Maurice Leblanc

“ Vorski bent forward and suddenly, from the top of the ladder, shouted:
“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani! The gods have forsaken her. Death has done its work. The last of the four women is dead. Veronique is dead!” ”

“ It communicated, in fact, with a sort of crypt, which had a vaulted ceiling and walls of rough masonry of unmortared stones.
All around, like shapeless statues, stood twelve small menhirs, each of which was surmounted by a horse's skull. Vorski touched one of these skulls; it crumbled into dust.
“No one has been to this crypt,” he said, “for twenty centuries. We are the first men to tread the floor of it, the first to behold the traces of the past which it contains.” ”

“ There must be some one here then?”
“It comes from over there,” said Otto, “from that corner in the dark.”
The light did not extend beyond the menhirs. Behind each of them opened a small, shadowy chapel. Vorski turned his lantern into one of these and at once uttered a cry of amazement:
“Some one... yes... there is some one.... Look....”
The two accomplices came forward. On a heap of rubble, piled up in an angle of the wall, a man lay sleeping, an old man with a white beard and long white hair. A thousand wrinkles furrowed the skin of his face and hands. ”

“ And all of a sudden the earth shook, not with a vibration produced by the thunder, but with a deep inner convulsion, which came from the very bowels of the earth and was repeated several times, like a noise reechoing through the woods and hills. ”

“ His grandiloquent speech and his play-acting made a great impression on the two accomplices.
“He frightens me,” Otto muttered.
“It's the rum,” Conrad replied. “But all the same he's foretelling terrible things.”
“Things which prowl round us,” shouted Vorski, whose ears noticed the least sound, “things which make part of the present moment and have been bequeathed to us by the pageant of the centuries. ”

“ Vorski is approaching the goal and has only to put out his hand to be regally rewarded for his labours and his struggles. The God-Stone is there. For ages and ages men have sought to fathom the secret of the island and not one has succeeded. Vorski came and the God-Stone is his. ”

“ And he added, obsequiously, “After all... you have a style about you, sir! You're a fine gentleman, you are!”
“And you, you're a varlet whom I pay. You've had your money, so hurry up. The business is urgent.”
The “business,” as the frightful creatures called it, was soon done. Climbing on his ladder, Vorski repeated his orders, which were executed in docile fashion by Conrad and Otto.
They raised the victim to her feet and then, keeping her upright, hauled at the rope. Vorski seized the poor woman and, as her knees were bent, violently forced them straight. ”

“ He ran down hurriedly, snatched the flask of rum from Conrad's hands and emptied it at a draught.
He was now seized with a sort of delirium which made him rave for a few moments in a language which his accomplices did not understand. Then he began to challenge the invisible enemy, to challenge the gods, to hurl forth imprecations and blasphemies:
“Vorski is the mightiest of all men, Vorski governs fate. The elements and the mysterious powers of nature are compelled to obey him. Everything will fall out as he has determined ”