We did not discuss it, the Doctor and I—we could not.
For the next half hour we were content to let Mr. Mirrikh do the talking, translating for the lama most of the time, for old Padma was acting as master of ceremonies. I believe now that the adept rendered his words truly, although at the time I could scarcely credit it.
It was a wonderful place, that underground chamber, and yet at first glance there was nothing to be seen except a huge, oblong block of marble as white as the snow above, occupying a central position on the stone floor.
It was seven feet long and three feet four inches wide, in one side there was set a little door of solid gold; but for this it was an unbroken block.
I have alluded to the three blank walls and hinted that the fourth was different. It was to this fourth wall that Padma directed our attention first.
This was divided into square spaces and reminded me much of the public vaults in the cemeteries at New Orleans. Filling each space was a section of hard, polished wood—ligum-vitae, I think, at all events it was intensely black and very heavy—into which was fixed a bronze handle with a gilded Thibetan character above. There were eighty of these sections altogether, and space left for fully twice as many more. Padma, laying his withered hand upon one of the gilded characters, proceeded to explain.
“These, my children, are the resting places of the bodies of those souls who seek to visit us from the planets in our solar system. In former years when this lamasery was first consecrated for that holy purpose, we scarcely had three bodies in at a time, but now there are only two out. Ah, they care not for this world, these planetary spirits. It is inferior to all others of our system, so what wonder? Behold!”
He grasped one of the handles and pulled, seeming to exert more strength than I believed him capable of. Slowly an oblong box moved forward, working on stone rollers. One glance sent me back with a shudder, for there, reposing in the box, was a human body wrapped in cloth, swathed about like an Egyptian mummy. Only the head was visible, and what startled me most was the face, which, though that of a middle-aged man, and by no means unhandsome, was of a color decidedly greenish, or perhaps I had better say greenish-yellow. If I had been told that it was the face
