Part 33 (1/2)

Liola screamed for help, but no one seemed within call, when suddenly the thought seemed to suggest itself to her to s.n.a.t.c.h up my weapon and hold it.

I turned to take it from her, but by this action my grip upon my Arab foe became released, and with a desperate spring he forced himself from my grasp, bounding away, leaving a portion of his white _jibbeh_ in my hand.

But, determined that he should not escape, I dashed after him headlong across the chamber, and out by the opposite door. In the court beyond a knot of our soldiers were standing discussing the events of the day, and I shouted to them; but the sight of me chasing a single fugitive slave did not appeal to them, and they disregarded my order to arrest his progress. Nevertheless I kept on, feeling a.s.sured that sooner or later I must run him to earth, but never thinking of the intricacies with which all such palaces abound, intricacies which must be well-known to the Mohammedan ruler.

Suddenly, after endeavouring to elude me by ingenious devices innumerable, and always finding himself frustrated, he entered a chamber leading from the Court of the Eunuchs, and had gained on me sufficiently to disappear ere I reached the entrance. I rushed through after him, believing that he had crossed the deserted court beyond, but was surprised to find that I had utterly lost him. I halted to listen, but could hear no footsteps, and after a careful examination of all the outlets, presently returned in chagrin to the chamber into which he had suddenly dashed, before escaping.

Standing in its centre I looked wonderingly around. Then, for the first time, I discovered that our soldiers, obeying their instructions, had been pouring inflammable liquids everywhere throughout the Kasbah, and a great burst of blood-red flame in the outer court told me that the place had been ignited. At that moment, Liola, with white scared face, believing that she had lost me, entered the chamber, but I recognized our imminent peril, surrounded as we were by a belt of fire.

”Fly!” I cried, frantically. ”Fly! quick, back across yonder court to save thy life! In a few moments I will join thee. I must examine this chamber ere I depart.”

”I will not go without thee,” she answered with calm decision.

”Why riskest thou thy life?” I cried in excitement. ”Fly, or in a moment it may be too late, we may both be overwhelmed or suffocated.”

But she stirred not. She stood by me in silence, gazing in fear at the red roaring flames that, raging outside, now cut off our retreat by either door. The cause of my hesitation to rush away at first sight of the flames, was the suspicion that somewhere in that chamber was a secret exit. The sudden manner in which the Arab chieftain had eluded me could only have been accomplished by such means. The chamber, well furnished and supported by three great twisted columns of milk-white marble, had its floor covered with costly rugs and its walls hung with dark red hangings, bearing strange devices and inscriptions in long thin Arabic characters. Few rooms in the Kasbah were decorated in this manner, and it had instantly occurred to me that, concealed somewhere, was one of those secret ways which, whether in the Oriental palace, or the mediaeval European castle, are so suggestive of treachery and intrigue.

Although one horse-shoe arch of the place led into the Court of the Eunuchs, the other, I noticed, was in direct communication with Samory's private apartments. With consummate skill he had led me here by such a circuitous route that I had not at first noticed that it joined a kind of ante-room to his pavilion.

But the roaring flames that every moment leaped nearer, crackling furiously and fanning us with their scorching breath, allowed me no time for further reflection. Escape was now entirely cut off; only by discovering the secret exit could we save ourselves. In breathless haste I rushed around the walls, tapping them with my sword; but such action proved useless, as I could hear nothing above the roaring and crackling on either side. With my hands I tried to discover where the door was concealed, rus.h.i.+ng from side to side in frantic despair, but the exit, wherever it existed, was too cunningly hidden.

So dense had the smoke become that we could not see across the chamber; tongues of fire had ignited the heavy silken hangings, and the whole interior was alight from end to end.

”We are lost--lost!” shrieked Liola in despair ”We have fallen victims to our own terrible vengeance upon our enemies.”

Within myself I was compelled to admit this, for it seemed as though Samory had led us into a veritable death-trap that the soldiers of Mo had themselves prepared. Suddenly, as a last chance, I remembered I had not examined the three great marble columns, each of such circ.u.mference that a man could not embrace them in his arms. I dashed forward, and in the blinding smoke, that caused my eyes to water and held my chest contracted, I tried to investigate whether they were what they appeared to be, solid and substantial supports. The first was undoubtedly fas.h.i.+oned out of a single block of stone, the lower portion polished by the thousands of people who during many centuries had brushed past it.

The second was exactly similar, and the third also. But the latter seemed more chipped and worn than the others, and just as I was about to abandon all hope I made a sudden discovery that thrilled me with joy. As I grasped it a portion of it fell back, disclosing that the column was hollow.

The hole was just sufficient to admit the pa.s.sage of one's body, and without an instant's hesitation I drew Liola forward, and urged her to get inside. The flames were now lapping about us, and another moment's delay would mean certain death. Therefore she dashed in, and as she did so sank quickly out of sight, while the portion of the marble column closed again with a snap.

The rapidity with which she disappeared astounded me, the more so, when, after the lapse of about a minute the platform whereon she had stepped rose again, and with a click returned to its place. Only then was I enabled to re-open the cavity. Apparently it worked automatically, and being balanced in some way, as soon as Liola had stepped off it, had risen again. Instantly I stepped upon it, and with hands close to my sides, sank so swiftly into the darkness that the wind whistled through my garments and roared in my ears. The descent was, I judged, about two hundred feet, but in the pitch darkness I could not discern the character of the shaft. Of a sudden with a jerk it stopped, and finding myself in a strange dimly-lit chamber bricked like a vault, with Liola standing awaiting me, I stepped off, and as I did so the platform shot up again into its place.

”We have, at all events, escaped being burned alive,” my fair companion exclaimed when she recovered breath. ”But this place is weird and dismal enough.”

”True,” I answered. ”There must, however, be some exit, or Samory would not have entered it. We must explore and discover it.”

Glancing around the mysterious vault I saw burning in a niche, with a supply of oil sufficient to last several weeks, a single lamp that had apparently always been kept alight. Taking it up I led the way through the long narrow chamber. The walls, blackened by damp, were covered with great grey fungi, while lizards and other reptiles scuttled from our path into the darkness. At the further end, the vault narrowed into a pa.s.sage so low that we were compelled to stoop when entering it. In this burrow, the ramifications of which were extraordinary, Liola's filmy garments came to sad grief, for catching upon the projecting portions of rock, they were rent from time to time, while the loss of one of her little green slippers necessitated some delay in recovering it. Yet groping along the narrow uneven way in search of some exit, we at length came into a larger chamber, bricked like the others, and as we entered it were startled by a sudden unearthly roar.

We both drew back, and Liola, in fear, clutched my arm.

”Listen!” she gasped. ”What was that?”

Again the noise was repeated, causing the low-roofed chamber to echo, and as I peered forward into the darkness, my gaze was transfixed by a pair of gleaming fiery eyes straight before us.

Similar noises I had heard in the forest on many occasions, and the startling truth at once flashed across my mind. Confronting us was a lion!

I stood in hesitation, not knowing how to act, while Liola clung to me, herself detecting the gleaming eyes and being fully aware of our peril.

Yet scarcely a moment pa.s.sed ere there was a loud rus.h.i.+ng sound in the darkness, and the animal, with a low growl, flew through the air in our direction. We had no time to elude him, but fortunately he seemed to have misjudged his distance, for he alighted about half-a-dozen paces short of us. So close was his head that the two gleaming orbs seemed to be rivetted to us. We felt his breath, and unable to draw back, we feared that each second must be our last.

Next moment I heard a clanking of chains, a sound that gave me instant courage.