“It is the hour of the feeding of the sacred lions which the Fung keep in the pit about the base of the idol,” explained Shadrach.  Then he added, “Unless he should be rescued, I believe that Black Windows will be given to the lions to-night, which is that of full moon and a festival of Harmac, though maybe he will be kept till the next full moon when all the Fung come up to worship.”

This information did not tend to raise anyone’s spirits, although Quick, who always tried to be cheerful, remarked that it was probably false.

The shadows began to gather in the Valley of Harmac, whereby we knew that the sun was setting behind the mountains.  Indeed, had it not been for a clear and curious glow reflected from the eastern sky, the gulf would have plunged us in gloom.  Presently, far away upon a rise of rock which we knew must be the sphinx head of the huge idol, a little figure appeared outlined against the sky, and there began to sing.  The moment that I heard the distant voice I went near to fainting, and indeed should have fallen had not Quick caught me.

“What is it, Adams?” asked Oliver, looking up from where he and Maqueda sat whispering to each other while the fat Joshua glowered at them in the background.  “Has Higgs appeared?”

“No,” I answered, “but, thank God, my son still lives.  That is his voice.  Oh! if you can, save him, too.”

Now there was much suppressed excitement, and some one thrust a pair of field-glasses into my hand, but either they were wrongly set or the state of my nerves would not allow me to see through them.  So Quick took them and reported.

“Tall, slim figure wearing a white robe, but at the distance in this light can’t make out the face.  One might hail him, perhaps, only it would give us away.  Ah! the hymn is done and he’s gone; seemed to jump into a hole in the rock, which shows that he’s all right, anyway, or he couldn’t jump.  So cheer up, Doctor, for you have much to be thankful for.”

“Yes,” I repeated after him, “much to be thankful for, but still I would that I had more after all these years to search.  To think that I should be so close to him and he know nothing of it.”

After the ceasing of the song and the departure of my son, there appeared upon the back of the idol three Fung warriors, fine fellows clad in long robes and armed with spears, and behind them a trumpeter who carried a horn or hollowed elephant’s tusk.  These men marched up and down the length of the platform from the rise of the neck to the root of the tail, apparently to make an inspection.  Having found nothing, for, of course, they could not see us hidden behind the bushes on our little plateau, of which no doubt they did not even know the existence, and much less that it was connected with the mountain plain of Mur, the trumpeter blew a shrill blast upon his horn, and before the echoes of it had died away, vanished with his companions.