I went before him with the torch, past the landing-place, and on to the rim of the basin, where I made him proceed first to the outer lip.
“Stand there on the very brink and do not move from it,” I said, and held the torch so that he could see.
He obeyed. Now I would have the truth, for I was convinced the information he had volunteered before was false. I drew near him and stood at his side.
I said, “Again, who are you? Speak, and speak the truth, and nothing but the truth.”
No sooner had I spoken than I heard the most extraordinary scheme of echoes imaginable. My last word—truth, multiplied from crag to crag about the vaulted roof, ended in strange gurgling sounds, in which the meaning was wholly lost. I had not heard this echo from any other spot of the cavern, and I wondered if this, too, was a mysterious device of the ancient giants, or whether it was one of Nature’s more accurate calculations, with mighty pebbles, in acoustics. When the wailing sounds had almost died away the wizard answered:
“I am one of the Brotherhood of Huo,” he spoke in deep, hollow tones, “and I have come here at their command to carry out their will—to degrade and destroy one who threatens their power in the world.”
“What is their power? Answer from your own knowledge and intelligence.”
The terms in which he answered astonished me; they were those of a man well versed in occult things.
“The power of the Brotherhood of Huo is the power of the Single Eye looking downwards. They strive for what men call Evil—Pure Evil; and when they attain it, they become one with all Evil on the earth, with increased powers to further it.”
“And why,” I asked, “why was it worth your while to come half-way round the world to do this particular piece of evil?”