Absorbed
in the examination of the altar, we did not notice the absence
of the colonel, till we heard his loud voice in the distance
calling to us:
"I have found a secret passage.... Come along, let us find where
it leads to!"
Torch in hand, the colonel was far ahead of us, and very eager to
proceed; but each of us had a little plan of his own, and so we
were reluctant to obey his summons. The Babu took upon himself
to answer for the whole party:
"Take care, colonel. This passage leads to the den of the glamour....
Mind the tigers!"
But once fairly started on the way to discoveries, our president
was not to be stopped. Nolens volens we followed him.
He was right; he had made a discovery; and on entering the cell
we saw a most unexpected tableau. By the opposite wall stood two
torch-bearers with their flaming torches, as motionless as if they
were transformed into stone caryatides; and from the wall, about
five feet above the ground, protruded two legs clad in white trousers.
There was no body to them; the body had disappeared, and but that
the legs were shaken by a convulsive effort to move on, we might
have thought that the wicked goddess of this place had cut the
colonel into two halves, and having caused the upper half instantly
to evaporate, had stuck the lower half to the wall, as a kind of trophy.
"What is become of you, Mr. President? Where are you?" were our
alarmed questions.
Instead of an answer, the legs were convulsed still more violently,
and soon disappeared completely, after which we heard the voice
of the colonel, as if coming through a long tube:
"A room... a secret cell.... Be quick! I see a whole row of rooms....
Confound it! my torch is out! Bring some matches and another torch!"
But this was easier said than done. The torch-bearers refused to
go on; as it was, they were already frightened out of their wits.
Miss X - - glanced with apprehension at the wall thickly covered
with soot and then at her pretty gown. Mr. Y - - sat down on a
broken pillar and said he would go no farther, preferring to have
a quiet smoke in the company of the timid torch-bearers.
There were several vertical steps cut in the wall; and on the
floor we saw a large stone of such a curiously irregular shape
that it struck me that it could not be natural. The quick-eyed
Babu was not long in discovering its peculiarities, and said he
was sure "it was the stopper of the secret passage." We all
hurried to examine the stone most minutely, and discovered that,
though it imitated as closely as possible the irregularity of the
rock, its under surface bore evident traces of workmanship and
had a kind of hinge to be easily moved. The hole was about three
feet high, but not more than two feet wide.
The muscular "God's warrior" was the first to follow the colonel.
He was so tall that when he stood on a broken pillar the opening
came down to the middle of his breast, and so he had no difficulty
in transporting himself to the upper story. The slender Babu
joined him with a single monkey-like jump. Then, with the Akali
pulling from above and Narayan pushing from below, I safely made
the passage, though the narrowness of the hole proved most
disagreeable, and the roughness of the rock left considerable
traces on my hands. However trying archeological explorations
may be for a person afflicted by an unusually fine presence, I
felt perfectly confident that with two such Hercules-like helpers
as Narayan and Ram-Runjit-Das the ascent of the Himalayas would
be perfectly possible for me. Miss X - - came next, under the
escort of Mulji, but Mr. Y - - stayed behind.
The secret cell was a room of twelve feet square. Straight above
the black hole in the floor there was another in the ceiling, but
this time we did not discover any "stopper." The cell was perfectly
empty with the exception of black spiders as big as crabs. Our
apparition, and especially the bright light of the torches, maddened
them; panic-stricken they ran in hundreds over the walls, rushed
down, and tumbled on our heads, tearing their thin ropes in their
inconsiderate haste. The first movement of Miss X - - was to kill
as many as she could. But the four Hindus protested strongly and
unanimously. The old lady remonstrated in an offended voice:
"I thought that at least you, Mulji, were a reformer, but you are
as superstitious as any idol-worshiper."
"Above everything I am a Hindu," answered the "mute general." "And
the Hindus, as you know, consider it sinful before nature and
before their own consciences to kill an animal put to flight by
the strength of man, be it even poisonous. As to the spiders, in
spite of their ugliness, they are perfectly harmless."
"I am sure all this is because you think you will transmigrate into
a black spider!" she replied, her nostrils trembling with anger.
"I cannot say I do," retorted Mulji; "but if all the English
ladies are as unkind as you I should rather be a spider than
an Englishman."
This lively answer coming from the usually taciturn Mulji was so
unexpected that we could not help laugh-ing. But to our great
discomfiture Miss X - - was seriously angry, and, under pretext
of giddiness, said she would rejoin Mr. Y - - below.
Her constant bad spirits were becoming trying for our cosmopolitan
little party, and so we did not press her to stay.
As to us we climbed through the second opening, but this time
under the leadership of Narayan. He disclosed to us that this
place was not new to him; he had been here before, and confided
to us that similar rooms, one on the top of the other, go up to
the summit of the mountain.
