well-oiled
hinges.
  De  Richleau  blew  out  his  match  and  produced  the  small
automatic which he had taken from the banker. 'I will go first,'
he  said, 'and you, Rex, follow me. Richard, you have the  other
gun  so  you had better come last. You can look after Marie  Lou
and  protect our rear. No noise now, because if we're lucky  our
man is here.'
  Feeling  about with his foot he ascertained that a  flight  of
stairs  led  downwards. His shoes made  no  noise,  and  it  was
evident .that they were covered with a thick carpet. Swiftly but
cautiously  he  began to descend the flight and the  others  fol
lowed him down into the pitchy darkness.
  At  the  bottom of the stairs they groped their  way  along  a
tunnel  until  the  Duke  was brought up  sharply  by  a  wooden
partition at which it seemed to end. He fumbled for the  handle,
thinking  that  it  was a door. The sides  were  as  smooth  and
polished as the centre, yet it moved gently under his touch, and
after  a  moment  he found it to be a sliding  panel.  With  the
faintest click of ball bearings it slid back on its runners.
  Straining their eyes they peered into the great apartment upon
which  it opened. A hundred feet long at least and thirty  wide,
it stretched out before them. Two lines of thick pillars, acting
as  supporters to the roof above, and rows of chairs divided  in
the centre by an aisle which led up to a distant altar, gave  it
the  appearance  of  a big private chapel. It  was  lit  by  one
solitary  lamp which hung suspended before the altar,  and  that
distant  beacon did not penetrate to the shadows in  which  they
stood.
  On  tiptoe  and  with their weapons ready they  moved  forward
along  the  wail. De Richleau peered from side  to  side  as  he
advanced, his pistol levelled. Rex crept along beside  him,  the
iron  winch  lever  which they had used  to  smash  the  padlock
gripped tight in his big fist. At any moment they expected their
presence to be discovered.
  As  they  crept nearer to the hanging lamp, they saw that  the
place had been furnished with the utmost luxury and elegance for
those  unholy  meetings.  It was, indeed,  a  superbly  equipped
temple for the worship of the Devil. Above the altar a great and
horrible  representation of the Goat of Mendes,  worked  in  the
loveliest coloured silks, leered down at them; its eyes were two
red  stones which had been inset in the tapestry. They flickered
with dull malevolence in the dim light of the solitary lamp.
  On  the  side  walls were pictures of men,  women  and  beasts
practising obscenities only possible of conception in the  brain
of  a rnad artist. Below the enormous central figure, which  had
hideous,  distorted,  human faces protruding  from  its  elbows,
knees  and  belly,  was a great altar of glistening  red  stone,
worked  and  inlaid with other coloured metals  in  the  Italian
fashion. Upon it reposed the ancient 'devil's bibles' containing
all liturgies of hell; broken crucifixes and desecrated chalices
stolen  from churches and profaned here at the meetings  of  the
Satanists.
  Luxurious  armchairs upholstered in red velvet and  gold  with
eleborate canopies of Jace above, such as High Prelates  use  in
cathedrals  when assisting at important ceremonies, flanked  the
altar on either side. Below the steps to the short chancel, on a
level  with  where they stood, were arranged rows  and  rows  of
cushioned prie-dieux for the accommodation of the worshippers.
  No  sound  or  movement disturbed the stillness of  the  heavy
incense  laden air and with a sinking of the heart  De  Richleau
knew  that they had lost their man. He had gambled blindly  upon
Tanith's  message and she had proved wrong as  to  time.  Mocata
might  not be in Paris for days to come; perhaps he had  divined
their  journey  and, knowing that he would be  unmolested  while
they were abroad, returned to Simon's house where, even now,  he
might  be  foully murdering poor little Fleur.  It  seemed  that
their last hope had gone.
  Then  as they stepped from the side aisle they suddenly saw  a
thing  that  had  been hidden from them by  the  rows  of  chair
backs-a  body,  clad  in  a long white robe  with  mystic  signs
embroidered  on  it  in  black and red, lay  spreadeagled,  face
downwards on the floor, at the bottom of the chancel steps,
  'It's Simon!' breathed the Duke.
  'Oh,  hell,  they've killed him!' Rex ran  forward  and  knelt
beside  the body of their friend. They turned him over and  felt
his  heart.  It  was beating slowly but rhythmically.  The  Duke
pulled  out  of  his waistcoat pocket a little  bottle,  without
which  he never travelled, and held it beneath Simon's nose.  He
shuddered suddenly and his eyes opened, staring up at them.
  'Simon, darling, Simon. It's us-we're here.' Marie Lou grasped
his limp hands between her own.
  He  shuddered  again  and struggled into a  sitting  position.
'What-what's happened?' he murmured, but his voice was normal.
  'You  left  us, you dear, pig-headed ass!' exclaimed  Richard.
'Gave  yourself up and ruined our whole plan of campaign. What's
happened to you! That's what we want to know.'
  'Well,  I met him.' Simon gave the ghost of a smile.  'And  he
took  me to Paris in his plane. Then to some place down  on  the
riverside.' He gazed round and added quickly: 'But this  is  it.
How did you get here?'
  'Never  mind  that,'  De Richleau urged him.  'Have  you  seen
Fleur?'
  'Yes.  He sent a car for me, and when I reached the plane  she
was already in it. We had an argument and he swore he'd keep his
word unless I went through with this.'
  The ritual to Saturn?' asked De Richleau.
  'Um.  He  said that if I'd do it without making any fuss  he'd
let me take Fleur out of here immediately afterwards and back to
England.'
  'He's  double-crossed  you,  as we  thought  he.  would,'  Rex
grunted. 'There's not a soul in this place. He's quit, and taken
Fleur  with  him. Can't you say where he'll be  likely  to  make
for?'
  'Ner.'  Simon  shook his head. 'Directly  we  started  on  the
ritual  he put me under. I let him, but of course he would  have
done  that anyway. The last I saw of Fleur' she was sound asleep
in  that armchair and the next thing I knew you were all staring
down at me just now.'
  'If  you  completed  the ritual, Mocata knows  now  where  the
Talisman is,' De Richleau said abruptly.
  'Yes,' Simon nodded.
  'Then he will have gone to wherever it is-from here.'
  'Of  course,'  Richard cut in. 'That's his main objective.  He
wouldn't lose a second.'
  Then Simon must know the place to which he's gone.'
  'How's  that? I don't quite get you.' Rex looked at  the  Duke
with a puzzled frown.
  'In  his subconscious, I mean. Our only hope now is for me  to
put  Simon  under again and make him repeat every word  that  he
said when the ritual was performed. That will give us the hiding-
place of the Talisman and the place to which I'll stake my  life
Mocata is heading at the present moment. Are you game, Simon?'
  'Yes, of course. You know that I would do anything to help.'
  'Right.'  The Duke took him by the arm and pushed him  gently.
'Sit  down in that chair to the right of the altar and we'll  go
ahead.'
  Simon  settled  himself  and leaned back  on  the  comfortable
cushions, his white robe with its esoteric designs in black  and
red settling about his feet like the long skirts of a woman.  De
Richleau made a few swift passes. 'Sleep, Simon,' he commanded.
  Simon's  eyelids trembled and closed. After a moment he  began
to  breathe deeply and regularly. The Duke went on: 'You are  in
this temple with Mocata. The ritual to Saturn is about to begin.
Repeat the words that he made you speak then.'
  Dreamily but easily, Simon spoke the words of power which were
utterly meaningless to Richard, -Rex and Marie Lou, who stood, a
tensely anxious audience, at the bottom of the chancel steps.
  'On,'  commanded  De Richleau. 'Jump a quarter  of  an  hour.'
Simon  spoke  again,  more  sentences  incomprehensible  to  the
uninitiate.
  'On again,' commanded De Richleau. 'Another quarter of an hour
has passed.'
  '--was  built above the place where the Talisman  is  buried,'
said  Simon.  'It will be found in the earth beneath  the  right
hand stone of the altar.'
  'Go  back  one minute,' ordered De Richleau, and  Simon  spoke
once more.
  '--Attila's death the Greek secreted it and took it to his own
country.  In  the  city of Yanina, upon his  return,  he  became
possessed of devils and was handed over to the brethren  at  the
monastery  above  Metsovo, which stands in the mountains  twenty
miles  east  of  the city. They failed to cast out  the  spirits
which inhabited his body and so imprisoned him in an underground
cell  and  there, before he died, he buried the Talisman.  Seven
years later the dungeons were demolished and the crypt built  in
their  place on the same site, with the great church  above  it.
The  Talisman remained undisturbed in its original hiding place.
Its  power  gradually  pervaded the whole  of  the  Brotherhood,
filling it with lechery and greed, so that it disintegrated  and
was  finally  disbanded before the invasion by the  Turks-.  The
chapel to the left in the crypt was built above the place  where
the Talisman is buried.'
  'Stop,' ordered the Duke. 'Awake now.'
  'By  Jove,  we've got it!' exclaimed Rex. But as  he  spoke  a
slight noise behind them made him swing upon his heel.
  Four  figures stood there in the shadows. The tallest suddenly
stepped forward.
  Richard's  hand  leapt to his gun but the  tall  man  snapped:
'Stand still, man vieux, I have you covered,' and they saw  that
he held an automatic.
  The   other  two  strangers  came  forward.  The  fourth   was
Castelnau.
  The  leader of the party turned to a little old man, who stood
beside  him  wearing an out-of-date bowler hat that came  almost
down to his ears, then nodded towards the Duke.
  'Is that De Richleau, Verrier? You should be able to recognise
him, since he was in your time.'
  'Oui  monsieur,'  declared the little old man.  'That  is  the
famous  Royalist who caused us so much trouble when I was young.
I would know his face again anywhere.'
  'Son!  All this is very interesting.' The tall, hard-eyed  man
glanced  from  the  obscene pictures on the  walls  to  the  mag
nificent  appurtenances of Satanic worship upon the  altar,  and
went  on in a silky tone: 'I have had an idea for some time that
a  secret society has been practising devil worship in Paris and
is responsible for certain disappearances, but I could never lay
my hands on them before. Now I have got five of you red-handed.'
  He  paused for a moment then gave a jerky little bow.  'Madame
et  Messieurs, permit me to introduce myself. I am le Chef de la
Surete, Daudet. Monsieur le Due, I arrest you as an enemy of the
Government  upon the old charge. The rest of you  I  shall  hold
with  him, as persons suspected of kidnapping and the murder  of
young children at the practice of infamous rites.'


                               32

                     The Gateway of the Pit

  For  ten  seconds the friends stood there staring  at  the  de
tective.  Castelnau's presence gave them the key to this  grotes
que  but  highly dangerous situation. Mocata must have left  the
warehouse  at  almost the same time they had left  the  banker's
apartment. Perhaps their taxis had even passed within a few feet
of  each other, racing in opposite directions. Tanith had proved
right after all when she had told them that she could see Mocata
talking with Castelnau that night in his flat.
  Mocata  had found the banker there, released and revived  him,
and then listened to his story; realising at once that, since it
was  possible for De Richleau to hypnotise Castelnau against his
will,  it  would be easy for him to do the same to Simon,  learn
the hiding place of the Talisman, and follow him to it.
  Now  that they had discovered the secret Satanic temple  which
was his headquarters in Paris, the place would be useless to him
and  only  a  source of danger. Unmentionable  crimes  had  been
committed there, and it would be far too great a risk  for  him,
ever  to visit it again. Then the brilliant decision that, since
the  place  had  to be abandoned, he could at least  use  it  to
destroy his enemies.
  The  whole thing flashed through De Richleau's brain in  those
few  seconds. Mocata's first idea that, if only he could get the
police  to  the  warehouse before they left it,  he  would  have
involved them in all the crimes associated with such a place and
thrown  them  off his trail for good. Next, the vital  question,
how  to get the police there in time. Would they act at once  if
Castelnau were sent to tell them a tale about Satanic orgies  or
only  laugh  at him? What practical crime could his  enemies  be
charged  with? Then the perfect inspiration. If the  authorities
were  told that De Richleau, the Royalist exile, was a party  to
the business they would not lose a second, but seize on it as  a
heaven-sent opportunity to throw discredit upon their  political
opponents.  What a magnificent scandal for the Government  Press
to    handle.   'Secret   Royalist   Society   practises   Black
Art'-'Satanic  Temple  raided  at  Asnieres'-  'Notorious  exile
arrested while performing Blasphemous Rites.' The Duke could see
the scurrilous headlines and hear the newsboy's cry.
  And the trick had worked. They had actually been discovered in
that  house  of  hell with Simon in the tell-tale robes,  seated
before  the  altar, while he performed what must certainly  have
appeared to the police as some evil ceremony and the other three
had stood there, forming a small congregation.
  How could they possibly hope to persuade the tall, suspicious-
eyed  Monsier  le  Chef de la Surete Daudet of their  innocence,
much  less get him to agree to their immediate release? Yet,  as
they  stood there, Mocata was on his way to the place  where  he
kept  his special plane, if not already aboard it. Night  flying
would  have  no terrors for him who, if he wished, could  invoke
the elements to his aid. Fleur would be with him and he meant to
murder  her  as certainly as they stood there. His determination
to  secure the return of Tanith made the sacrifice of a baptised
child imperative, and before another twenty-four hours had  gone
he  would be in possession of the Talisman of Set, bringing upon
the   world  God  alone  knew  what  horrors  of  war,   famine,
disablement and death.
  De  Richleau knew that there was only one thing for it-even if
he  was shot down there and then-he sprang like a panther at the
Chef de la Surete's throat.
  The  detective  fired from his hip. Flame  stabbed  the  semi-
darkness  of  the vault. The crash hit their eardrums  like  the
explosion of a slab of gelignite. The bullet seared through  the
Duke's  left arm, but his attack hurled the Police-Chief to  the
ground.
  Simon  and Marie Lou flung themselves simultaneously upon  the
old detective Verrier. The thoughts which had passed through  De
Richleau's  mind  in  those breathless seconds  had  also  raced
through hers. If they submitted to arrest their last hope  would
be gone of saving her beloved Fleur.
  Richard  had  no  chance to pull his gun. The  third  man  had
grabbed him round the body but Rex rapped the policeman  on  the
back  of the head with his iron bar. The man grunted and toppled
on the the chancel steps.
  Rex  leapt  over the body straight for Castelnau. Quick  as  a
flash,  the  banker turned and ran, his long legs flicking  past
each  other  as he bounded down the empty aisle, but Rex's  legs
were even longer. He caught the Satanist at the entrance of  the
passage and grabbed him by the back of the neck. Castelnau  tore
himself away and stood panting for a second, half crouching with
bared teeth, his back against the wall. Then for the second time
that night Rex's leg-of-mutton fist took him on the chin and  he
slid to the ground like a pole-axed ox.
  De Richleau, his wounded arm hanging limp and useless, writhed
beneath the Chef de la Surete who had one hand on his throat and
with the other was groping for his fallen gun.
  His  fingers  closed upon it. He jerked it  up  and  fired  at
Richard,  who was dashing to De Richleau's help. The  shot  went
thudding  into  the belly of the Satanic Goat above  the  altar.
Next  second  the heavy prie-dieu which Richard had swung  aloft
came crashing down upon the Police-Chief's head.
  Rex  only paused to see that the banker was completely knocked
out, then rushed back to the struggling mass of bodies below the
altar steps.
  Simon  and Marie Lou had managed the little man between  them.
Almost insane with worry for her child, her thumb nails were dug
into  his  neck  and, while he screeched with  pain,  Simon  was
lashing his hands behind his back.
  Richard  was pulling the Duke out from beneath the unconscious
Chef  de  la  Surete's  body. Rex lent a ready  hand  and  then,
panting  with their exertions, they surveyed the scene of  their
short but desperate encounter.
  'Holy smoke! That's done me a whole heap of good,' Rex grinned
at Richard. 'I'm almost feeling like my normal self again.'
  'The  odds  were  with us but we owe our escape  to  Greyeyes'
pluck.'  Richard  looked swiftly at the Duke.  'Let's  see  that
wound,  old  chap.  I hope to God the bullet  didn't  smash  the
bone.'
  'I  don't  think  so-grazed it though, and the muscle's  badly
torn.'  De  Richleau closed his eyes and his face twisted  at  a
stab of pain as they lifted his arm to cut the coat sleeve away.
  'I  know  what  you  must be feeling,' Simon sympathised.  Til
never  forget  the  pain of the wound I got that  night  we  dis
covered the secret of the Forbidden Territory.'
  'Don't fuss round me,' muttered the Duke, 'but get that damned
priest's  robe off. If these people don't return to  the  Surete
more police will come to look for them. We've got to get out  of
here-quick.'
  In  frantic  haste Marie Lou bandaged the wound while  Richard
made  a sling and the other two wrenched off the clothes of  the
detective  that Rex had knocked out. Simon scrambled  into  them
and,  as  he  snatched up the man's overcoat,  the  others  were
already hurrying towards the entrance to the passage at the  far
end'of the temple.
  Richard  rushed  Marie Lou along the dark  corridor  and  they
tumbled up the flight of steps. Everything seemed to fade  again
after those awful moments when they had been so near arrest. She
felt  the  cold air of the wharf-side damp upon her  cheeks-they
were  running  down the narrow passage between  the  high  brick
walls-back  in the gloomy square where the old woman  still  sat
crouched upon the steps near the squalid cafe. Rex had taken her
other  arm  and,  her feet treading the pavements automatically,
they  were hastening through endless, sordid, fog-bound streets.
They  crossed the bridge over the Seine and, at last, under  the
railway  arches at Courcel-les, found a taxi. When next she  was
conscious of her surroundings they were in a little room at  the
airport and the four men were poring over maps. Snatches of  the
conversation came to her vaguely.
  Twelve  hundred miles-more. Northern Greece. You cannot  cross
the  Alps-make  for Vienna, then south to Trieste-  no,  Vienna-
Agram-Fiume. From Agram we can fly down the valley of the  River
Save;  otherwise  we should have to cross the Dolomites.  That's
right!  Then  follow  the coastline of  the  Adriatic  for  five
hundred  miles south-east to Corfu. Yanina is about fifty  miles
inland  from  there.  You can follow the  course  of  the  river
Kalamans  through  the mountains-Shall we be  able  to  land  at
Yanina, though-yes, look, the map shows that it's on a big lake.
The  circuit  of the shore must be fifteen miles  at  least.  It
can't all be precipitous-certain to be sandy stretches along  it
somewhere-how  far do you make it to Metsovo from  there?-twenty
miles  as the crow flies. That means thirty at least in  such  a
mountainous  district. The monastery is a few miles  beyond,  on
Mount Peristeri-pretty useful mountain-look. The map gives it as
seven  thousand five hundred feet-we must abandon the  plane  at
Yanina.  If  we're lucky we'll get a car as far  as  Metsova-God
knows  what the roads will be like-after that we'll have to  use
horses  in  any case. How soon do you reckon you  can  make  it,
Richard?'
  'Fourteen  hundred  miles. We should be in Vienna  by  midday.
Fiume,  say,  half-past two. I ought to  make  Vanina  by  eight
o'clock  with Rex taking turn and turn about flying  the  plane.
After that it depends on what fresh transport we can get.'
  Next,  they  were in the plane again-lifting out of  fog-bound
Paris to a marvellous dawn, which gilded the edges of the clouds
and streaked the sky with rose and purple and lemon.
  Richard  was flying the plane in a kind of trance,  yet  never
for a moment losing sight of important landmarks or the dials by
which he adjusted his controls. The others slept.
  When  Marie Lou roused, the plane was at rest near a long line
of  hangars dimly glimpsed through another ghostly fog.  Someone
said  'Stuttgart' and then she saw Simon standing on the  ground
below her, conversing in German with an airport official.
  'A  big,  grey,  private plane,' he was saying urgently.  'The
pilot  is  a  short, square-shouldered fellow; the passengers  a
big, fat, baldheaded man and a little girl.'
  Marie  Lou  leaned forward eagerly but she did not  catch  the
airport man's reply. A moment later Simon was climbing into  the
plane and saying to the Duke:
  'He must be taking the same route, but he's an hour and a half
ahead  of  us. I expect he had his own car in Paris. That  would
have  saved  him  time while we were hunting for  that  wretched
taxi.'
  Rex  had taken over the controls and they were in the air once
more.  Richard was sitting next to Marie Lou, sound asleep.  For
an  endless time they seemed to soar through a cloudless sky  of
pale,  translucent blue. She, too, must have dropped off  again,
for sl.e was not conscious of their landing at Vienna, only when
she woke in the early afternoon that the pilots had changed over
and Richard was back at the controls.
  'Yet, in some curious way, although she had not actually  been
aware  of  their  landing, fragments of their conversation  must
have  penetrated her sleep at the time. She knew that there  had
also  been  fog at Vienna, and that Mocata had left the  airport
there  only  an hour before them, so in the journey  from  Paris
they had managed to gain half an hour on him.
  The  engine  droned  on, its deep note soothing  their  frayed
nerves. Richard hardly knew that he was flying, although he used
all  the  skill at his command. It seemed as though  some  other
force  was  driving the aeroplane on and that  he  was  standing
outside it as a spectator. All his faculties were numbed and his
anxiety  for  Fleur deadened by an intense absorption  with  the
question of speed-speed-speed.
  At  Fiume  there was no trace of fog. Glorious sunshine,  warm
and  lifegiving,  flooded  the  aerodrome,  making  the  hangars
shimmer in the distance. The Duke crawled out from the couch  of
rugs and cushions that had been made up in the back of the cabin
to  accommodate  a fifth passenger, and chosen by  him  as  more
comfortable  for  his  wounded arm. He questioned  the  landing-
ground officials in fluent Italian, but without success.
  'From  Vienna Mocata must have taken another route,'  he  told
Richard  as  he  climbed back. 'Perhaps a  short  cut  over  the
Dinarie Alps or by way of Sarajevo. If so he will have more than
made  up his half hour lead again. I feared as much when  I  saw
that  there was no fog here. I can't explain it but  I  have  an
idea  that he is able to surround us with it, yet only  when  we
follow him to places where he has been quite recently himself.'
  Rex  took over for the long lap down the Dalmatian coast above
the  countless islands that fringe the Yugoslavian mainland  and
lay beneath them in the sparkling Adriatic Sea.
  They  slept again, all except Rex who, a crack pilot, was  now
handling the machine with superb skill.
  As  he  flew  the plane half his thoughts were  centred  about
Tanith.  He  could see her there, lying cold and  dead,  in  the
library a thousand miles away at Cardinals Folly. That dream  of
happiness had been so brief. Never again would he see the sudden
smile  break  out  like sunshine rising over mountains  on  that
beautiful,  calm  face. Never again hear  the  husky,  melodious
voice  whispering terms of endearment. Never again -never again!
But he was on the trail of her murderer and if he died for it he
meant to make that inhuman monster pay.
  The  Adriatic  merged Into the Ionian Sea. The endless  rugged
coastline  rushed past below them on their left;  its  mountains
rising  steeply  to  the  interior of  Albania,  and  its  vales
breaking them here and there to run down to little white fishing
villages on the seashore. Villages that in Roman times had  been
great centres of population through the constant passage of  mer
chandise, soldiers, scholars, travellers between Brindisi,  upon
the heel of Italy, and the Peninsula of Greece.
  Then they were over Corfu. Banking steeply, he headed for  the
mainland  and picked up the northern mouth of the River Kalamas.
The  deep  blue  of  the sea flecked by its  tiny  white  crests
vanished  behind  them. Twisting and turning,  the  plane  drove
upwards  above  desolate valleys where  the  river  trickled,  a
streak of silver in the evening light. The sun sank behind  them
into  the  distant sea. They were heading for the huge chain  of
mountains, which forms the backbone of Greece.
  A  mist was rising which obscured the long, empty patches  and
rare cultivated fields below. The Sight faded, its last rays lit
a great distant snow-capped crest which crowned the watershed.
  A  lake  lay below them, placid and calm in the evening  light
but glimpsed only through the banks of fog. At its south-western
end  the white buildings of a town were vaguely discernible  now
and  then  as Rex circled slowly, searching for a landing-place.
Suddenly, through a gap in the billowing whitish-grey,  his  eye
caught a big plane standing in a level field.
  'That's Mocata's machine,' yelled Simon who was in the cockpit
beside him.
  Rex  banked again and, coming into the wind, brought  them  to
earth  within fifty yards of it. The others roused and scrambled
out.
  The  mist which Rex had first perceived, a quarter of an  hour
before,  from his great altitude, now hemmed them  in  on  every
side.
  A  man  came forward from a low, solitary hangar as the  plane
landed.  De  Richleau saw him, a vague figure, half obscured  by
the  tenuous veils of mist; went over to him and said,  when  he
rejoined them:
  'That  fellow is a French mechanic. He tells me Mocata  landed
only  half an hour ago. He came in from Monastir but had trouble
in  the mountains, which delayed him; nobody but a maniac  or  a
superman would try and get through that way at all. This  fellow
thinks that he cah get us a car; he runs the airport, such as it
is, and we're darned lucky to find any facilities here at all.'
  Richard had just woken from a long sleep. Before he knew  what
was happening he found that they were all packed into an ancient
open Ford with a tattered hood. Simon was on one side of him and
Marie Lou on the other. Rex squatted on the floor of the car  at
their feet and De Richleau was in front beside the driver.
  They  could  not see more than twenty yards ahead.  The  lamps
made little impression upon the gloom before them. The road  was
a  sandy  track,  fringed at the sides  with  coarse  grass  and
boulders. No houses, cottages or white-walled gardens broke  the
monotony  of  the  way  as  they rattled  and  bumped,  mounting
continuously up long, curved gradients.
  De  Richleau peered ahead into the murk. Occasional rifts gave
him glimpses of the rocky mountains round which they climbed or,
upon the other side, a cliff edge falling sheer to a mist-filled
valley.
  He,  too, could only remember episodes from that wild journey;
an  unendurable  weariness had pressed upon him  once  they  had
boarded  the plane and left Paris. Even his powers of  endurance
had  failed at last and he had slept during the greater part  of
their fourteen hundred mile flight. He was still sleepy now  and
only  half  awake as that unknown demon driver, who had  hurried
them  with  few words into the rickety Ford, crouched  over  his
wheel  and  pressed  the car, rocketing  from  hairpin  bend  to
hairpin bend, onwards and upwards.
  The  last  light  had  been shut out by the  lower  ranges  of
mountains  behind  them  as they wound  their  way  through  the
valleys  to  the  greater peaks which, unseen in  the  mist  and
darkness, they knew lay towering to the skies towards the  east.
Deep  ruts in the track, where mountain torrents cut it  in  the
winter  cascading downwards to the lower levels,  made  the  way
hideously uneven. The car jolted and bounded, skidding violently
from  time to time, loose shale and pebbles rocketing  from  its
back tyres as it took the dangerous bends.
  In  the back Richard, Marie Lou and Simon lurched, swayed, and
bumped each other as they crouched in silent misery, their teeth
chattering with the cold of the chill night that was  now  about
them in those lofty regions...
  They  were in a room, a strange, low-ceilinged, eastern  room,
with a great, heavy, wooden door, under which they could see the
fog  wreathing upwards in the light of a solitary oil  lamp  set
upon  a rough-hewn table. Bunches of onions and strips of  dried
meat  hung from the low rafters. The earthen floor of the  place
was  cold  underfoot. On a deep window recess in  a  thick  wall
stood  a  crude earthenware jug, and a platter with  a  loaf  of
coarse bread upon it, which was covered by a bead-edged piece of
muslin.
  Marie Lou roused to find herself drinking coarse, red wine out
of a thick, glass tumbler. She saw Rex sitting on a wooden bench
against the wall, staring before him with unseeing eyes  at  the
grimy window. The others stood talking round the lopsided table.
A  peasant  woman, with a scarf about her head, whose  face  she
could  not see, appeared to be arguing with them. Marie Lou  had
an  idea that it was about money, since De Richleau held a small
pile  of notes in his hand. Then the peasant woman was gone  and
the  others were talking together again. She caught a few  words
here and there,
  'I  thought it was a ruin . . . inhabited still . . . they beg
us not to go there . . . not of an official order or anything to
do with the Greek Church. They look on them as heathens here . .
. associates of Mocata's?-- No, more like a community of outlaws
who  have  taken refuge there under the disguise of a  religious
brotherhood . . . Talisman has affected them, perhaps. Forty  or
fifty  of  them.  The people here shun the  place  even  in  the
daytime, and at night none of them would venture near it at  any
price.  .  . . You managed to get a driver?-- Yes, of  a  kind--
What's wrong with him?-- I don't know. The woman didn't seem  to
trust  him, but I had great difficulty in understanding  her  at
all--  Sort of bad man of the village, eh? . . . Have  to  trust
him if no one else will take us.'
  De  Richleau passed his hand across his eyes. What was it that
they had been talking about? He was so tired, so terribly tired.
There  had been a peasant woman, with whom he had talked of  the
ruined  monastery up in the mountains. She seemed to  be  filled
with  horror of the place and had implored him again  and  again
not  to go. He began to wonder how they had conversed. He  could
make  himself understood in most European languages, but he  had
very  little knowledge of modern Greek; but that did not  matter
they must get on- get on...
  The others were standing round him like a lot of ghosts in the
narrow,  fog-filled  village street.  A  little  hunchback  with
bright,  sharp eyes was peering at him. The fellow wore  a  dark
sombrero,  and  a  black  cloak, covering  his  malformed  body,
dangled to his feet; the light from the semi-circular window  of
the inn was just sufficient to illuminate his face. A great, old-
fashioned  carriage, with two lean, ill-matched horses harnessed
to it, stood waiting.
  They  piled  into  it.  The musty smell  of  the  straw-filled
cushions  came  strongly to their nostrils. The  hunchback  gave
them one curious, cunning look from his bright eyes, and climbed
upon  the box. The lumberiag vehicle began to rock from side  to
side.  The  one-storeyed,  flat-topped  houses  in  the  village
disappeared behind them and were swallowed up in the mist.
  They  forded  a swift but shallow river outside  the  village,
then  the  roadway  gave place to a stony track.  Ghostlike  and
silent,  walls  of  rock loomed up on either  side.  The  horses
ceased  trotting and fell into a steady, laboured walk,  hauling
the  great,  unwieldy barouche from bend to bend  up  the  rock-
strewn way into the fastness of the mountains.
  Simon's  teeth  were chattering. That damp, clinging  greyness
seemed  to enter into his very bones. He tried to remember  what
day  it  was and at what hour they had left Paris. Was  it  last
night or the night before or the night before that? He could not
remember and gave it up.
  The way seemed interminable. No one spoke. The carriage jolted
on,  the  hunchback  crouched upon his  seat,  the  lean  horses
pulling gallantly. The curve of the road ahead was always hidden
from  them and no sooner had they passed it than they lost sight
of the curve behind.
  At  last the carriage halted. The driver climbed down off  his
box  and pointed upwards, as they stumbled out on the track.  De
Richleau  was  thrusting money into his hand. He  and  his  aged
vehicle disappeared in the shadows. Richard looked back to catch
a  last glimpse of it and it suddenly struck him then how  queer
it was that the carriage had no lamps.
  The  rest were pressing on, stumbling and slithering  as  they
followed  the way which had now become no more than  a  footpath
leading upwards between the huge rocks.
  After a little, the gloom seemed to lighten and they perceived
stars  above  their  heads. Then, Founding a rugged  promontory,
they  saw  the age-old monastery standing out against the  night
sky upon the mountain slope above.
  It  was  huge and dark and silent, with steep walls rising  on
two sides from a precipice. A great dome, like an inverted bowl,
rose  in  its centre, but a portion of it had fallen in and  the
jagged edges showed plainly against the deep blue of the starlit
night beyond.
  With  renewed  courage they staggered on  up  the  steep  rise
toward  the great semi-circular arch of the entrance. The  gates
stood open wide, rotted and fallen from their hinges. No sign of
life  greeted  their  appearance  as  they  passed  through  the
spacious courtyard.
  Instinctively  they  made for the main  building  above  which
curved the broken arc of the ruined Byzantine dome. That must be
the Church, and the crypt would lie below it.
  They  crossed the broken pavements of the forecourt, the  Duke
leaning  heavily  on Rex's arm. He nodded towards  a  few  faint
lights  which came from a row of outbuildings. Rex followed  his
glance  in  silence and they hurried on. That was evidently  the
best-preserved  portion of the ruin, in  which  these  so-called
monks  resided. A gross laugh, followed by the sound of smashing
glass and then a hoarse voice cursing, came from that direction,
confirming their thought.
  All  the  way  up  from  the inn half-formed  fears  had  been
troubling  De  Richleau that they might fall foul of  this  ill-
omened  brotherhood.  He assumed them to  be  little  less  than
robbers under a thin disguise, who probably eked out a miserable
existence  by levying toll in corn and oil and goats' milk  upon
the  neighbouring peasantry, but this great pile upon the slopes
of  Mount Peristeri was so much more vast than anything that  he
had  imagined. A matter of fifty men might easily be lost  among
its rambling courts and buildings.
  They  advanced through another great courtyard, surrounded  by
ruined colonnades which were visible only by the faint starlight
from  above. Built by some early Christian saint, when Byzantium
was  still  an Empire and Western Europe labouring  through  the
semi-barbarous  night of the Dark Ages, the colossal  ruin  must
once  have housed thousands of earnest men, all engaged  day  by
day  in pious study, or various active tasks to provide for that
great  community.  Now it was as dead as those  African  temples
which have been overgrown by jungle, only a small fragment of it
occupied by a small band of dissolute uncultured rogues.
  In  wonder  and awe they passed up the broad flight of  steps,
through  the vast portico on which the elaborate carvings,  worn
and disfigured by time, were just discernible, into the body  of
the Church.
  The  starlight, filtering dimly through the great rent in  the
dome a hundred feet above their heads, was barely sufficient  to
light  their way as they scrambled over broken pillars and heaps
of  debris round the walls until they found a low door. From it,
a  flight  of steps led down into the Stygian blackness  of  the
volts below.
  Marie  Lou,  stumbling along half-bemused  between  Simon  and
Richard,  found herself wondering what they could  be  doing  in
this  ancient ruin, then memory flooded back. It was here, below
them, that the Talisman of Set was buried. There had been no fog
in  the  courtyard  outside so they must have got  there  before
Mocata  after all-but where was Fleur? She was going to  die-she
felt that she was dying-but first she must find Fleur.
  The  others  had  halted  and Richard  noticed  then  that  De
Richleau  was  carrying  an  old-fashioned  lantern,  which   he
supposed  he had borrowed at the inn. The Duke lit the stump  of
candle  that was inside it and led the way down those  time-worn
stairs.  The  others,  treading  instinctively  on  tiptoe,  now
followed him into the stale, musty darkness.
  At  the  bottom of the steps they came out into a low, vaulted
crypt which, by the faint light of the lantern, seemed to spread
interminably under the flagstones of the Church;
  De Richleau turned to the east, judging the altar of the crypt
to  be  situated below the one in the Church above, but when  he
had  traversed twenty yards he halted suddenly. A  black,  solid
mass blocked their path in the centre of the vault.
  'Of  course,' Marie Lou heard him murmur. 'I forgot that  this
place  was built such centuries ago. Altars were placed  in  the
centre of churches then. This must be it.'
  'We've beaten him to it, then,' Rex's voice came with a little
note of triumph.
  'Perhaps  he couldn't get anyone to drive him up from  Metsovo
at this hour of night,' Richard suggested. 'Our man was supposed
to  be  mad, or something, and they said that no one else  would
go.'
  'Those  stones are going to take some shifting.' Rex took  the
lantern and bent to examine the black slabs of the solid, oblong
altar,
  'Are  you certain that this is the right one?' Richard  asked.
'My  brain  seems to be going. I can't remember things  properly
any more but I thought when we got the information from Simon in
his trance he said something about a side-chapel in the crypt.'
  No  one answered. While his words were still ringing in  their
ears each one of them suddenly felt that he was being overlooked
from behind.
  Rex  dropped the lantern, De Richleau swung round,  Marie  Lou
gave  a  faint cry. A dull light had appeared only ten paces  in
their  rear.  Leading to it they saw a short  flight  of  steps.
Beyond, a chapel with a smaller altar, from which the right-hand
stone  had  been  wrenched. And there, standing before  it,  was
Mocata.
  With  a  bellow of fury, Rex started forward, but the Satanist
suddenly raised his left hand. In it he held a small black cigar-
shaped  thing, which was slightly curved. About it there  was  a
phosphorescent  glow,  so that, despite the  semi-darkness,  the
very  blackness  of the thing itself stood out clear  and  sharp
against  its surrounding aura of misty light. The rays  from  it
seemed  to  impinge upon then' bodies, instantly checking  their
advance.   They   found  themselves  transfixed-brought   to   a
standstill in a running group-half-way between the central altar
and the chapel steps.
  Without uttering a word, Mocata came down the steps and slowly
walked round them, carrying the thing whic