There came no answer. I struck the flint I had taken from Poyning, and kindled the big hanging lamp over my head. The flame flickered, then rose steadily, and as the chamber grew brighter a tall form stood out clear between the pillars of the party wall. It was Kalliboas, his great frame quivering, his stern features livid with fury. CHAPTER XIII SUSPENSE For one instant I had a thought of trying to carry it off on an assumption of innocence, but Kalliboas very soon convinced me of the futility of that. 'So,' he hissed, his long arm thrown out towards us, 'it is thus you requite our hospitality, men of the outer world! Thus do you flout the will of our rulers, thinking that by a childish deceit your impious deed shall remain hidden! Blind fools, because you have chosen a time after darkness fell, do you fondly imagine you have not been seen by our eyes from your going to your coming back? Have you not learned that we of the valley see far, needing no light of sun or moon to see by? Have you not understood that the commands of the Nine, who graved upon the stranger's tomb their behest that his body remain inviolate, are commands to be disobeyed only on pain of death--and worse than death? You have understood, strangers, yet you have disobeyed!' The wrath of the old man was so terrible to behold and feel, his words came out in such a scorching torrent, that I literally bowed my head, as if under a sudden tempest. I had no answer to make, no plea, and would have had none even if I hadn't been scared out of my wits by the old man's threats--which I am not ashamed to confess I was. If anything had been lacking to tell me our number was up, the fact that Kalliboas had, for the first time in my knowledge of him, named the Nine Shadows specifically, would have done so: no longer was there need to hide from us the hand of that dread body. We shouldn't live to spread the knowledge. But if I was cowed, Poyning seemed not in the least disposed to be. He rushed up to the old man, his fists clenched, his face pale as death, and for a moment I thought he was going to hurl himself upon him; but he checked, and poured out a torrent of words no whit less furious than those we had just heard. It was the cry of a creature at bay, seeing death ahead but very fully determined to make a fight for it.