gged me through into the passage, where the agony ceased as instantly
as the ache does when a dentist pulls an abscessed tooth. No one sound
reached us through the open door. However immature that particular
branch of their science might be, they had learned the way of absolutely
localizing noise.

The Gray Mahatma came out smiling, and ignoring me as if I was not
there.

He opened another door, not requiring to knock this time, and led the
way along another passage that wound through solid rock for what can
hardly have been less than a quarter of a mile.

King had dragged me out of that dome of dins in the nick of time, and my
head was recovering rapidly. By the time we reached a door at the end of
that long passage I could think clearly, and although too weak to stand
upright without holding on to something, was sufficiently recovered to
know that the remainder would be only a matter of minutes. And we spent
three or four of the minutes waiting for the door to open, which it did
at last suddenly.

A man appeared in the opening, whose absolutely white hair reached below
his shoulder-blades, and whose equally white beard descended to his
middle. He wore the usual loin-cloth, but was usual in nothing else. He
looked older than Methuselah, yet strong, for his muscles stood out like
knotted whip-cords; and active, for he stood on the balls of his feet
with the immobility that only comes of ableness. The most unusual thing
of all was that he spoke. He said several words in Sanskrit to the Gray
Mahatma, before turning his back on us and leading the way in.

CHAPTER VII

MAGIC

We went into a cavern whose floor was cup-shaped. Nearly all the way
around the rim of the cup was an irregular ledge averaging twenty feet
in width; with that exception, the whole interior was shaped like an
enormous egg with its narrow end upward. The bottom was nowhere less
than a hundred feet across, and was reached by steps cut irregularly
downward from the rim.

At intervals around the ledge were seated about a score of men, some
solitary, some in groups of three; some were naked, others wore
loin-cloths; all were silent, but they all took an obvious interest in
us, and some of them were grinning. A few of them squatted, with their
legs tucked under them, but most of them let their legs hang over the
edge, and they all had an air of perfect familiarity with the
surroundings as well as what can be best described as a "team look."