"My wife demurred strongly. She wanted to go with me. But I convinced
her that it was better for her to stand guard without, prepared to
help me if I were forced again into the open by what lay behind the
rock.

"At the half-hour before moonrise we went into the inner court. I
took my place at the side of the grey rock. Edith crouched behind a
broken pillar twenty feet away; slipped her rifle-barrel over it so
that it would cover the opening.

"The minutes crept by. The darkness lessened and through the breaches
of the terrace I watched the far sky softly lighten. With the first
pale flush the silence of the place intensified. It deepened; became
unbearably--expectant. The moon rose, showed the quarter, the half,
then swam up into full sight like a great bubble.

"Its rays fell upon the wall before me and suddenly upon the
convexities I have described seven little circles of light sprang out.
They gleamed, glimmered, grew brighter--shone. The gigantic slab
before me glowed with them, silver wavelets of phosphorescence pulsed
over its surface and then--it turned as though on a pivot, sighing
softly as it moved!

"With a word to Edith I flung myself through the opening. A tunnel
stretched before me. It glowed with the same faint silvery radiance.
Down it I raced. The passage turned abruptly, passed parallel to the
walls of the outer courtyard and then once more led downward.

"The passage ended. Before me was a high vaulted arch. It seemed to