less rounded, his voice less resonant. An offer to replace him was rejected by the priest; Forrester wondered why he himself was being spared.