There was no night in this terrible underworld; the purple lights never went out; morning and evening were unknown. The place was never plunged into entire darkness—true, the inhabitants went to sleep, but they pleased themselves as to when they slept and for how long. The whole world was never at rest at the same time—truly, indeed, it was an unholy place of unrest! The two men were fast asleep, the purple light shining across their, faces, and Alan moved restlessly, for his dreams were troubled ones. Suddenly the door opened gently and a figure appeared—it was Kaweeka. Softly she crept across their room, and halted by the side of their couches. A fierce light came into her eyes as she watched the rhythmic rise and fall of Alan’s chest as he breathed heavily. She bent over him, kissed his lips, and murmured savagely as she did so— “So desired—so desirable—yet I so undesired!” CHAPTER III RELATING TO HISTORY “How long have we been down here, Lanny?” “Together do you mean?” “Yes.” “Oh months and months—I can’t count time.” “Neither can I. Days pass—we grow tired and we sleep, only to wake to another day like the last, like every day here.” “How far have you got with the translation, Dez?” “Nearly to the end.” “Splendid. What do you make of it?” “Just what we expected—It is a very corrupted version of part of the Pentateuch.” “How much of it?” “Nearly all Genesis—a minute portion of Exodus—and Leviticus.” Alan gave a satisfied sigh. “That’s splendid,” he remarked. Many months had passed since they had made the discovery that the language of the underworld was a patois Hebrew, and quickly and diligently they set to work to learn it. They first spelt the sounds and wrote them down, and then tried to translate them into Hebrew where it was at all possible. Very shortly after the rescue of the high priest’s daughter and only child, as the maid proved to be, a house was placed at the boys’ disposal, and they gladly left the protection of Kaweeka, and lived together with a couple of servants, who looked after them. They were free to go out among the people, and they began to feel almost happy. With the aid of a few words they picked up they asked the high priest for “reading” and he had given them copies of the “Kadetha” which proved to be the Bible of these strange people. It was very difficult to read as it was written on parchment in a purple ink that had faded considerably through time. The characters, too, besides being different from the Hebrew they knew, were written from top to bottom of the page instead of from right to left, as are most Asiatic languages.