"Awake at last, hm? Been discussing nothing else all day."
"Is that true, Alcot! I was inattentive, perhaps. My mind was upon— But let me forget that. During the discussion was any probable explanation reached?"
"No, Mr. Tellifer," Otway informed him gravely. "No probable explanation was reached. It is my own conviction, indeed, that no probable explanation ever will be reached. I don't say that none of us will survive to learn the true facts. Life and hope, remember; life and hope! But when those facts are ascertained, they will not be probable. Possible, perhaps, but decidedly—not—probable! The situation simply doesn't admit of it. Oh,Waring! How about that story?"
"Sunday supplement stuff," disparaged the correspondent. "No magazine would dare touch it. Wonder how long we'll be left here? Safe for tonight, anyway. Fashionable beggars! All ceremonies at high noon. What news of Susan? Still weeping?"
His last question, addressed to Tellifer, was answered from another source. Out in the silent central court a sound had begun. As when, ascending the outer stairway, that same sound had first reached their ears, every one of the five posed through a long minute, breathless and listening.
Their reason for attention, however, had changed. Then it had been wonder and a devouring curiosity as to the source of that quaint, monotonous, double-fluted melody. Now they had no curiosity about it. They knew exactly what instrument was being played, who was playing it, and for what astonishing purpose. And every man of them was suddenly thankful that his cell possessed a thick, serviceable, bronze door, tightly closed, and with only one small window.
"Have to hand it to Susan!" gasped Waring at last. "Fido's coming out. I can see him. She afraid! Not little blue-eyes! Oh, Lawdy, Lawdy! How much more of him is there?"
"The—ah—anterior mile or so of Fido has strayed over to where I also can enjoy a view," Otway asserted. "They took away my shell-rims, but I can make out that the cephalite, or head-shield, is quite well-developed. About the size of a flour-barrel, I should say. And the toxicognaths, or poison-fangs— Oh, ye gods! No, it's all right. For an instant I believed. Fido was coming down my alley to call. But it was merely a thousand-legged pirouette. This dancing rite probably takes place every evening and is entirely separate from the noonday sacrifice. It is likely, also, that we are being saved up, as it were, for some special day or occasion. There being no one present tonight save the priestess, we need have no immediate fears."
"Speak for yourself!" Waring's heavy voice broke on the words. "She's bringing it—she's bringing that thing down my alley!"
The monotonous melody of the Pan's pipes had indeed approached much nearer. A moment more, and not only Waring, but all the prisoners were given evidence that the pair of dancers were not content to exercise their art at a distance from their audience.
Between the cells and the artificial jungle was a space perhaps ten feet broad. For Scolopendra Horribilis to have elaborated his curious, coiling patterns on that cramped stage would have been impossible. Like a true artist, he did not even attempt it. When the girl swayed gracefully into view, turned to the narrow space and passed lightly along it, still piping, the sacred monster—or a portion of him—merely followed.
As she crossed each successive band of light at the clear lanes, those in the cells caught glimpses of her awful attendant.
The head, with enormous, blind-looking yellow eyes, gaping mandibles and huge poison-fangs, hovered close above the starry circlet of gems in the girl's red-gold hair. The talons of the plated length below seemed on the point of closing around her slender shoulders. Yet the girl cast not so much as a glance upward or back. In turning at the end, she took no care to avoid colliding with the frightful Death that followed.
Death for its part, however, respectfully drew aside, made a talon-fringed running loop of itself, and continued to follow. Through alternate light and shadow the girl passed back until she again reached the correspondent's prison-cell.
There the other four could no longer see her. In returning, she had moved close to the cell-rank. There followed a clang, as of a heavy bolt thrown back. A hoarse, wordless ejaculation. Another clang, suggesting metal tossed down on a stone floor. Then the girl had stepped into view again, still playing but holding the pipes to her lips with one hand. With the other she was seen to beckon gracefully.
"Boys," came the correspondent's desperate voice, "good-bye! That infernal little Jezebel! She has opened my door! She has given me the key to these damn shackles! She's inviting me to come out! By God, I won't go out! There's that shaft behind the cell. I'll jump! Wait till I get these irons off."
A rasping sound, a crude key turning in a clumsy lock, a rattle of chains hastily discarded.
"Waring!" From the next cell Otway spoke with quiet, restraining force.
"Don't jump! Do whatever she wishes. The sacrifice is to the sun, remember. If she had wanted that monster to destroy us tonight, why should she have bothered to bring us food? This is part of some preliminary ceremony. And your limbs will be free. Do whatever she wishes and watch your chance. It may be the chance that saves all of us."
After quite a long moment, the correspondent replied. "Right, Otway. Playing the cur. Glad you spoke. I'll—I'll go out. Here, you! Can't you see I'm coming? Start that music again!"
The girl, as if weary of waiting, had lowered the pipes from her lips. The instant she did so, the swaying monster behind had ceased to sway. With an ominous, dry clashing of avid mandibles, its head shot higher. It descended again in a curving loop that cleared the girl's head and, too obviously, had the open cell for its objective.
Seeing the prisoner obedient, however, the girl resumed her music. Immediately the menacing head swayed back to its former position.
The freed correspondent faced the pair grimly. That slender slip of a girl, whom he could have easily lifted with one hand, was for the time his master. To overcome or interfere with her in any way meant death. To slay big, powerful Alcot Waring, she had only to cease the restraining music of her little golden pipes.
The dawn-blue eyes were deep, sweetly mournful as ever. But even Sigsbee failed to suggest that Waring should place faith in them and act in any way save exactly as she might direct.
Her next order was given as the first had been. One delicate hand waved in a graceful gesture.
"You're elected, too, Otway," informed the correspondent. "Wants me to open your door. Shall I do it? Up to you."
The explorer affirmed his own unshaken nerve by instant consent. The same key that had released Waring having freed Otway from the bronze shackles, he stepped out beside the other.
