“ Mackenzie, at the end of the Temple, wondered whether the wizened figure on the throne retained the least drop of warm blood in his veins, the least remnant of humanity.
"You oppose your puny strength to the Law of the Eye?"
"No, no," Forrester whispered. "She is a young girl; have mercy upon her!"
"The Law of the Eye knows no mercy," the calm voice went on. "Whoso transgresses, shall he not be cut off, even in the flower of his youth? In ignorance you have profaned this holy place: the Law ordains that the ignorant shall be chastised until he becomes wise. ”

“ It was an effort now to Beresford to talk. The sickly hue induced by the greenish light had become on his countenance a ghastly pallor. His limbs shook, his gait was slow and stumbling, his once upright frame was beginning to stoop like that of an old man. On his days off duty he lay like a log, sleeping, or simply existing in apathy and listlessness. Was he to drift thus on a slow tide towards death?
One night, Forrester was wearily laying the pole in its resting-place, when he heard a sudden click near by, such as might be caused by the fall of some hard substance on the floor. ”

“ The mute immobile figure merely raised an arm and pointed downwards at the stairway. Forrester was incapable of resistance, protest, expostulation. He felt helpless as a child, compelled to obey the behest of a stronger will. Slowly he began to descend the stairs. The negritos followed in a line, their spears slanted on their shoulders, and the priest in his wide flowing robes brought up the rear. Forrester, if he had been able to think, might have remembered that he had seen just such a procession passing like shades across the wall of the rift. ”

“ Forrester, the Old Man has beaten me at last. If he sends for me again, I'm afraid I shall ignominiously cave in. It was one thing to pity those poor Chinamen when we had no real personal knowledge of what they were suffering. It is quite another to share it, to feel the steady sapping of one's vigour, the horrible blankness that comes over one's mind. I know for the first time in my life what it is to writhe in the clutches of Giant Despair. ”

“ When they were seated, Hamid came up with a brass salver filled with glowing charcoal, and presented to each a pair of small silver tongs with which to lift a ruddy chip for lighting his pipe. He prided himself on keeping up old customs. Then, with a good-night salaam, he passed into the tent to clear away.
It was a glorious night. The candlelight from the open tent paled in the rays of the moon, soaring aloft in a cloudless sky. A faint breeze stirred the feathery tops of the jungle grass, and ruffled the glassy surface of the rivulet. ”

“ Apart from the risk of being heard by an unseen enemy, there was an atmosphere of mystery and awesomeness that weighed oppressively on their minds.
"What are we to do?" asked Jackson.
"Go on!" Forrester replied, firmly. "We can hardly be seen. The sides are so smooth and straight that no one could perch anywhere to molest us, except at the corners. We must be on our guard there."
"But surely no one can live here! Nothing could grow; there doesn't even appear to be moss on the rock, and the air's as stuffy as in a cave."
"Man, don't argufy!" said Mackenzie. ”

“ In a few minutes the stranger had been dosed with quinine and made comfortable. As yet he was unable to talk. Enveloped in the blanket, only his face was now visible--the face of a man about thirty-five, refined of feature, with thick brown beard and moustache, matted with damp and dirt. The sun-tanned cheeks were sunken, the eyes within their hollow sockets blazed with the fire of fever. They watched him anxiously, their concern for his pitiable condition mingled with curiosity. How came this man to be wandering alone and unarmed in the jungle?
"Poor body!" muttered Mackenzie. ”

“ Within the doorway Beresford, Jackson, and Sher Jang stood calmly awaiting them, rifle at shoulder. At twenty paces the rifles flashed; three men fell upon their faces; their comrades reeled back. Another volley crashed into the crowd surging on, and as the survivors staggered, the bark of the revolvers placed by Hamid in the hands of Forrester and Mackenzie mingled with the groans and shrieks of the frantic mob. They turned about, flung away their futile weapons, and fled, a wild rout, through the gate and over the garden towards their dwellings. ”

“ The Chinaman was clutching at the crazy handrail for purchase in hauling his tenacious grappler along. In a few seconds Forrester must either release him, or fall a captive into remorseless hands. Despair struck a spark in his darkening mind. There was one chance--one, and no more!
Bracing his right leg, he threw the whole weight of the Chinaman and himself against the balustrade. It creaked; there was the snap of breaking timber. Forrester released his man and drew quickly back. The priest fell with a great splash into the green oily waters of the lake. ”

“ Forrester remarked. "Small falls make a sort of crash--this is more of a roar. Perhaps we shall find a second Niagara."
"I'm fair flummoxed!" said Mackenzie, inconsequently.
"What about?"
"About yon Eye. You see, these folks were terrified by the storm: 'He speaks,' they said. Well, that was the thunder. By what the philosophers call parity of reasoning, the Eye is lightning. Well, lightning can take off a man's arm, and strike him daft or dead; but what about the little men up yonder? Are they scunnered at the Eye, too? What has the Eye to do with Beresford?" ”

“ And when the August and Venerable rose slowly in his place, and Forrester saw more clearly than before the lozenge-shaped ornament on his head-dress, from which the destructive beam had appeared to flash forth, he felt within his soul that he was about to share with the Indian girl the same annihilating doom.
A breathless stillness filled the Temple. Then the Old Man spoke, and his words seemed to Forrester like drops of ice-cold water falling on his head.
"You offer yourself to judgment in place of the girl?" ”

“ It soon became clear, too, that the priests were not accustomed to the use of weapons. For generations, no doubt, the servants of the Eye had relied on it as their sufficient defence. But they were Chinamen, infuriate, reckless; their ferocity made up their lack of skill, and as they came on with strident yells, wielding whatever weapons they had been able to snatch up, the Englishmen recognised that they had need of all their strength, experience, and resource to stem the human torrent.
Mackenzie had a heavy musket, Jackson an antique sword, Beresford a pike--unfamiliar weapons, all of them. ”

“ There Mackenzie and Jackson, with Hamid Gul, were awaiting them. For a few moments speechless greetings passed between the reunited friends; their hearts were full; feeling was too intense to find expression in word. When Mackenzie at last spoke, there was an unusual huskiness in his tones.
"Come now, listen, all of you. We are in a garden; there's a seven-foot wall around it. Beyond the wall is a larger enclosure. That's where the buildings are. Dick, you and I are going through Hamid's quarters and the kitchen into the pagoda. We are going to collar the Eye!" ”

“ On the far side of the enclosure the priests had emerged from their houses, and were standing in silence, gazing intently, eagerly upwards. When Forrester reached the wall he turned about, set the rifle to his shoulder, took steady aim, and fired. A dead silence followed the reverberations of the shot; then a yell of rage burst from the throng of priests, and they came leaping in one tumultuous mob towards the garden. At the same time, far to the left, a dark, bearded figure jumped down from the top of the outer wall, and rushed straight towards Forrester, spade in hand. ”

“ Beresford went on imperturbably; and Forrester felt a little sorry that the man of cheery good fellowship was for the time sunk in the man of science. "Here there is none of the elaborate apparatus of the experimenter; but Nature has been experimenting through ages beyond count. What do our men of science know of the real nature of the X-rays? Next to nothing. They can produce them, that is all. And here, before our eyes, we have phenomena produced, not by man, but by the Great Artificer of the universe. Those creatures are swimming in the lake which you skirted just now. ”

“ At their first entrance into this segmental tunnel Hamid Gul shrank back, appalled by the noise, the falling water, and the immense, tattered sheet of spray that rose from the seething cauldron hundreds of feet below. But seeing that his employers were pressing forward he pulled himself together, and hurried on close at Mackenzie's heels. The width of the path had diminished to a bare three feet, and as the party crept along it they instinctively clung to the wall of rock on their left hand. A strange attraction was exercised by the smooth arch of falling water ”

“ Forrester was the younger and the fleeter of the two. Weeks of life in the mephitic atmosphere of the underworld, indeed, had slackened his muscles and lowered his nervous energy; his wind came short; but at this perilous crisis he seemed to regain all the athletic vigour which had served him so well on the football field in years gone by. When the priest dashed into the outer cavern, Forrester was only a few yards in the rear. ”

“ Every night before they slept the Englishmen talked over the progress made during the day.
"If we only had a ladder!" said Beresford once. "I agree with you: the mere cutting of the chimney will be an empty triumph. We shouldn't be properly constituted men if we didn't wish to profit by our energies. Every man who isn't a mug, as soon as he has conquered one difficulty, burns to tackle another. I've puzzled and puzzled, but I see no way whatever of using the chimney as a channel of escape."
"Couldn't we make a ladder of bamboo?" ”

“ Not one of those poor wretches yonder has been here more than four years, and that's exceptional. That young fellow, the last-comer--his name is Wing Wu, by the way: did you ever hear such a name?--he will hardly last out a year: he hasn't the stamina for it."
"But what is the mystery, then?" asked Forrester, astonished at the calmness with which this intrepid fellow seemed to envisage a certain death. "People have lived much longer than four years underground." ”

“ By and by he looked up at Forrester, reclining near him.
"Thank Heaven, my brain is clear!" he began. "What an absurd thing one's body is! ... Now, they'll either rebuild the bridge and storm us, or do nothing, and starve us out. It depends on whether the Old Man can bear the thought of extinguishing us without using the Eye! Either way, we are doomed--unless we get out. That's as much as to say that we must get out at once. We must! And we must let our friends above know when to expect us Scribble a note to Mackenzie, then: we pop out of the chimney to-morrow night." ”

“ The lad stood erect; his eyes shone; words flowed from his lips, not in the sing-song of one repeating a lesson, but with the modulations of spontaneous energy and a full heart.
"Sir, sir," he said, "twice you have saved my life. Will you not help me again? Save me from I know not what. I am not what I seem, the servant of that horrible man. We are not refugees. ”

“ Divided between alarm for the Chinaman's safety and annoyance at his stupidity, Forrester sprinted through the copse, hoping at least to divert the beast and give the fugitive a chance.
The Chinaman's luck was against him. Ignorant of the fact that elephants have difficulty in running obliquely up a slope, he was racing straight up hill, the animal, screaming shrilly, only a dozen yards behind. Forrester perceived that in a very few moments the hapless youth must inevitably be run down and trampled to death unless the elephant were checked at once. ”

“ A man-eater's skin is usually mangy, but old Sher says that this is in good condition. Look out, Bob!"
Jackson ducked his head, already warned by a booming noise like the hum of an aeroplane engine that a beetle had flown in at the door. They watched the insect whirling about, until it came blindly in contact with the tent pole, and fell to the ground. There it lay on its back, spinning round and round with ever-increasing uproar, until Mackenzie picked it up, and flung it out--into the face of Hamid, approaching with the dessert. ”

“ He almost shouted with relief when he discovered that the third eye, though still aglow, was much dimmer than it had been in the night. The sun had conquered; the eye's baleful attraction was gone.
Presently the negrito guards brought him his breakfast of water and the same glutinous porridge as on the previous day. He spoke to them, first in English, then in Hindustani, but they answered nothing; if they understood him, they gave no sign of it. An hour or two later they returned, accompanied by one of the shaven priests, who indicated that he was to follow them. ”