The
four at the jetan board evidently failed to hear them. One player
had either just made or was contemplating a move, for his fingers
grasped a piece that still rested upon the board. The other three
were watching his move. For an instant Gahan looked at them,
playing jetan there in the dim light of this forgotten and
forbidden chamber, and then a slow smile of understanding lighted
his face.
"Come!" he said to Tara. "We have nothing to fear from these. For
more than five thousand years they have sat thus, a monument to
the handiwork of some ancient taxidermist."
As they approached more closely they saw that the lifelike
figures were coated with dust, but that otherwise the skin was in
as fine a state of preservation as the most recent of I-Gos'
groups, and then they heard the door of the chamber they had
quitted open and knew that the searchers were close upon them.
Across the room they saw the opening of what appeared to be a
corridor and which investigation proved to be a short passageway,
terminating in a chamber in the center of which was an ornate
sleeping dais.
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