"You are the most unsatisfactory husband a woman ever had," Amense said angrily. "I do believe you would be perfectly happy shut up in your study with your rolls of ma.n.u.script all your life, without seeing another human being save a black slave to bring you in bread and fruit and water twice a day."

"I think I should, my dear," Ameres replied calmly. "At any rate, I should prefer it vastly to such a waste of time, and that in a form to me so disagreeable as that I have had to endure to-day."

CHAPTER IX.

A STARTLING EVENT.

It was some days later that Chebron and Amuba again paid a visit to the temple by moonlight. It was well-nigh a month since they had been there; for, save when the moon was up, the darkness and gloom of the courts, lighted only by the lamps of the altars, was so great that the place offered no attractions. Amuba, free from the superst.i.tions which influenced his companion, would have gone with him had he proposed it, although he too felt the influence of the darkness and the dim, weird figures of the G.o.ds, seen but faintly by the lights that burned at their feet. But to Chebron, more imaginative and easily affected, there was something absolutely terrible in the gloomy darkness, and nothing would have induced him to wander in the silent courts save when the moon threw her light upon them.

On entering one of the inner courts they found a ma.s.sive door in the wall standing ajar.

"Where does this lead to?" Amuba asked.

"I do not know. I have never seen it open before. I think it must have been left unclosed by accident. We will see where it leads to."

Opening it they saw in front of them a flight of stairs in the thickness of the wall.

"It leads up to the roof," Chebron said in surprise. "I knew not there were any stairs to the roof, for when repairs are needed the workmen mount by ladders."

"Let us go up, Chebron; it will be curious to look down upon the courts."

"Yes, but we must be careful, Amuba; for, did any below catch sight of us, they might spread an alarm."

"We need only stay there a minute or two," Amuba urged. "There are so few about that we are not likely to be seen, for if we walk noiselessly none are likely to cast their eyes so far upward."

So saying Amuba led the way up the stairs, and Chebron somewhat reluctantly followed him. They felt their way as they went, and after mounting for a considerable distance found that the stairs ended in a narrow pa.s.sage, at the end of which was an opening scarce three feet high and just wide enough for a man to pa.s.s through. This evidently opened into the outer air, as sufficient light pa.s.sed through to enable them to see where they were standing. Amuba crept out through the opening at the end. Beyond was a ledge a foot wide; beyond that rose a dome some six feet high and eight or ten feet along the ledge.

"Come on, Chebron; there is plenty of room for both of us," he said, looking backward. Chebron at once joined him.

"Where can we be?" Amuba asked. "There is the sky overhead. We are twenty feet from the top of the wall, and where this ledge ends, just before it gets to the sides of this stone, it seems to go straight down."

Chebron looked round him.

"This must be the head of one of the statues," he said after a pause.

"What a curious place! I wonder what it can have been made for. See, there is a hole here!"

Just in front of them was an opening of some six inches in diameter in the stone.

Amuba pushed his hand down.

"It seems to go a long way down," he said; "but it is narrowing," and removing his arm he looked down the hole.

"There is an opening at the other end," he said; "a small narrow slit.

It must have been made to enable any one standing here to see down, though I don't think they could see much through so small a hole. I should think, Chebron, if this is really the top of the head of one of the great figures, that slit must be where his lips are. Don't you think so?"

Chebron agreed that it was probable.

"In that case," Amuba went on, "I should say that this hole must be made to allow the priests to give answers through the mouth of the image to supplications made to it. I have heard that the images sometimes gave answers to the worshipers. Perhaps this is the secret of it."

Chebron was silent. The idea was a painful one to him; for if this were so, it was evident that trickery was practiced.

"I think we had better go," he said at last. "We have done wrong in coming up here."

"Let me peep over the side first," Amuba said. "It seems to me that I can hear voices below."

But the projection of the head prevented his seeing anything beyond.

Returning he put his foot in the hole and raised himself sufficiently to get on the top of the stone, which was here so much flattened that there was no risk of falling off. Leaning forward he looked over the edge. As Amuba had guessed would be the case, he found himself on the head of the princ.i.p.al idol in the temple. Gathered round the altar at its foot were seven or eight men, all of whom he knew by the whiteness of their garment to be priests. Listening intently he could distinctly hear their words. After waiting a minute he crawled back.

"Come up here, Chebron; there is something important going on."

Chebron joined him, and the two, lying close together, looked down at the court.

"I tell you we must do away with him," one of the group below said in tones louder than had been hitherto used. "You know as well as I do that his heart is not in the worship of the G.o.ds. He has already shown himself desirous of all sorts of innovations, and unless we take matters in our hands there is no saying to what lengths he may go. He might shatter the very worship of the G.o.ds. It is no use to try to overthrow him openly; for he has the support of the king, and the efforts that have been made have not in any way shaken his position.

Therefore he must die. It will be easy to put him out of the way.

There are plenty of small chambers and recesses which he might be induced to enter on some pretext or other, and then be slain without difficulty, and his body taken away by night and thrown into some of the disused catacombs.

"It would be a nine days' wonder when he was missed, but no one could ever learn the truth of his disappearance. I am ready to kill him with my own hands, and should regard the deed as one most pleasing to the G.o.ds. Therefore if you are ready to undertake the other arrangements, and two of you will join me in seeing that the deed is carried out without noise or outcry, I will take the matter in hand. I hate him, with his airs of holiness and his pretended love for the people.

Besides, the good of our religion requires that he shall die."

There was a chorus of approbation from the others.

"Leave me to determine the time and place," the speaker went on, "and the excuse on which we will lead him to his doom. Those who will not be actually engaged with me in the business must be in the precincts of the place, and see that no one comes that way, and make some excuse or other should a cry by chance be heard, and must afterward set on foot all sorts of rumors to account for his actions. We can settle nothing to-night; but there is no occasion for haste, and on the third night hence we will again gather here."

Chebron touched Amuba, and the two crept back to where they had been standing on the ledge.

"The villains are planning a murder in the very temple!" Chebron said.

"I will give them a fright;" and applying his mouth to the orifice he cried:

"Beware, sacrilegious wretches! Your plots shall fail and ruin fall upon you!"

"Come on, Chebron!" Amuba exclaimed, pulling his garment. "Some of the fellows may know the secret of this statue, and in that case they will kill us without mercy if they find us here."

Pa.s.sing through the opening they groped their way to the top of the stairs, hurried down these as fast as they could in the darkness, and issued out from the door.

"I hear footsteps!" Amuba exclaimed as they did so. "Run for your life, Chebron!"

Just as they left the court they heard the noise of angry voices and hurried footsteps close by. At full speed they ran through several courts and apartments.

"We had better hide, Amuba."

"It will be no use trying to do that. They will guard the entrance gates, give the alarm, and set all the priests on duty in the temple in search. No, come along quickly. They cannot be sure that it is we who spoke to them, and will probably wait until one has ascended the stairs to see that no one is lurking there. I think we are safe for the moment; but there are no good hiding-places. I think you had better walk straight to the entrance, Chebron. Your presence here is natural enough, and those they post at the gates would let you pa.s.s out without suspicion. I will try and find myself a hiding-place."

"I certainly will not do that, Amuba. I am not going to run away and leave you in the sc.r.a.pe, especially as it was I who got us into it by my rashness."