第53章

Rador drew his poniard and struck twice upon the wall with its hilt.Immediately a panel moved away, revealing a space filled with faint, misty blue radiance.And at each side of the open portal stood four of the dwarfish men, grey-headed, old, clad in flowing garments of white, each point-ing toward us a short silver rod.

Rador drew from his girdle a ring and held it out to the first dwarf.He examined it, handed it to the one beside him, and not until each had inspected the ring did they lower their curious weapons; containers of that terrific energy they called the _Keth_, I thought; and later was to know that I had been right.

We stepped out; the doors closed behind us.The place was weird enough.Its pave was a greenish-blue stone re-sembling lapis lazuli.On each side were high pedestals hold-ing carved figures of the same material.There were perhaps a score of these, but in the mistiness I could not make out their outlines.A droning, rushing roar beat upon our ears;filled the whole cavern.

"I smell the sea," said Larry suddenly.

The roaring became deep-toned, clamorous, and close in front of us a rift opened.Twenty feet in width, it cut the cavern floor and vanished into the blue mist on each side.

The cleft was spanned by one solid slab of rock not more than two yards wide.It had neither railing nor other protec-tion.

The four leading priests marched out upon it one by one, and we followed.In the middle of the span they knelt.Ten feet beneath us was a torrent of blue sea-water racing with prodigious speed between polished walls.It gave the impres-sion of vast depth.It roared as it sped by, and far to the right was a low arch through which it disappeared.It was so swift that its surface shone like polished blue steel, and from it came the blessed, OUR WORLDLY, familiar ocean breath that strengthened my soul amazingly and made me realize how earth-sick I was.

Whence came the stream, I marvelled, forgetting for the moment, as we passed on again, all else.Were we closer to the surface of earth than I had thought, or was this some mighty flood falling through an opening in sea floor, Heaven alone knew how many miles above us, losing itself in deeper abysses beyond these? How near and how far this was from the truth I was to learn--and never did truth come to man in more dreadful guise!

The roaring fell away, the blue haze lessened.In front of us stretched a wide flight of steps, huge as those which had led us into the courtyard of Nan-Tauach through the ruined sea-gate.We scaled it; it narrowed; from above light poured through a still narrower opening.Side by side Larry and Ipassed out of it.

We had emerged upon an enormous platform of what seemed to be glistening ivory.It stretched before us for a hundred yards or more and then shelved gently into the white waters.Opposite--not a mile away--was that prodi-gious web of woven rainbows Rador had called the Veil of the Shining One.There it shone in all its unearthly grandeur, on each side of the Cyclopean pillars, as though a mountain should stretch up arms raising between them a fairy banner of auroral glories.Beneath it was the curved, scimitar sweep of the pier with its clustered, gleaming temples.

Before that brief, fascinated glance was done, there dropped upon my soul a sensation as of brooding weight in-tolerable; a spiritual oppression as though some vastness was falling, pressing, stifling me, I turned--and Larry caught me as I reeled.

"Steady! Steady, old man!" he whispered.