I turned to the Queen and told her of my purpose. She smiled, but forbade me not. “There is no hope,” she said, “or I should know of it. But see, take this my dagger, and just before the end—promise me—I would go first along the dark way that leads to the gate of Shimra. Swear to me. I would not die alone.”
I was no Christian in that hour. I take shame to me that it was so. The Queen had her will with me, and I gave her the promise that she craved.
Then I struck out boldly, for the time was short. Round and round I circled, swimming slowly and looking well for any crack or fissure in stone or pillar. But the walls were as smooth as glass to my touch, and I found no opening.
He of the emerald eyes gloated over me, over us two. His massive knees lent me a moment’s foothold, and in childish rage I struck him furiously across the face with my dagger’s hilt. And at the sound the Queen sprang to her feet.
“Look!” she cried breathlessly; “look, the god is hollow!”
Men’s wits work nimbly at such a time as this. Without pausing, I swam behind the great metal image—and it was true: cleverly hidden in the back I saw a door. But the water had now reached its base.
“Swim for your life!” I called to the Queen, but she shook her head.
“I know not how the trick is done,” she answered steadily. “Save then yourself.”
But I was half-way across the space between. The rest seems now like some fantasy of the brain. I have said evil things of Hed. Let me now put down in black and white one good thing to his memory: the door that saved us was not locked.
’Twas like the heathenish way of the priests who set it there to taunt with bolts the maddened wretch who thus sought safety. Yet it was so, even as I have written it. The door yielded to my pressure and revealed a small winding staircase.