THE DEMON GUIDE; OR, THE GNOME OF THE MOUNTAIN.--THE GEOLOGIST'S STORY.
Some twenty years ago, when I was on a scientific tour in the mountains
of Switzerland with a friend of mine, who travelled with the same object
as myself, a strange incident occurred to me, which I have never been
able satisfactorily to explain. We journeyed in each other's company
daily, each carrying with him a geologist's hammer and a light
travelling bag slung round one shoulder, for the purpose of collecting
specimens of various minerals, fossils, etc., that we might find during
our march.
We jogged along merrily enough together, each day bringing home some
rare specimen or other. We were both in full vigour of health, and both
capital climbers. Mountain air and exercise had given us marvellous
appetites, and I never remember being in better spirits in my life. As
we were not pushed for time or money, and were on a scientific
expedition instead of what is called a pleasure trip, it was less our
object to scour large tracts of country than to stroll leisurely through
the district, making observations by the way.
Travelling, therefore, both with the same object, and not obliged to
hurry onward, we had nothing to try our tempers, as ordinary tourists
have, who travel in company and usually fall out with each other by the
way because one with short wind can't keep up with his longer-winded
companion.
Nothing, perhaps, is more trying to the temper than being obliged to
keep pace with a well-trained mountaineer if you yourself happen to be
out of training. To see him striding on ahead with the most perfect ease
and enjoyment, whilst you are toiling and sweating, and puffing and
gasping in the rear, parched with thirst and ready to drop with fatigue;
perhaps knee deep in snow, plunging about like a porpoise, in the
frantic attempt to keep up with your well-trained companion.
Why, the treadmill is a joke to it! How you curse your folly for coming
to visit such barbarous places, and how you internally vow never to
leave home again. How inconsiderate of your companion to leave you so
far behind, as if you did not belong to his party. He seems to ignore
you, and you feel the slight. He ought to keep pace with you, not you
with him, you think.
How you hate him for his rude health and long wind; and should he so far
forget himself as to add insult to injury by bawling after you to "come
on," and not "lag behind;" or call you by some such name as "slow
coach," "stick-in-the-mud," or other choice epithet, oh, then it is not
to be borne. Your ire is raised beyond due bounds. You could stab him
if you only had him near enough, and a weapon handy.
If any of my friends who content themselves with taking their daily walk
of a mile or so on level ground fancy that this is an exaggeration of
the state of a man's feelings when the body is tired out and the nerves
on the stretch, I recommend him to try a trip in some mountainous
district when out of training, and to choose as companion some
well-trained son of the mountains.
As I observed before, gentlemen, my friend and I were not wont to fall
out in this way with one another, and we took our journey very easily,
chipping out a fossil here and a crystal there, conversing the while on
secondary and tertiary formations, volcanic eruptions, alluvial
deposits, debris, quartz, and marl, mica, slate, talc, calc, etc., etc.
Thus we journeyed on together day after day for weeks, until we found
that the face of the country changed suddenly. Two mountain ranges
branched off almost at right angles from one another.
My friend and I resolved to separate, and each to explore in a different
direction, and to meet again in about a fortnight.
We accordingly parted, and I commenced exploring a wild track of
mountainous country alone. Charmed with the wild beauty of the scene, as
well as interested in its geological structure, I suffered my footsteps
to lead me onward until hunger stole upon me. I had eaten nothing since
the morning, and it was now getting late. One day at home without food
is bad enough, but it is not to be compared with a day spent in the
mountains, walking and climbing all the time.
I looked out for a chalet, but there was none visible. Meanwhile it grew
dark, and I found myself benighted. There was not even a shed to rest
under, so I was obliged to repose my weary limbs upon the cold, damp,
rock, with such shelter from the night air as the dark pine trees
afforded.
It was a strange, wild, scene the spot where I encamped. The
spectre-like pines stretched forth their weird branches, drooping with
bearded moss, like phantom Druids invoking a curse over this scene of
desolation. The moon, peeping fitfully through the black clouds, lit up
the glaciers on the mountain opposite. Here and there was a great pine
torn up by the roots, or over-hanging the abyss below. Immense clumps of
rock, grown over with dank moss, were interspersed through the dark pine
forest. A small stream trickled over the large stones, pursuing its
zig-zag course till it reached the valley below.
The howling of the wind and the occasional thunder of the avalanche from
some neighbouring mountain lent a kind of terror to the scene, which I
should have enjoyed, had I been in a more comfortable frame of mind.
But, with the gnawing pains of hunger and the horrible feeling of doubt
as to whether I should ever meet with any traces of civilisation where I
might recruit my wasted energies, the beauty of the spot was shut from
me, and I found it only a cold, damp, disagreeable retreat.
It was yet early in the night when I took up my quarters here, but it
was dark and cloudy, and I put up at this place, despairing of finding a
more hospitable lodging, on account of the darkness, besides which I was
tired out. I had reposed in my uncomfortable quarters for, it might be,
two or three hours, though without sleeping, when the clouds began to
disperse and the sky was calm and serene, the moon bright and clear, so
I thought I would leave my camping place and venture a little further,
in the vague hope of finding some hospitable chalet where I might obtain
fire and food.
I was now considerably rested from my fatigue, but the pangs of hunger
grew ever more intense. I wandered on and on, till the pines grew less
thick, and a wide extended view opened before me, when I fancied that I
descried afar off in the valley a light. My heart began to revive. As I
strode onward I saw below me a small lake, over which frowned dark
toppling crags. The moon shone brightly over all.
Still keeping the distant chalet in sight, I could think of little else
than the meal which would await me on my arrival; but while glancing
casually over the lake illumined by the moonbeams, and the cliff that
overhung it, my eye was suddenly arrested by an object, apparently a
human being, clambering up a height that I should have imagined
inaccessible to any mortal man. It literally overhung the lake.
At first I thought my eyes deceived me, but as I looked I was more and
more convinced that it was a human being performing this feat. I had
heard much of the daring of the Swiss mountaineers, but this beat
anything I ever heard of, for the cliff, besides over-hanging, was
comparatively smooth, being of slate, and there appeared nothing to hold
on by.
"Could it really be a human being?" I asked myself. If so, it was so
hideously misshapen as hardly to deserve the title. In spite of my
hunger, I panted awhile in breathless anxiety to observe the course of
this creature.
"Surely some madman," thought I, "tired of his life."
Every moment I expected to see his foot slip and to hear a splash in the
lake below; but no, the being, whatever it was, crawled steadily upwards
like a huge spider, till it gained the summit of the cliff. I then lost
sight of it. A few steps further on led me to the spot the climber had
reached, when soon among the lengthened shadows of the pines, I descried
a shadow which was not that of a tree.
I approached, and as the moon lit up the object in my path, I beheld a
sight that made my blood freeze to look upon. It was one of those
hideous cretins which inhabit the valleys of all mountainous countries.
I started, and the idiot, who gazed at me vacantly at first, seemed to
have sense enough to be aware of the impression he had made, and to take
a fiendish delight in the effect that he had produced. The aspect of
this being was the most frightful of anything I had ever seen in human
shape. He could not have exceeded four feet in height, but the breadth
of his shoulders was such as to make his figure a complete square. His
neck was short, and his head, which was enormous, was covered over with
scant sandy hair. The complexion was ghastly; the lips thin and livid,
the nose flat and spreading, and the eyes, which were an immense
distance apart, pale green and fishy; the face was round and broad, and
though generally idiotic in expression, was lit up at times with a look
of intelligence, mixed with the most preternatural cunning and
malignity. The muscular development of the upper part of this strange
figure was prodigious, and the arms were so long that the fingers all
but touched the ground, but the legs were extremely short and misshapen,
the feet being monstrous. His back was round as a camel's, and from his
throat down to his waist hung a huge goitre, which gave a still more
disgusting look to his _tout ensemble_; added to this, his ears were
large and shaggy, his fingers short and stunted, the palms of his hands
hard and horny. He was dressed after the usual fashion of the Swiss
peasantry in that part of Switzerland, but his clothes were so patched
and tattered, that the masterpiece was barely discernible.
I gazed for some moments in silent horror at the spectacle before me,
when the monster blocking up my path clapped his hands suddenly on his
thighs, and burst into a loud discordant laugh, exhibiting two rows of
black, uneven teeth. My blood curdled as the echo of those fiendish
tones broke on my ear. I recoiled, but, mastering my fear, I said in his
own native tongue--or, rather, in better German than is spoken among the
peasantry--"Well, my friend, does my appearance amuse you? Are strangers
so rare in your country that they are found worthy of so much notice?"
The idiot gazed at me awhile with vacant stare, then pointed to his
mouth, to signify that he was dumb.
"Poor wretch," I muttered to myself; "and yet he seems to understand a
little."
I thought I would ask him by signs where he lived. I read by his eye,
which suddenly grew intelligent, much to my surprise, that he understood
my question, and he answered by gestures, which seemed to say, "My home
is here, there, and everywhere. On the black mountain top, in the pine
forest, by the still lake--anywhere where there is earth and sky."
"Poor wanderer," thought I; "houseless, like myself, and yet how
infinitely more contented. Who knows but that that stunted form may
contain the soul of a philosopher." "Idiot," I said, with all possible
meekness in my outward bearing, "I am hungry. Can you lead me to a
chalet where I may get food and shelter?"
He nodded his head.
"Bravo!" said I. "Lead on."
The dwarf gave me a peculiar look, which I understood to mean, "What
will you give me if I show you the way?"
"Oh, don't be afraid," said I; "I'll pay you well; only make haste; I'm
starving."
I put my finger in my waistcoat pocket to make him comprehend that I was
willing to reward him, but he glanced contemptuously at my gesture, and,
thrusting his hand into his pocket, he brought out a handful of
good-sized gold nuggets, which he threw towards me with a disdainful
air.
I was amazed, and seeing them glitter in the moonlight, I stopped to
pick them up. At this the creature burst out again into a loud laugh. I
felt somewhat abashed at this reproof of my covetousness from one who
evidently despised filthy lucre himself, but I consoled my conscience
with the thought that I looked upon the nuggets more from a geologist's
point of view than from a miser's.
"Where did he find the gold?" I asked myself. "Could it really be a
great philosopher who stood before me, who despised the yellow metal, or
was it an idiot who did not know the value of it?"
These reflections of mine were silent. Nevertheless, the cripple gave me
to understand with a nod of his head and an unmistakable look in his
eye, that he very well understood what they were worth to such men as
myself; but with another gesture he expressed that for himself he was
above it.
"Indeed," said I, "then what would you of me, if not gold?"
He gave me a malicious smile, and nodded his head slightly, but I
understood not the gesture.
I was impatient, and wanted to put an end to our mummery, so I said,
"Come, lead on; I am hungry. Since you despise gold, I suppose you will
do so much for me as an act of friendship?"
He grinned from ear to ear and nodded.
"It is well," said I, and I followed my guide.
We began slowly to descend the mountain, my guide running nimbly on in
front, then standing still at intervals and beckoning to me. This he
continued to do until we arrived at the foot of the mountain, and I
remember feeling an irresistible and unaccountable impulse to follow my
guide more quickly than before.
As the steel is attracted to the magnet, so I felt irresistibly
attracted towards the monster. It was as if he possessed some strange
magnetic power over me, for whenever he lifted up his finger to beckon
to me I felt it impossible to resist following him.
I thought the feeling might be fancy at first, and I attributed my
quickened pace against my own will to the impetus given by the steep
declivity of the mountain, but afterwards I found that it was exactly
the same on level ground.
We walked on further, till we found ourselves at the foot of a glacier,
where stood the chalet which I sought.
I knocked and entered, and was welcomed by the owner of the hut, a
middle-aged and portly dame with a goitre that hung over her breast, and
some young children with incipient goitres.
I told the hostess that I was a hungry traveller, and asked her to give
me the best that she had in the house.
Whilst waiting for my supper I warmed myself by the fire and scrutinised
the inmates of the cottage. The children seemed very healthy, and not
bad looking, if they had not been all disfigured with the family goitre,
which they all inherited in a greater or less degree. They seemed to be
great friends with my guide, gambolling around him and buffeting him
unmercifully.
At length my supper arrived, consisting of poached eggs, cold sausage
and ham, Swiss cheese, stale bread, and some sort of spirit drunk in the
mountains. Having concluded my repast, I lit a pipe, and, drawing up my
chair to the fire, entered into conversation with mine hostess.
"This is your son, I presume?" asked I of the landlady, pointing to my
guide.
"No, sir," she replied; "he is only a poor cretin that I have taken in
out of charity, as the children are fond of him. They say in these parts
that it is lucky to have an idiot in the house, so, having none in my
family, I took in this poor afflicted being; though, as to being lucky,
all the luck which I've known since----"
The hostess suddenly stopped in her conversation, and her face became
locked and rigid without any apparent reason.
I looked in the direction of the cripple, and observed his glance fixed
on the hostess. It was a glance which nearly took my breath away. No
wonder the landlady paused in her conversation. It was as if he
possessed the gift of the evil eye. The magnetic influence he had over
her completely closed her mouth.
Curious to know whether the landlady was really under a spell, I
resumed.
"And this unfortunate, besides being idiotic, is he also deaf and dumb?"
The landlady seemed to awake suddenly, as from a dream, and replied,
"Alas! yes, sir; no one has ever heard him utter a sound, or even----"
Here she paused again, and again I noticed the creature's glance fixed
upon her.
"It is very strange," I observed, following up the conversation, "for I
myself this evening have discoursed with him by signs, and so far from
being idiotic, I must say that I found him very intelligent."
"Ah, yes, sir," she rejoined; "and if you should want a guide to-morrow,
you could not do better than take him. No one knows the mountains here
better than he."
"Indeed," I replied; "then he cannot be altogether an idiot."
"Well, as to that, sir, I fancy at times he is more knave than fool.
Indeed, I cannot quite make him out. He is an odd being. No one
hereabouts knows who his parents were, or how he came in these parts."
Again the landlady ceased suddenly, as before, and I noticed again that
the creature's eye was fixed upon her.
"What a very mysterious personage," I resumed, affecting not to notice
the magnetic spell the worthy dame appeared to be under. "I am
interested in this odd creature. Tell me more of him."
Mine hostess was unable to reply.
"Why do you pause?" I asked. "Why do you not answer?"
The creature's eye was upon me now, and I experienced a curious
sensation, as if my voice was suddenly taken away from me, that I had no
power to move a limb; in fact, that I was completely in the power of
this horrible imp; but rousing myself, I determined to combat against
this spell, and I succeeded in stammering a few words with the utmost
difficulty. But that fearful eye was again upon me, and my tongue was
completely tied; my limbs grew stiff and paralysed, and so I remained
for some minutes, till the eye was removed.
"What can this strange feeling be which has just come over me?" I asked.
"I never felt so in all my life before."
The cretin's eye vacillated between me and the dame, as if to forbid
further conversation. Feeling tired, and not caring for further
discourse, as well as glad of an excuse to escape from my friend, whose
mysterious power over myself I had already experienced and therefore
could not deny, I thought I would take rest until the morning, so I
asked for a candle, and was shown into a small chamber with a heap of
straw in one corner of it. I partly undressed, and fell asleep.
Thus I reposed till an early hour in the morning, though still dark,
when I was suddenly awakened by a terrific snore. I started up, and
remained in a sitting position. A pause, then again there was a long,
deep-drawn, unmistakable repetition of the same. I fixed my eyes on the
spot whence the sound proceeded, and perceived, as well as the darkness
would permit, a heap upon the floor in the opposite corner of the
apartment.
Who could it be? I was about to strike a light to satisfy my curiosity,
though I had but little doubt it was my friend of the previous evening,
when the sleeper, to my surprise, began talking in his sleep; and my
ill-favoured friend, it seemed, was dumb.
My hand was arrested in the act of striking a light, as the speaker
began talking loud and fast and in a very peculiar strain. I was curious
to hear more of his conversation; accordingly I refrained at present
from striking a light, as the sound might awaken him, and listened
attentively.
I wondered much what could be the subject of the sleeper's dream. I grew
more and more puzzled at his words. It is impossible for me to give you
one hundredth part of his conversation here, even if time permitted;
for his utterance was so rapid that he would have outstripped any
shorthand writer.
Some part of his strange colloquy, however, I have retained, as I
fancied that in it I found reference to myself.
"Fools!" he cried with vehemence; "I tell you the prize is sure. I have
him in my power, he _cannot_ escape me. Ye who prize blood rather than
gold, make ready the chasm to receive him. He is one of those fools who
delight in danger, and he will follow me. What think ye? He seeks chasms
and grottoes for the insane pleasure of burdening himself with the dross
which we beings of a higher order tread under foot. Crystals, fossils,
shining stones, the ore of different metals, especially gold and such
trumpery, are trifles that his mind (if such it may be called) revels
in.
"Do you not believe me, my friends? Ha! ha! I wonder not at your
disbelief; ye whose sublime philosophy is nourished in the peaceful
bowels of the earth, and who are therefore unable to comprehend how
there can exist an order of beings so totally degraded and so
approaching the brute, nay, so far surpassing even the brutes themselves
in the grossness of its appetites, as to yearn for the very stones which
form the pavement and the walls of our subterranean palaces.
"Ye, my friends, who never issue from your cells to visit that outer
world, because, forsooth, your eyesight is not formed by nature to
endure the glare which illumines the surface of this globe, how is it
possible that ye should believe that there exist without intelligences
so stunted and depraved? But I tell you, my brothers in philosophy, that
this fool belongs to a race of maniacs, who have long attempted to
invade our peaceful shores, and even succeeded so far as to penetrate
nearly to the roofs of our dwellings--let us be thankful that their
frames are not suited to endure our genial element below--with much
labour, and for the sole purpose of obtaining metal or some such rubbish
out of which they form----
"Tush! I do but waste time in attempting to enumerate the countless uses
to which these madmen turn our paving stones. When ye are more at
leisure, if ye are content, I will relate to you some of the incredible
absurdities of those insects which crawl upon the outward surface of our
globe.
"At present, my brother gnomes, we have a great work before us; our
wants must be satisfied, and we must adopt the means to satisfy them. We
thirst for blood, and we must have it. This fool loves to feast his eyes
upon gold, and gold he shall see by the stratum. He but barters his
blood for gold, after the fashion of his own vile race. What else can he
expect from us?
"It is not often, my friends, that we have a feast of blood. Only now
and then when some stray traveller falls into a crevice or impudently
approaches too near to the craters of Vesuvius and Etna, till he gets
suffocated by the fumes and falls senseless into our maws.
"Happily for us, we are not so constituted as to need sustenance to the
extent of those gross gormandisers of the upper world who, would you
believe it, my comrades, find it necessary to devour food three or four
times a day.
"Ah! well you may open your august eyes at the mention of a vice so
brutally preposterous. Thus it is to be sons of clay. We, who are more
finely organised beings, of an essence more ethereal, are content to
allow ages to pass before we indulge our appetites with a full meal; yet
we, too, my brethren, need sustenance sometimes.
"Again we are suffering from the pangs of hunger, and we must be
satisfied. Patience, my fellow sages and students of those sublime and
abstruse sciences ignored by the gross intellects of our reptile
neighbours, patience, for to-morrow I bring you a feast of blood. I have
brought you blood before, and I will do so again. It is for this that I
have taken upon me the base form of one of the vilest among their own
vile race.
"My own comely shape by which I am known here below is ill-suited to
brook the atmosphere of the surface world; therefore, partly to excite
compassion, and consequently disarm suspicion, I have adopted a
loathsome disguise, through which even ye, my friends, would fail to
recognise me. At this moment, while I am speaking, the filthy clay that
for your sakes I shall don to-morrow lies in the chamber of the victim.
"I am so far able to free myself from it as to speak with you in the
spirit, but I much fear that the sympathy which to some extent must
exist between my spirit and the fulsome mask that awaits me in the world
above, may so influence the organs of the foul body as to cause it to
correspond audibly to the voice of my spirit, and so alarm the victim in
whose chamber it sleeps, and scare him into flight.
"Therefore my discourse must be brief. There is no time to be lost. At
once ye must commence to stir up the internal fires in this earth's
centre, and cause a powerful earthquake. The external crust which these
mortals inhabit must crack and gape into chasms. I will lead him into
the mountains to-morrow when he will be your prey; till then, farewell."
No sooner had the orator concluded his harangue than I began to feel a
curious sensation. It was as if the floor on which I had been lying were
lifted up under me, and I felt myself rolling from side to side, much in
the same manner as if I were at sea. This motion continued and
increased, and was accompanied by a low rumbling sound. After a time
this grew louder, and I heard an explosion, and then a heavy crash, as
if the mountains were being riven asunder, and were now toppling
headlong into the valleys, sweeping away whole villages with a force
inconceivable.
The whole chalet rocked like an open boat in a storm. I was panic
struck, and trembled in every limb. It was then really true all that I
had seen and heard; it was no disordered dream. The gnomes were really
at work.
Louder and louder grew the rumbling. Crash followed upon crash. All the
inmates of the chalet were aroused, and screams of women and children
resounded from every quarter. I sprang to my feet, hurriedly donned my
coat and boots, and rushed out of the hut, but my fiendish companion was
at my heels.
Upon gaining the outside of the cottage I found the face of the country
much changed. Huge crags had been loosened, and tumbled quite close to
us. Many chalets had been completely crushed under them, and as far as
the eye could see all was one scene of desolation.
The terror and the consternation of my poor hostess was pitiable. She
gathered her children together as a hen gathers her chickens under her
wings, and remained stupefied with despair.
As for myself, having escaped the danger of being crushed alive, my only
thought now was to escape my tormentor in the best way I could. The
earthquake was at an end, so I strode on in the direction I had followed
on the previous day, taking advantage of the momentary absence of the
dwarf, who had entered the hut for some purpose or other, and imagined
for a moment that I should not be overtaken. Alas! vain hope; hardly had
I proceeded for ten minutes, when I heard steps behind me, and lo! there
was the hideous elf running after me on all fours, his physical
conformation rendering this mode of progression the easiest. I started,
and my blood ran cold.
"What do you want?" I asked, angrily, still striding on.
But it was useless. Raising himself on his short legs, he beckoned to
me, and I immediately felt myself spellbound.
"Follow me," he signed with a gesture.
"I do not want a guide," I replied. "I am neither in search of crystals,
fossils, nor of shining stones; no, nor even of gold."
"Never mind," he seemed to say; "come all the same; I will show you what
the earthquake has done."
"I am much obliged to you; but I have seen enough of the earthquake, and
I repeat I do not want a guide."
"I do not want your money; I will follow you for friendship," he
appeared to say.
"Not even for friendship," I said; "I prefer to walk alone."
"What!" he intimated, "when you can get a companion for nothing?"
"Don't you see, my good man," said I, "that your presence is a bore to
me--that I'd rather be alone?"
"Nevertheless, yesterday evening you were glad enough of a guide, and I
asked you for no reward for my trouble," he seemed to say with his eye.
"It is false," I replied; "I did not want a guide. I could have found
the hut myself."
"That is ungrateful," he said, in his dumb manner. "Did you not ask me?"
"If I asked you," I replied, "I did so for the sake of not passing you
without a word; besides, I offered you money, and you refused it. I
won't be under any obligation to you," said I. "Here, take your nuggets;
I want them not," and I threw them at him. "I'll have nothing to do with
one who feigns to be dumb in the daytime, and yet can talk well enough
at night."
The cretin gazed scrutinisingly at me for some time, as much as to say,
"Ha! ha! my friend, you have overheard my discourse. I thought as much,
but no matter; escape me if you can."
He then walked rapidly on in front of me with his short legs, every now
and then beckoning to me with his long arms, and I immediately felt
myself impelled by a power not my own, and found myself forced to follow
the wretch in spite of all my efforts.
"I will not, I will _not_ follow you like a victim to the altar," I
cried, straining every nerve to control myself. "Vile gnome, thou shalt
_not_ feast on _my_ blood!"
The fiend nodded his huge head slowly with a complacent smile, as if to
say, "We shall see, we shall see."
On, and still on, up, further up the mountain, through thick pine
forests and gigantic clumps of rock the demon guide led his unresisting
prey. Breathless, footsore, over the most impassable places the
relentless fiend magnetically dragged me after him; at a rate, too, that
thoroughly surprised me; until, to my horror, I found myself close to a
deep chasm formed in the rock by the late earthquake.
The demon halted, and now speaking for the first time since our walk
together, he asked with a malicious smile if I desired any fossils or
any gold, observing that all sorts of curiosities were to be found down
there. He then made a strange gesture with his hand towards my face, and
I suddenly perceived I was under a spell.
I had no memory of anything that had happened up to that time. I bore no
malice against my guide; on the contrary, he appeared to me my best
friend. He did not even seem any longer ugly in my eyes, and when he
asked me if I would descend into the chasm, I replied cheerfully.
"Yes; but how shall we manage it?"
"I have brought a rope on purpose," said my friend.
"Bravo!" said I.
He then began to unwind a long rope from his waist, and adjusted it
underneath my shoulders.
I then descended gradually, my companion holding the rope and letting it
out by degrees, until I had descended a very considerable distance, when
he fastened the other end to a stump. I then began chipping out various
geological specimens, and experienced an intense delight in my novel
situation.
Soon, however, while busily occupied in extracting a bone of an
ichthyosaurus, I was interrupted by a cry of many voices from below.
"Secure the victim! Down with him, down with him! Our feast of blood is
at hand."
Then followed a hungry roar, as of wild beasts unfed. The charm was
broken in an instant, and I awoke to a sense of my awful position. To
drop my hammer and clamber up the rope as fast as I could was my first
step; but what was my horror, when, on raising my eyes aloft, I descried
the fiend in the act of deliberately cutting the rope. How fortunate I
happened to look upwards just at that moment.
The rope was already half cut through; in another moment I must have
been launched into the abyss, to be devoured by the bloodthirsty
monsters below. There was no time to lose; I was desperate, so thrusting
one foot into a chink in the walls of the chasm, I looked about for
another, then for some projecting stone to grasp hold of, and thus by
slow degrees, at the imminent peril of my life, I climbed up until I
gained the ledge of the chasm.
It was a terrific struggle for life. The rope was of immense length,
and, deep as I had descended, there was yet an immeasurable gulf below
me. The darkness of the chasm prevented the gnome above from seeing his
victim, though I could see him well enough. When he severed the rope he
knew none other than that I had already been precipitated into the maws
of the gnomes below. When, therefore, lacerated and exhausted, I
reappeared at the top, the utmost consternation and chagrin were visible
in the features of the wretch. Too astonished, perhaps, to think of
working another charm upon me, the ogre pounced upon me like a tiger on
his prey, and a terrific tussle ensued--a tussle for life and death.
I soon found I was no match for my misshapen, but powerful, adversary. I
was soon worsted. Every moment I expected to be my last.
"Can the Almighty allow the fiends to triumph over His own?" I asked
myself, in my dying moments.
I offered up a short prayer, and gave myself up for lost. Suddenly a
crash. A huge mass of rock above me had loosened. The demon let go his
hold to save himself, but it was too late.
The deformed body of the cretin lay crushed beneath the weight of the
enormous fragment.
I myself escaped with but a slight graze on the head and shoulder. Had I
been one whit less active, I must have shared the fate of my guide. For
a moment I stood rooted to the spot, stupefied, bewildered; then,
offering up a prayer of thanksgiving for my miraculous salvation, I
departed on my way rejoicing.
The last sounds which rang in my ears were the voices of the hungry
gnomes, calling out, "Give us our victim; we famish."
But I heeded them not, and continued my journey with a buoyant step. I
had a long and tedious walk before me. At sundown, however, I reached
the hotel from which I had started.
My friend, of course, had not arrived, as I had returned before the
time specified. I know not how it was, whether from the effects of
over-fatigue or excessive fright, but I was seized immediately upon my
arrival with a prolonged illness. A leech was sent for, the best that
the mountains could produce, and after feeling my pulse and looking at
my tongue, shook his head gravely. He asked me the symptoms of my case,
and to what I attributed it. I told him the story that I have just
retailed to you, gentlemen; but he only shook his head again, and said
that I was in a high state of fever, that these ravings were but the
offspring of delirium, that I had been deluded by my senses, etc. But I
knew better, for previous to meeting with the monster I had never
enjoyed better health in my life.
* * * * *
Need the reader be told that at the conclusion of this narrative the
professor was greeted with murmurs of applause from his gratified
audience?
"Well, Helen," said our artist, to his fair neighbour, "what do you
think of the professor's story?"
The maiden blushed, and smilingly replied in a low voice, that she liked
it very much, and then added, "And are there really those horrid
what-ye-call-ums that eat up poor gentlemen all alive?"
"So the professor says," replied Mr. Oldstone. "You would not doubt his
word, would you?"
"Oh, no, not for a moment, sir," said the girl; "but how dreadful; I'm
sure I shall dream horribly to-night."
"Oh, no, you won't, my dear," said Mr. Crucible. "Don't be afraid; and,
I say, Miss Helen, don't you think you could tell us a story? I am sure
Mr. Blackdeed, who comes next on the list, will yield his turn to you."
"Oh, certainly," said the tragedian; "only too happy; besides, it is not
every day our club is honoured by a lady."
"There now, lass," said Captain Toughyarn, "if I may be allowed to put
in my marling spike, that's the prettiest little compliment you've
shipped this many a day. Come, sail along. What! afraid to set sail
alongside big ships like ours? Bah! When I was a little craft of your
tonnage I did not want so much towing when asked for a yarn."
"The Captain's nautical language confuses the young lady," observed Mr.
Hardcase.
"Come, don't blush like that, Helen," said Dr. Bleedem, "or I shall
think you've got the scarlet fever, and shall be obliged to bleed you."
"Fairest of thy sex," said little Mr. Jollytoast, going down on one knee
before the maiden and placing his hand on his heart in the manner of a
stage lover, which added to the girl's confusion ten-fold; "say not nay,
prithee, say not nay."
"Come, Jollytoast," said Parnassus, "see you not that she will not be
courted by importunities. Give the muse time for inspiration."
The members desisted from further persecution, and a slight pause
ensued, which was broken by McGuilp, who, squeezing the maiden's hand,
whispered, "For my sake, Helen."
The girl blushed deeper still, looked down, and a subdued sigh might
have been noticed by the observer.
At length she looked up imploringly, and said, "But what story shall I
tell? I know none."
"Oh, nonsense! Come, think," said various members at once.
The girl appeared thoughtful for some moments, then, after giving a
half-bashful smile at our artist, turned towards the company, and said,
"I will tell you one that my grandmother told me when I was a little
thing, if you would care to hear it."
"Too delighted, Helen," said several voices.
The maiden, blushing slightly, and looking down, timidly began her
story.
[Illustration]