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Page 101
"So the night passed, and dawn found me still sitting there, the
dead man huddled on the ground not three paces from me. I am a
man who as a rule thinks slowly, but when the light came my mind
was fully made up.
"From the man who had died in Nagpur I had learned more about the
location of the City of Fire than I had confided to Vadi. In
fact, I thought I could undertake to find the way. Upon the most
important point of all, however, I had no information: that is to
say, I had no idea how to obtain entrance to the place; for I had
been given to understand that the way in was a secret known only
to the initiated.
"Nevertheless, I had no intention of turning back; and, although
I realized that from this point onward I must largely trust to
luck, I had no intention of taking unnecessary chances.
Accordingly, I dressed myself in Vadi's clothes, and, being very
tanned at this time, I think I made a fairly creditable native.
"Faintly throughout the night, above the other sounds of the
jungle, I had heard that of distant falling water. Now, my
informant at Nagpur, in speaking of the secret temple, had used
the words:
"'Whoever would see the fire must quit air and pass through
water.'
"This mysterious formula he had firmly declined to translate into
comprehensible English; but during my journey I had been
considering it from every angle, and I had recently come to the
conclusion that the entrance to this mysterious place was in some
way concealed by water. Recollecting the gallery under Niagara
Falls, I wondered if some similar natural formation was to be
looked for here.
"Now, in the light of the morning sun, looking around me from the
little plateau upon which I stood, and remembering a vague
description of the country which had been given to me, I decided
that I was indeed in the neighbourhood of the Temple of Fire.
"We had followed a fairly well-defined path right to this
plateau, and that it was nothing less than the high road to the
citadel of Fire-Tongue, I no longer doubted. Beneath me stretched
a panorama limned in feverish greens and unhealthy yellows.
Scarlike rocks striated the jungle clothing the foothills, and
through the dancing air, viewed from the arid heights, they had
the appearance of running water.
"Swamps to the southeast showed like unhealing wounds upon the
face of the landscape. Beyond them spread the lower river waters,
the bank of the stream proper being discernible only by reason of
a greater greenness in the palm-tops. Venomous green slopes
beyond them again, a fringe of dwarf forest, and the brazen
skyline.
"On the right, and above me yet, the path entered a district of
volcanic rocks, gnarled, twisted, and contorted as with the
agonies of some mighty plague which in a forgotten past had
seized on the very bowels of the world and had contorted whole
mountains and laid waste vast forests and endless plains. Above,
the sun, growing hourly more cruel; ahead, more plague-twisted
rocks and the scars dancing like running water; and all around
the swooning stillness of the tropics.
"The night sounds of the jungle had ceased, giving place to the
ceaseless humming of insects. North, south, east, and west lay
that haze of heat, like a moving mantle clothing hills and
valleys. The sound of falling water remained perceptible.
"And now, gentlemen, I must relate a discovery which I had made
in the act of removing Vadi's clothing. Upon his right forearm
was branded a mark resembling the apparition which I had
witnessed in the night, namely, a little torch, or flambeau,
surmounted by a tongue of fire. Even in the light of the morning,
amid that oppressive stillness, I could scarcely believe in my
own safety, for that to Vadi the duty of assassinating me had
been assigned by this ever-watchful, secret organization, whose
stronghold I had dared to approach, was a fact beyond dispute.
"Since I seemed to be quite alone on the plateau, I could only
suppose that the issue had been regarded as definitely settled,
that no doubt had been entertained by Vadi's instructors
respecting his success. The plateau upon which I stood was one of
a series of giant steps, and on the west was a sheer descent to a
dense jungle, where banks of rotten vegetation, sun-dried upon
the top, lay heaped about the tree stems.
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