“Did you ever go to Olympia? I did once to see a kind of play where the people said nothing, only ran about dressed up. They told me it was religious, the sort of thing a clergyman should study. I didn’t think it religious at all. It was all about a nun who had a baby.”
“Well, what of it?” snapped Bickley.
“Nothing particular, except that nuns don’t have babies, or if they do the fact should not be advertised. But I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking that this place is like an underground Olympia.”
“Oh, be quiet!” I said, for though Bastin’s description was not bad, his monotonous, drawling voice jarred on me in that solemnity.
“Be careful where you walk,” whispered Bickley, for even he seemed awed, “there may be pits in this floor.”
“I wish we had a light,” I said, halting.
“If candles are of any use,” broke in Bastin, “as it happens I have a packet in my pocket. I took them with me this morning for a certain purpose.”
“Not unconnected with the paraffin and the burning of the idol, I suppose?” said Bickley. “Hand them over.”
“Yes; if I had been allowed a little more time I intended—”
“Never mind what you intended; we know what you did and that’s enough,” said Bickley as he snatched the packet from Bastin’s hand and proceeded to undo it, adding, “By heaven! I have no matches, nor have you, Arbuthnot!”
“I have a dozen boxes of wax vestas in my other pocket,” said Bastin. “You see, they burn so well when you want to get up a fire on a damp idol. As you may have noticed, the dew is very heavy here.”
In due course these too were produced. I took possession of them as they were too valuable to be left in the charge of Bastin, and, extracting a box from the packet, lit two of the candles which were of the short thick variety, like those used in carriage-lamps.
Presently they burned up, making two faint stars of light which, however, were not strong enough to show us either the roof or the sides of that vast place. By their aid we pursued our path, still following the grooves till suddenly these came to an end. Now all around us was a flat floor of rock which, as we perceived clearly when we pushed aside the dust that had gathered thickly on it in the course of ages, doubtless from the gradual disintegration of the stony walls, had once been polished till it resembled black marble. Indeed, certain cracks in the floor appeared to have been filled in with some dark-coloured cement. I stood looking at them while Bickley wandered off to the right and a little forward, and presently called to me. I walked to him, Bastin sticking close to me as I had the other candle, as did the little dog, Tommy, who did not like these new surroundings and would not leave my heels.
“Look,” said Bickley, holding up his candle, “and tell me—what’s that?”
Before me, faintly shown, was some curious structure of gleaming rods made of yellowish metal, which rods appeared to be connected by wires. The structure might have been forty feet high and perhaps a hundred long. Its bottom part was buried in dust.
“What is that?” asked Bickley again.
I made no answer, for I was thinking. Bastin, however, replied:
“It’s difficult to be sure in this light, but I should think that it may be the remains of a cage in which some people who lived here kept monkeys, or perhaps it was an aviary. Look at those little ladders for the monkeys to climb by, or possibly for the birds to sit on.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t tame angels?” asked Bickley.
“What a ridiculous remark! How can you keep an angel in a cage? I—”
“Aeroplane!” I almost whispered to Bickley.
“You’ve got it!” he answered. “The framework of an aeroplane and a jolly large one, too. Only why hasn’t it oxidised?”
“Some indestructible metal,” I suggested. “Gold, for instance, does not oxidise.”
He nodded and said:
“We shall have to dig it out. The dust is feet thick about it; we can do nothing without spades. Come on.”
We went round to the end of the structure, whatever it might be, and presently came to another. Again we went on and came to another, all of them being berthed exactly in line.
“What did I tell you?” said Bickley in a voice of triumph. “A whole garage full, a regular fleet of aeroplanes!”
“That must be nonsense,” said Bastin, “for I am quite sure that these Orofenans cannot make such things. Indeed they have no metal, and even cut the throats of pigs with wooden knives.”
Now I began to walk forward, bearing to the left so as to regain our former line. We could do nothing with these metal skeletons, and I felt that there must be more to find beyond. Presently I saw something looming ahead of me and quickened my pace, only to recoil. For there, not thirty feet away and perhaps three hundred yards from the mouth of the cave, suddenly appeared what looked like a gigantic man. Tommy saw it also and barked as dogs do when they are frightened, and the sound of his yaps echoed endlessly from every quarter, which scared him to silence. Recovering myself I went forward, for now I guessed the truth. It was not a man but a statue.
The thing stood upon a huge base which lessened by successive steps, eight of them, I think, to its summit. The
