Yet Lah with finger on lip tarried, and I saw her bosom rise and fall with her quick breathing. If such a woman could know fear, it was fear now that looked from her eyes, as I gazed into their depths. And before the end I knew that it was terror that blanched her face, and that the danger she shunned was danger to me.
And then, just as I was about to protest against this useless dallying, I heard in the distance the patter of loosely tied sandals upon the stone floor, and soon a light showed forth like a glow-worm’s torch in the blackness of the further end.
There were voices too. A goodly company, I judged. Lah stood, a living statue, her dagger drawn, the folds of her dripping mantle spread to shield me as with unconscious force she thrust me back into the dark corner of the recess.
As for me, I pondered where and how it were best to strike, and if I should find in the leader my old acquaintance, Agno, the High Priest. The voices came nearer. The men were disputing, for now I caught stray fragments of their speech.
“Surely the god himself would strike down the thief,” said one, “did not the water do its work.”
“Since none of us knows the secret of the entrance,” said a second, “we can do naught but guard the corridor till Agno comes.”
“You are blind, both of you, as the bats that hang in the Temple’s inner court,” sneered a third. “The stranger has strong magic. He has killed the sacred ape; he has defied both Edba and Hed; he has escaped, though bound, from the very Mad Man of the Moon, whom first he slew. Why should we stand like fools watching for that which comes not? If the strangers seek the treasures of the gods, why, let the gods defend their own!”
“Blasphemer!” cried one in anger, and there was a hoarse clamor of assent, and I thought they would have fallen then and there, like wolves, upon the grumbler, but a new voice sternly bade the clamor cease.
“Get ye onward, and for him who lags or murmurs there shall be both stripes and fasting. For him who compasses the death of the thief of the Treasure House, honor and riches here, and glory hereafter. Forward!”
The voices and the light were very near now, and two by two, I saw the armed company turn the angle of the wall and march steadily on.