In wonder and awe they passed by 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 vaults 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 allbut where was Fleur. She was going to die she felt that she was dyingbut 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 very centre of the vault.
‘Of course,’ Marie Lou heard him murmur. ‘I forgot that this place was built some 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 ray from it seemed to impinge upon their bodies, instantly checking their advance. They found themselves transfixedbrought to a standstill in a running grouphalfway 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 which they now guessed to be the Talisman aloft in his left hand. A glowing phosphorescent circle appeared on the damp stone flags in his tracks and, as he completed the circuit, they felt their limbs relax.
Again they rushed at him, but were brought up with a jerk. It was impossible to break out of that magic circle in which he had confined them.
With slow steps, the Satanist returned to the chapel and proceeded to light a row of black candles upon the broken altar there. Then, with a little gasp of unutterable fear, Marie Lou saw that Fleur was crouching in a dark corner near the upturned earth from which the Talisman had been recovered.
‘Fleurdarling!’ she cried imploringly, stretching out her arms, but the child did not seem to hear. With round eyes she knelt there near the altar, staring out towards the crypt, but apparently seeing nothing.
Mocata lit some incense in a censer and swung it rhythmically before the broken altar, murmuring strange invocations.
He moved so smoothly and silently that he might have been a phantom but for the lisping intonation of his low musical voice. Then Fleur began to cry, and the sobbing of the child had an unmistakable reality which tore at the very fibre of their hearts. Again and again they tried to break out of the circle, but at last, forced to give up their frantic attempts, they crouched together straining against the invisible barrier, watching with fear-distended eyes as a gradual materialisation began to form in the clouds of incense above the altar stone.
At first it seemed to be the face of Mocata’s black familiar that Rex had seen in Simon’s house, so far away in London and such an endless time before, but it changed and lengthened. A pointed beard appeared on the chin and four great curved horns sprouted from its head. Soon it became definite, clear and solid. That monstrous, shaggy beast that had held court on Salisbury Plain, the veritable Goat of Mendes, glared at them with its red, baleful, slanting eyes, and belched foetid, deathly breaths from its cavernous nostrils.
Mocata raised the Talisman and set it upon the forehead of the Beast, laying it lengthwise upon the flat, bald, bony skull, where it blazed like some magnificent jewel which had a strange black centre. Then he stooped, seized the child and, tearing off her clothes, flung her naked body full length upon the altar beneath the raised fore-hooves of the Goat.
Sick with apprehension and frantic with distress, the prisoners in the circle heard the sorcerer begin to intone the terrible lines of the Black Mass.
Horrified but powerless, they watched the swinging of the censer, the chanting of the blasphemous prayers, and the blessing of the dagger by the Goat, knowing that, at the conclusion of the awful ceremony, the perverted maniac playing the part of the devil’s priest would rip the child open from throat to groin while offering her soul to Hell.
Half crazy with fear, they saw Mocata pick up the knife and raise his arm above the little body, about to strike.
CHAPTER XXXIII
DEATH OF A MAN UNKNOWN, FROM NATURAL CAUSES
Rex stood with the sweat pouring down his face. The muscles of his arms jerked convulsively. His whole will was concentrated in an effort to fling himself forward, up the steps; yet, except for the tremors which ran through his body, the invisible power held him motionless in its grip.
De Richleau prayed. Silent but unceasing, his soundless words vibrated on the ether. He knew the futility of any attempt at physical intervention, and doubted now if his supplications could avail when pitted against such a terrible manifestation of evil as the Goat of Mendes.
Richard crouched near him, his face white and bloodless, his eyes staring. His arms were stretched out, as though to snatch Fleur away or in an appeal for mercy, but he could not move them.
Marie Lou had one hand resting on his shoulder. She was past fear for herself, past all thought of the terrible end which might come to them in a few moments, past even the horror of losing Richard should they all be blotted out in some awful final darkness.