CHAPTER IX

Some hours later, Kirby smiled with tight-lipped satisfaction at thought

of that precaution which he had taken. What it was only he, Nini, Ivana,

and three other girls knew, which secrecy pleased him as much as the

precautionary measure itself.

Seated alone in a dimly-lighted, thick-walled cell of the ancient temple

in which the dual ceremony of wedding and coronation would take place,

he was waiting for the moment when the festivities would begin. Thus far

the Duca had done nothing. Yet Kirby's uneasiness would not leave him,

and he continued to be thankful that, if trouble should start, the Duca

might not find as many trumps in his hand as he expected.

A couple of hours after Kirby had left Naida and the other girls in the

garden, all had begun the two-mile journey from the castle to the small

plateau on which stood this temple, where the ceremony would be held.

Now, while Kirby waited alone, the Duca and his caciques had gone to

another wing of the temple. Naida, attended by her bridesmaids, had been

assigned to a cell of their own, and the rest of the girls were waiting

in the nave of the temple. Unable to attend the walk from their plateau

to this, the old people of the race had remained in their crystal

houses.

With ten minutes more to wait, Kirby rose from a bench on which he had

been seated, and began to pace his cell. It was this archaic pile of

stone, he finally decided, which was causing his depression. Unlike the

bright and cheerful castle, this place, older than any other building in

the realm, was squat, thick-walled, and gloomy. Here, in the dusky cells

which lined labyrinthine corridors, the early generations of the race

had found protection from outside dangers. All of which was all right,

Kirby thought, but just the same he wished he had insisted upon being

wedded in the brilliant and cheerful amphitheatre.

* * * * *

But presently he stopped pacing and faced the door of his cell. Then he

breathed a sigh of relief.

From down the twisting corridors which wound out to the central nave,

stole the high sweetness of soprano voices, the whisper of flutes, and

the mellow resonance of little gongs of jade and gold. It was the signal

for which he had waited.

It had been the Duca's instructions that he should come out into the

temple when the music began, and meet Naida there. Both would advance to

the altar, and when they were in place, the Duca would come to them.

Kirby, therefore, after a glance at the blue trousers and tunic of

tanager scarlet which the girls had made for him, opened the door of his

cell, and stepped out.

In a moment he traversed the windings of the corridor, and halted under

a flat arch at one side of the temple nave.

As he paused so, to await the appearance of Naida and her bridesmaids

under a similar arch directly across the temple, he held his breath. Not

even nymphs could be as graceful as were the twenty-six girls who were

performing the dance of Life Immortal, which tradition decreed should be

given before the ceremony by which, in this realm, two souls were

wedded. The flash of rainbow gowns was like the swirling of light in a

sky at dawning. The music of voices, flutes, and the little gongs of

jade, would have stirred the souls of the dead.

If only the confounded sense of approaching disaster would leave him,

Kirby thought grimly, this would be a magnificent moment. As it was, he

turned his eyes away from the girls, and began to examine the temple.

Just as Naida had told him the case would be, he found both sides of the

nave surrounded by arches similar to the one under which he was

standing. Everywhere, dim and tortuous corridors led to cells like the

one he had just left. Then, in one end of the nave, loomed a closed door

from behind which the Duca and caciques would appear when the couple to

be wedded were in place, before the altar.

The altar itself, a rectangular mass of some jadelike stone, stood at a

distance of perhaps twenty paces in front of the closed door. On top of

the greenish stones, resting on a cushion of some crimson material,

flashed the crown which would be used at the coronation. Kirby's eyes

widened as he beheld a single rose-cut diamond two inches in diameter,

mounted in an exquisitely simple bandeau of wrought gold. But, a moment

later, even the crown which would be his--if nothing happened--seemed

only a bauble compared to the other prize which he had won in this world

beneath the world.

Naida!

* * * * *

He realized that the dance was ended, the music stilled, and that the

rainbow garbed girls had formed a double line in the center of the

temple. Suddenly his heart beat fast, and for just a moment, as he dared

look full and deeply at Naida, and she smiled back at him across the

distance, he even forgot to be depressed.

But even as he advanced to meet her, his uneasiness returned.

Now the girls were singing again, their voices raised in a triumphant

chorale as beautiful as Naida's face with its warm red lips and smiling

eyes, as beautiful as her wedding gown that might have been woven, in

its filminess, of mist from the sea. The bridesmaids, silent, their

lovely faces alight, paused. But Naida came on.

From her floated to Kirby a fragrance more overwhelming than even the

perfume of the geyser. Presently he felt her hand on his arm, and at

last they stood side by side. Now again, his premonition of evil left

him for a flash; but again it returned.

"I love you," he whispered.

"I love _you_."

"But I am still afraid."

Naida's smile faded.

"And I too. Oh, I've been terribly afraid! We will keep our guard!"

"Yes."

* * * * *

In front of them, on the altar, the crown diamond winked and shimmered

in a dim light. The swelling chorus of triumph, in which the bridesmaids

had joined now, made the whole temple ring. Slowly, while Naida moved

easily beside him, Kirby began to march to the altar.

Then it was done, and they were halted. After both of them had given a

lingering glance at the crown whose diamond shimmered now within their

reach, they raised their eyes to the closed door behind the altar.

The thing was swinging open. An inch it moved, two inches.

Kirby waited, never taking his eyes away from the widening crack. With a

crashing final volume of sound, the chorus swept magnificently to its

climax. Then the door was flung wide.

Still Kirby stood stiffly before the altar, with Naida drawn up

splendidly beside him. After two seconds, however, he moved.

Duca and caciques were not standing in the corridor.

In the semi-darkness, the only figures visible there were squatting,

grotesque things whose bodies were covered with whitish hair and whose

leathery faces were disfigured by gashes of mouths filled with enormous

teeth.

A feeling of standing face to face with final disaster, turned Kirby

sick. As he jerked back from the altar, sweeping a paralyzed Naida with

him, the ape-men let out gibbering howls, half-human. With gigantic,

hopping strides, the foremost rank of the creatures swung forward,

straight into the temple.