I suppose it was hot. Our host waited several minutes before picking it off the slab.
At last he took the nugget off the slab and tossed it to King. King handed it to me. It was still warm and it looked and felt like gold. I laid it back on the slab.
"Do you understand it?" asked the Gray Mahatma.
CHAPTER VI
THE FIRE BATHERS
Our little wrinkly-skinned host did the honors as far as the door, and I thanked him for the demonstration; but the Gray Mahatma seemed displeased with that and ignoring me as usual, turned on King in the doorway almost savagely.
"Do you understand that whoever can do what you have just seen can also accomplish the reverse of it, and transmute gold into baser metal?" he demanded. "Does it occur to you what that would mean? A new species of warfare! One combination of ambitious fools making gold—another unmaking it. Chaos! Now you shall see another science that is no fit pabulum for fools."
We came to a door on our right. It was opened instantly by a lean, mean-looking ascetic, whose hooked nose suggested an infernal brand of contempt for whoever might not agree with him. Just as the others had done, he met the Gray Mahatma's eyes in silence, and admitted us by simply turning his back. But this door only opened into another passage, and we had to follow him for fifty feet and then through another door into a cavern that was bigger than any. And this time our host was not alone. We were expected by a dozen lean, bronze men, who squatted in a row on one mat with expressionless faces. They were not wearing masks, but they looked as if they might have been.