To which Rankin, bound and gagged, could reply with neither word nor gesture.
"Ismeddin," thought Rankin, as he saw an acolyte kneel at Zantut's feet and present a long knife and a whetstone, "for once was wrong.... That butcher's tool is no thirsty sword...."
Again the solemn, brazen resonance of the gong rolled and surged through the vaulted sanctuary.
"Number two," reflected Rankin. "Thank God she's unconscious...."
As the note of the gong died, there came from above the clank of arms and the tinkle of accouterments, and the measured tread of feet descending the winding stairways.
"Ismeddin and the guard!" exulted Rankin.
And then he heard the measured cadence of voices chanting in an unknown tongue.
"The brethren from Azerbaijan!" shouted the assembled adepts.
And Zantut, with statuesquely formal gestures, stroked the blade of his long knife against the whetstone, with each steely caress pausing to intone a sentence in a language that was forgotten when the last stone of that sanctuary of devil-worship was laid and awfully cemented into place.
The brethren from Azerbaijan, still chanting, were filing into the hall, and grouping themselves in a crescent about the sacrificial stone.