As It Was in the Beginning

by Philip Verrill Mighels

As they turned about to scan the wall, and the breach he had made with his explosion, the whites of their eyes and the gleam of their teeth rendered all of their faces strangely hideous, with the yellowish glare projecting them indistinctly against the ebon of the tomb.

That their keen, malicious eyes must instantly discover the wall's decided imperfection, where the gallery door was askew, seemed to Grenville inescapable. They motioned towards him, and down at the floor, in manifest wonder that the place was no longer filled with water. Their voices were low. They spoke as if with a certain awe in which the place was held.

It seemed to Grenville they would never go about their business. His muscles ached with the unaccustomed strain put upon them to support the heavy door. How long he could stand there, making no sound, and permitting no movement of the barrier, was a question he could not answer. If only his cleaver had not been dropped around the bend, beside his torch, he would almost have dared spring out on the unsuspecting Dyaks to brain them where they stood!

At thought of his torch, redly glowing, in beyond, he sweated anew, convinced that as soon as the boatmen grew accustomed to the darkness of the cavern, these torch rays must impinge upon their vision, and instantly divulge the secret of the passage to the top.

One of the Dyaks now approached even closer than before. Savagely determined he would slay the man, should he raise a hand, or otherwise give the slightest intimation that the door was seen at last, Sidney grew hot in his farthest pulse, and became as tense as a tight-coiled spring as he steadied to leap from the place.

But the man in command now grumbled another of his orders. The fellow so near discovery and death turned slowly about, made one more gesture towards the shattered ledge, and followed the other where they made their way across the uneven floor.

Until they had passed to a second ridge, where their feet disturbed a few loose fragments that rattled down towards the base, Grenville made not the slightest move to alter his position. Then cautiously, without a sound, he adjusted the door to its proper place and secured it with the bar.

He still had a chink through which to peer, but he first moved back to his blazing torch and smothered its light on the rocks. When he once more groped his way to the tiny opening, the Dyaks had come to the rifled chamber. He could hear their exclamations of disgust and anger, but only their torch could be seen.

Aware they might still return to his wall and discover the one remaining retreat where Elaine was even remotely secure, Grenville was seized with an irresistible impulse to destroy the fiends on the instant, if such a denouement could be rendered possible.

He turned about to grope his way upward and secure a bomb as swiftly as the darkness would permit. Over the basket of treasure, some time since deposited there by the wall, he blundered, and fell to his knees. The thing was in the way. He took it up impatiently and carried it well up the passage to one of the broadest galleries, where he placed it again on the floor.