"Apparently?" The question shot out like steel. "There was someone there?"
"Yes. We both realized at the same moment that we were not alone. You must understand that the place is half in ruins--it's a clever subterfuge of the priests to keep out intruders by pretending there is nothing there of interest. Most people turn back after a perfunctory look round; but in reality if one penetrates through one or two passages one comes to the Temple proper, where Heaven knows what rites go on."
"You reached it?"
"Yes. Thinking the place was merely a ruin I went on quite comfortably ... and suddenly we found ourselves in a sort of Holy of Holies ... a queer, pillared place with an enormous idol in a kind of recess--an altar, I suppose." His voice was tense. "It was at that moment we both realized someone was watching us, malignantly, from some unseen vantage-point. I turned to Miss Ryder to suggest, as quietly as possible, that we should retrace our steps, and found her, very pale, staring ahead of her with horror in her face."
"She had seen--something?"
"Yes. Afterwards she told me it was the glitter of the man's eyes ... he was looking through a kind of hole in the embroidered drapery behind the idol ... that had attracted her attention; and she was only too ready to fall in with my suggestion."
"You were--prevented?"
"Yes. As we turned towards the opening we found we were too late. Three tall fellows--priests, I suppose they were--had come up behind us, and as we moved they seized us ... two men held my arms--the third----" His voice broke.
"He--held Miss Ryder?"
"Yes. He wasn't rough with her." The words, which happened to be untrue, sounded painfully inadequate in his own ears. "They gave us no time to explain anything, but took us before the Chief Priest, or someone of the kind, and stated that we had been found desecrating the Temple by our unhallowed presence."
"You explained that you had done it in ignorance?"
"Of course. But"--he smiled rather cynically--"they had evidently heard that before. You know the Americans who got into trouble there had really laid a plot to carry away some memento of their visit, and they thought we were after loot of some kind, too, I suppose."
"They wouldn't listen?"
"Oh, yes, they listened all right while I tried, with Miss Ryder's help, to explain. She knew a few words of their tongue, and somehow a situation of that sort sharpens one's wits to the extent of helping one to understand a strange lingo. The upshot was we were blindfolded"--he saw Cheniston wince at the thought of the indignity to the girl he had loved--"and led away. Later we were placed in a conveyance of some sort, a bullock cart, I imagine, and driven for hours over some of the worst ground I've ever struck."