Trapped
For a moment we were like rats newly trapped. All trace of reason
left us in our sudden furious terror; we began to scurry blindly to
and fro, to and fro in the darkness, panic-stricken in our frenzy to
escape. Where we were dashing we did not know, nor whether we might not
be rushing into greater peril still; we collided more than once with
the unseen walls, stumbled over invisible objects on the floor, and
went fumbling about in long loops and circles--but all to no avail.
The marvel is not that we accomplished nothing, but that we did not
break our necks, for so utterly fear-maddened were we that it was
minutes before we had any thought of ceasing our mad perambulations and
considering our predicament calmly and rationally.
If I can judge aright from my confused memories of those terrible
moments, it was the sound of a heavy body falling that shocked me
back to my senses. The fall, which was thudding and resonant, was
accompanied by a suppressed oath, which seemed to issue from far to my
rear, but which none the less sounded familiar.
“Rawson!” I cried, stopping short, and forgetting caution in my alarm.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt,” came the drawled reply, as though from a tremendous
distance. And then, after a groan, “No, I’m all right.”
“Where are you?” I yelled back. “How can I get to you?”
Rawson shouted directions, and I went groping toward him. The process
was by no means easy, for I was guided wholly by the senses of touch
and hearing, and more than once I came into painful contact with some
unforeseen obstacle. But after some minutes I found myself grasping a
solid, yielding mass which I recognized as the arm of my friend.
Rawson was as glad as I of our reunion. Somehow, now that we were
together again, we both felt much stronger and the unknown foe seemed
less redoubtable. Yet that foe seemed terrible enough as we sat there
on the floor conversing in whispers. Although we had regained some
slight composure, the falling of a pin might have sent us off into
convulsions; and our imaginations were busy painting grotesque and
shadowy horrors.
“What can it mean?” murmured Rawson, as he sat with his hand upon my
knee, as though to reassure himself by the mere physical fact of my
presence. “What do you think it can mean?”
I declined to venture any direct reply, although suggestions
sufficiently dreadful were piling up in my brain.
“Remember how Stranahan and the others were lost,” continued Rawson,
solemnly, as if the explanation of their disappearance were now
self-evident.
“I don’t see what that has to do with us,” I argued. And then, with a
forced attempt at bravado, “Don’t worry, Rawson. Chances are everything
will turn out all right.”
“I hope so,” conceded Rawson, in a tone indicating that he rather
wished things would turn out badly. And, by way of fanning my
courage, he entertained me with the most ghastly stories he could
imagine--stories of men trapped in coal mines, men lost in labyrinthine
caves, men entombed in deep pits or immured in lightless dungeons. To
all these tales I listened with growing uneasiness, meanwhile racking
my mind to remember a parallel to our own predicament. But I could
think of nothing that even remotely resembled it; and, having nothing
to say, I answered Rawson only in monosyllables.
Perhaps owing to the terseness of my replies--or perhaps because of the
terror of our plight--his loquacious mood soon deserted him. It was
not long before we had lapsed into silence; and it was minutes before
either of us spoke again. Meantime the darkness was so intense, the
silence so complete and the stillness so absolute that I was persecuted
with all manner of fantastic fears. What unknown horrors were brewing
in these serene depths? What grotesque or malevolent or even murderous
things? In my anxiety, I peopled the gloom with monstrous shapes of
a thousand varieties, with slimy, crawling serpents, with lithe,
crouching panthers, with great apes, whose brawny arms could strangle a
man, and--worst of all--with slinking, barbarous humans that crept up
slyly to seize and stab one in the dark.
By degrees my imaginings were becoming so grewsome that I could
no longer endure them. And, merely to find relief from myself, I
whispered, “Come, Rawson, it’s senseless to sit here doing nothing.
Maybe we can find some exit, if only we look carefully enough. What do
you say? Shall we try anyhow?”
“I say it’s a good idea,” assented Rawson, rising cautiously to his
feet.
Without a word I followed his example, and for the next half hour we
groped laboriously along the walls, which we found to be of an ice-cold
stone, as smooth as polished marble, absolutely perpendicular and
apparently without a flaw or break. Our movements were slow and even
agonizing, for the blackness was still unbroken, and in that hushed,
mysterious place, the slightest sound would send sharp tremors running
down our spines. Even the grating of our own echoes against the floor
seemed to take on a sinister, uncanny meaning; the whispered tones of
our own voices seemed unhallowed and ghostly; while the occasional
rapping of our fists against the walls or our clattering contact with
some unseen obstacle sent the echoes ringing and reverberating with
unearthly, hollow notes until our overwrought nerves quivered at the
rustling of our clothing or at the sound of our own breath.
Possibly two or three times we encircled that great hall--in the
darkness it was impossible to tell where our starting place had
been--but we could find no indication of any passageway or door. And
at length, exhausted by the strain, we crouched on the floor near the
wall and waited miserably for something to happen. Almost anything that
could have happened--no matter how grim and terrible--would have been
a relief; but the quiet was undisturbed, while we sat tense and alert,
with fast-throbbing hearts, and eyes that searched and searched the
gloom in vain. Neither of us spoke now; and the garrulous Rawson seemed
wrapped up in his own dismal thoughts. How long a period passed thus I
cannot say; my watch may have recorded whole hours, but certainly my
thoughts recorded whole years, for I have lived years that knew less of
suspense, uneasiness and dread.
But at last, after endless waiting, relief came with disconcerting
suddenness. As though by the turning of an electric switch, a
dazzlingly brilliant light flashed into view above us--a light that
contrasted strangely with the stars of some hours before, and that
shone blindingly in a pale blue field like the sun in the cloudless
heavens. Then, while we stood shading our eyes from the glaring
illumination, we observed just opposite us, the gate through which we
had doubtless entered. And with surprise we noted that it moved slowly
upon its hinges; that slowly and as if by magic it made clear the way
of escape!
“The place is enchanted!” muttered Rawson, in dazed fascination. “Come,
let’s get out of here!”
But when, overjoyed at our rescue, we started toward the gate, an
unexpected obstacle intruded. Half a dozen of the queerest beings
we had ever seen came crowding into our path--tall, butterfly-like
creatures with faces almost waxen pale and long capes and robes of pink
and blue and lavender and yellow pastel tints. All had long, flowing
light red or golden hair which reached at least to the shoulders; one,
apparently the oldest, wore an ample beard, but the majority were
smooth shaven; none had headgear of any type, and all were shod with
sandals covered with green moss, above which for several inches the
unclothed legs were visible. From the blank, amazed stares with which
they greeted us, it was evident that our appearance was as much a
surprise to them as theirs was to us. But from a certain sternness and
resolution which invested their faces following the first speechless
astonishment, we concluded that they had probably seen others of our
kind, and were not disposed to treat us leniently.
We noted also that, though quivering with dread, they kept the exit
firmly blocked. And in the long, staring silence that ensued, we felt
in dismay that at last we had met the masters of this strange land; and
with sinking hearts we realized that our chances of escape had vanished.
* * * * *
[Illustration: ... We all looked up. The ceiling was bulging inches
downward, as though the terrific pressure of the waters were already
bursting the tough steel envelope of the X-111.]
* * * * *