As she looked within, she saw that a weird blue light shone upon a Buddha who sat bent over as if in silent meditation. The workmanship on this Buddha seemed quite wonderful. The face and hands were exquisitely carved.
She took three steps inside the room, studied the bowed figure for a moment, then prepared to go.
Turning half about, she uttered a low cry. The door had vanished. She faced a blank wall. This room, she discovered for the first time, was made of eight panels, each forming the side of a hexagon. Which panel was the door? She had no way of knowing, and if she knew, it would not help, for there was neither latch nor knob.
Here there was no stifling incense, only a pale, eerie light. But there was something more terrible—ABSOLUTE SILENCE!
Standing there breathing quite naturally she could hear each breath. She fancied she heard her quickening heart-beats. She had supposed that she had known absolute silence before. She now knew that she never had. The silence of the sea is broken by the rush of waters, the whisper of the wind. The silence of a vast forest is broken by the flutter of birds’ wings, the low notes of a bird’s song. Even in a vault there comes the low roar of street traffic far away. Here was neither murmur, whisper, song, nor low roar. Nothing. Absolute silence.
She examined the blue burning candle. It would last perhaps an hour. Then absolute night would join absolute silence. She pounded on the wall. The room roared. But when she had finished pounding, absolute silence returned,—that—and nothing more.
* * * * * * * *
Unlike Isabelle, Gale knew the location of the door through which she had entered the main temple hall, but try as she might, she could not budge it. It was as if it were made of iron. And indeed iron has little resisting power that six inches of solid teakwood does not possess.
After exhausting herself in a mad effort to escape, she resolved to conserve her energies for her battle with the fumes that rose from the nostrils of the two guardian apes.
That there would be a struggle she did not doubt, for already the fumes were making her drowsy. Lying flat down on the floor with her face next to the door she tried to secure at least a little fresh air through the crack beneath the door. In this she partially succeeded. How long she could retain her senses she could not tell.