Dimly he felt the casket shaking beneath him. In some distant corner of his mind he knew that the earthquake shocks had turned. Then he heard with ear-splitting plainness the shrieking discord as the tremor shook the vibrating machine to silence.
The room was quiet; the paralysis left him; and in the instant of his release the clear brain of Garry Connell flashed from chaos to lay before him a full-formed plan.
"Luhra!" he called in the silent room. "Luhra!" But it seemed an age before he heard Horab and his captive returning from the passage. Then the touch of her hand gave him courage to continue.
"Yes?" she whispered; "yes, my dear one?"
He saw the shoulders of the black as he half-raised a spear threateningly toward the girl, then turned to adjust the whirring machine.
"Tell him," shouted Garry, "--tell Horab to shut off that damnable machine!" The shriek of it was rising again to drown his voice. "Tell him his life depends upon it. Tell him to listen to what I say or he will die."
He heard the girl's voice raised in a high-pitched call, and he heard the rasping snarl of Horab in reply. The girl repeated her cry above the echoing clamor of the bell--and the intolerable, rising scream, after a time, was stilled.
Garry experienced one raging moment when he would have given his hope of life for the ability to talk to Horab face to face and in words that could penetrate the black one's brain. But he could not. He must use this girl as an interpreter, and he must give her words to say that would make this ugly beast pause. He must speak as she would speak; put words and sentences into her mouth that would reach the savage superstitions of the other.
He spoke slowly, and stared impressively into the dark, fear-filled eyes in the white face that bent above him. He must make the girl believe.
"Horab works magic," he told her. "Tell Horab that I, too, am a magician--a great magician--a greater one than Horab."
He waited an instant to hear the girl's words and the disdainful laughter from lips in a savage face thrust close to where he lay.
"Horab is truly a magician," said Luhra doubtfully; "he laughs at your magic. Horab's _Tao_ is a strong _Tao_, wicked and powerful."
"His _Tao_?" said Garry, and looked at the girl questioningly. He got the thought in her mind. "Oh, yes--his god, or devil."