“It can’t be,” he told himself, starting back. “A light burning through all these centuries! That would be to discover the origin of light itself. That—”
He broke short off. His hand trembled so he could scarcely hold the torch; his knees shook violently. The room had suddenly blazed forth with an intense green light. At the same time there came to his startled ears a piercing scream.
CHAPTER XXI
TRAPPED
The thing that had happened to Johnny Thompson was absurdly simple; at least part of it was. Unconsciously, as he moved forward in the dimly lighted room, he had continued to fumble with the catch of his flashlight. Suddenly, as he stood before the mysterious thing of yellow glow and a tiny light, his torch had flashed on in all its strength.
So much was very simple. The explanation of the green glow was simple, too, once he read the secret of it. But who had screamed, and why? That was not so easy to answer.
The reason for the peculiar green glow was to be found in the composition of the walls and ceiling of the room. They were of a peculiar green which had great reflective power.
“Jade!” Johnny exclaimed after his first surprise was over. “Solid green jade. At least the walls are set with jade.”
Who had screamed? This was the problem which concerned him most. To his utter astonishment, as he flashed the light about he failed to at once discover the entrance through which he had come.
“Turned around a bit,” he told himself as coolly as he could. “Take a point and circle about until I am looking at that point again. In that way I’ll see all the walls.”
In choosing his starting point his eye fell upon the thing of the yellow glow. He discovered at a glance that this was not suspended in air as he had thought, nor was there a miniature light burning in it. It was a statue or an image of a god; a rather hideous god with a hooked nose, a large stomach and hands on which were fingers like an eagle’s tallons. In one of these hands rested a stone of some sort that reflected light in a peculiarly brilliant manner.