The lizard froze with the body of the moth crammed in its mouth. Then it turned and darted head-down towards the floor; when it reached the corner formed by wall and floor it disappeared and I laughed at its ludicrous fright.
I wound the film, replaced the flash bulb, returned the camera to its case, and was about to resume my work when a thought occurred to me. I went back to the end wall of the cavern, to the point where the lizard had disappeared and stooped to examine the juncture of floor and wall. It seemed solid, and I could see no hole or crack for the lizard to use as a refuge. Intrigued now by the lizard’s disappearance, I went to fetch one of the electric arc-lights on its cable and I set it so that the beam fully illuminated the wall.
Then on hands and knees I crawled along the wall. I felt my heart start to pound like a war drum, and the hum of blood in my ears, the warmth of it in my cheeks. My hand as I reached for my penknife was unsteady, and I nearly broke my thumbnail as I tried to open the blade.
Then I was probing the faint crack line, plugged with dust, that separated wall and floor. The blade of my knife slipped into the crack to its full length.
I rocked back on my heels and stared at the wall, seeing the image of the sun throwing weird shadows in the arc-light
‘Perhaps,’ I whispered aloud, ‘it’s just possible…’ And then I was grovelling again beneath the image of Baal, almost as though I were one of his worshippers. Frantically I probed the crack, following it along the floor, until abruptly it turned ninety degrees, and climbed the wall. Here the crack was secret-jointed, riveted and turned back on to itself, making it all but invisible. The cunning skill with which this joint had been concealed convinced me that it hid something vital. The workmanship of this piece of the wall was a far cry from the rough joints on the roof slabs through which the dust had filtered down.
Now I jumped up and paced restlessly back and forth before the blank wall. I was alive again tor the first time since my return to the City of the Moon. My skin tingled, my step was full of spring, my fists clenched and unclenched and my brain was racing with excitement.
‘Louren,’ 1 thought suddenly. ‘He should be here.’ I almost ran back down the archives, and out through the tunnel. In the wooden guard hut which enclosed the entrance to the tunnel one of the security guards was sprawled in a chair with his boots on the desk. The collar of his blue uniform was unbuttoned, his cap pushed back on his head. On the wall behind him his gun-belt hung from a hook, with the black butt of the revolver sticking out of the holster. He looked up from his paperback Western, a thick beaky-nosed face with cold eagle eyes.
‘Hi, Doc. You in a hurry?’
‘Bols, can you get hold of Mr Sturvesant tor me? Ask him to come up here right away.’
I was on my knees below the sun image when Louren arrived.
‘Lo, come over here. I want to show you something.’
‘Hey, Ben!’ Louren laughed, and it seemed to me that his expression was one of relieved pleasure. ‘That’s the first time I’ve seen you really smile in two weeks. God, I was worried about you.’ He slapped my shoulder, still laughing. ‘This is more like the old Ben again.’
‘Lo, look at this.’ And he knelt beside me.
Ten minutes later he was no longer smiling, his face was cold and intent. He was staring at the wall with those pale blue eyes as though he were seeing through the solid rock.
‘Lo,’ I began, but he waved me to silence with a peremptory gesture. He never took his eyes from the wall and now it seemed to me that he was listening to a voice I could not hear, I watched that cold god-like face with a sudden feeling of almost superstitious awe. I had a premonition of something unnatural about to happen.
Slowly, step by step, Louren approached the sun image. His hand went out and lay against the centre of the great disc. His fingers were spread, seeming to echo the shape of the image. He began to press against the wall, I saw the tips of his fingers flatten against the rock, changing shape beneath the pressure of his hand.
For a few long seconds nothing happened, then suddenly the wall began to move. There was no sound, no grating or squeal of protesting hinge, but the whole wall began to revolve upon a concealed axis. A ponderous, deliberate movement that revealed the square dark opening to a farther passageway concealed beyond the image of Baal.
Staring into that dark prehistoric opening I whispered without glancing at Louren, ‘How did you do that, Lo? How did you guess?’
His tone as he replied was puzzled. ‘I knew - I just knew, that’s all.’ We were both silent again, staring into the opening. I was seized by a sudden unaccountable dread of what we would find in there.
‘Get the light, Ben,’ Louren ordered without taking his eyes from the doorway. I fetched the portable arc-light, and Louren took it from my hand. I followed him as he walked through the doorway.
Before us a passageway slanted down into the earth at an angle of forty-five degrees. The passage was seven foot six inches high, and nine feet wide. There was a flight of stone steps cut into the floor. Each step was worn, with edges smoothed and rounded. The walls and roof of the tunnel were of unadorned stone, and the depths of the tunnel were hidden from us by shadow and darkness.
‘What’s this?’ Louren pointed at two large circular objects which lay at the head of the staircase, I saw the gleam of bronze rosettes upon them.
‘Shields,’ I told him. ‘War shields.’
‘Someone dropped them in a hurry.’
We stepped over them carefully and started down the stair case. There were 106 steps, each six inches high.
‘No dust in here,’ Louren remarked.
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘The seal of the door was tight,’
His words should have acted as a warning, but I was lost in the wonder and excitement of this new discovery. The surface of the stairs was as clean as though freshly swept.
At the bottom of the staircase we reached a T-junction. On our right the passage led to a gate of barred
