xt thing worth telling that happened was that, an hour or more
later, Japhet arrived, looking very frightened. We asked him our usual
question: if anything was wrong with the wires. With a groan he answered
"No," the wires seemed all right, but he had met a ghost.

"What ghost, you donkey?" I said.

"The ghost of one of the dead kings, O Physician, yonder in the burial
cave. It was he with the bent bones who sits in the farthest chair. Only
he had put some flesh on his bones, and I tell you he looked fearful, a
very fierce man, or rather ghost."

"Indeed, and did he say anything to you, Japhet?"

"Oh! yes, plenty, O Physician, only I could not understand it all,
because his language was somewhat different to mine, and he spat out
his words as a green log spits out sparks. I think that he asked me,
however, how my miserable people dared to destroy his god, Harmac. I
answered that I was only a servant and did not know, adding that he
should put his questions to you."

"And what did he say to that, Japhet?"

"I think he said that Harmac would come to Mur and settle his account
with the Abati, and that the foreign men would be wise to fly fast and
far. That's all I understood; ask me no more, who would not return into
that cave to be made a prince."

"He's got hold of what Barung's envoys told us," said Oliver,
indifferently, "and no wonder, this place is enough to make anybody see
ghosts. I'll repeat it to Maqueda; it will amuse her."

"I wouldn't if I were you," I answered, "for it isn't exactly a cheerful
yarn, and perhaps she's afraid of ghosts too. Also," and I pointed
to the watch that lay on the table beside the batteries, "it is five
minutes to ten."

Oh! that last five minutes! It seemed as many centuries. Like stone
statues we sat, each of us lost in his own thoughts, though for my part
the power of clear thinking appeared to have left me. Visions of a sort
flowed over my mind without sinking into it, as water flows over marble.
All I could do was fix my eyes on the face of that watch, of which in
the flickering lamp-light the second-hand seemed to my excited fancy to
grow enormous and jump from one side of the room to the other.

Orme began to count aloud. "One, two, three, four, five--_now_!" and
almost simultaneously he touched the knob first of one battery and next
of the other. Before his finger pressed the left-hand knob I felt the
solid rock beneath us surge--no other word conveys its movement. T