Then once more, with all her might she smote, and the stone image fell with a crash from its narrow ledge, and lay prone in the glowing embers beneath the cauldron.
Peal after peal of shrill laughter came from the shrivelled figure, and straightway the witch began to dance,—a strange heathenish dance, in which she flung about her withered arms, and took grotesque steps with bare feet that trod upon the smouldering logs strewn about her fallen enemy.
Then at length she threw upon the flames another powder. A deafening report followed; the cavern shook, and a column of red flame shot up to the ceiling. The heat was intolerable, and the place was crimsoned as with blood.
I gasped for breath, and shielded my face as well as I might from the awful scorch of that fiery pillar, nor, I think, could my mortal body have withstood the flame; but after a moment’s space Hubla clapped her hands, and on the instant the fire died down.
Save from the flickering light from the torches, all was darkness; the red witch crouched as before, motionless, before the embers.
For a little she sat thus; then once more those fiery points that lay behind her eyelids glowed on me, and I saw the skinny hand beckon.
“Rise, son,” said the red witch. “Thy hour is come. Go boldly forward. Death lies waiting with open maw, but Hubla bids you fear him not. Rise! the treasures of the ages await thee.”
Chapter XI
The Treasure House of Edba and of Hed
As a man in a dream, I rose at her behest, and found that little of my old strength had left me. Only my feet and legs prickled as though I walked through nettles, but this in turn passed off.
Hubla, the witch, had vanished into the darkness of the cavern’s other end. I followed, stumbling over bones and other litter that strewed the earthen floor, and once something slipped, all too softly, out from beneath my tread. I am no coward, as I have said, but I take no shame to myself that I was glad when I felt the cool night air upon my face, and saw that I had left the cave’s mouth.