"I think, Dulla Dad, you'd better. If I lose patience—"
"Upon my head be your safety, hazoor! See, you can fire, and thereafter naught can trouble me. But I, with a single sweep of this paddle, can overturn us. Be content, hazoor, for a little time; then shall you see that naught of harm is intended. My life be forfeit if I speak not truth, hazoor!"
"You have said it," said Amber grimly, "Row on." After all, he considered, it might still be Labertouche. At first blush it had seemed hardly credible that the Englishman could have gained a footing in that vast pile; and yet, it would be like him to seek precisely such a spot—the very heart of the conspiracy of the Gateway, if they guessed aright.
The boat surged swiftly on, while again and again Amber's finger trembled on the trigger. Though already the white gleaming walls towered above him, it was not yet too late—not too late; but should he withdraw, force Dulla Dad to return, he might miss … what? He did nothing save resign himself to the issue. As they drew nearer the moonlit walls he looked in vain for sign of a landing-stage, and wondered, the lighted bund that he had seen from over the water being invisible to him round an angle of the building. But Dulla Dad held on without a pause until the moment when it seemed that he intended to dash the boat bows first against the stone; then, with a final dextrous twist of the paddle, he swung at a sharp angle and simultaneously checked the speed. Under scant momentum they slid from moonlight and the clean air of night into a close well between two walls, and then suddenly beneath an arch and into a cavernous chamber filled with the soft murmuring of water—and with darkness.
Here the air was sluggish and heavy and dank with the odour of slime. Breathing it, seeing nothing save the spectral gleam of moonlight reflected inwards, hearing nothing save the uncanny lapping and purring of the ripples, it was not easy to forget the tales men told of palace corruption and crime—of lovers who had stolen thus secretly to meet their mistresses, and who had met, instead, Death; of assassins who had skulked by such stealthy ways to earn blood-money; of spies, of a treacherous legion who had gained entry to the palace by such ways as this—perhaps had accomplished their intent and returned to tell the tale, perhaps had been found in the dawn-light, floating out there on the lake with drawn, wan faces upturned to the pallid skies….
"Hazoor!"
It was Dulla Dad's voice, sleek with fawning. For all the repulsiveness of the accents, Amber was not sorry to hear them. At least the native was human and … this experience wasn't, hardly…. He leaned toward the man, eyes aching with the futile strain of striving to penetrate the blackness. He could see nothing more definite than shadows. The boat was resting motionless on the tide, as if suspended in an abyss of night, fathomless and empty.
"Well, what now?" he demanded harshly. "Be careful, Dulla Dad!"
"Still my lord distrusts me? There is naught to fear, none here to lift hand against you. Your servant lives but to serve you in all loyalty."
"Indeed?"