“I must break our law to do it; but our laws don’t bind you, and I don’t care for myself! I know the magic of the Torides; and if you are willing, and have courage, I can make them appear before you as they are at this moment. It’s for you to say!”
“You can show me Miriam and Torpeon here and now?”
She took him by the hand, led him to the door of the cottage, and pointed to the great butte.
“In that rock there is a secret chamber, made by a great magician, in the times before the Saturnians abandoned magic. It has been sealed since his day, but I know the way to enter it. There is danger, but for me only, not for you! If you fear nothing, and do nothing violent, I think no harm will happen.”
“I don’t fear the truth; and there’s nothing else to fear,” said he.
They went forward toward the foot of the huge cliff, which towered thousands of feet straight upward; its smooth and massive front seemed beyond mortal power no less to penetrate than to scale. Within arm’s reach of it Zarga paused.
“Only you and I may enter,” she said to Jack; “a third would be fatal to us all.”
“Jim can wait in the cottage,” said Jack, turning to the little cripple. “You’ve had your dinner, Jim, and we’ll return before you’re hungry again.”
“Me stummick ain’t what’s troublin’ me, boss,” Jim replied; his misgivings had by this time become acute. “I kin pass up de eats, ef de lady’d gimme a ticket fer de gall’ry.”
But his master shook his head with a kindly look, and the urchin, greatly dejected, was fain to obey. He turned and hobbled back toward the cottage.