THE POOL OF TERRORS
We came soon to another flight of steps made of gigantic blocks of stone
older than history, and groping our way up those we followed the Gray
Mahatma to a gallery at the top, on the other side of which was a sheer
drop and the smell of stagnant water. I could hear something sluggish
that moved in the water, and somewhere in the distance was a turning
around which light found its way so dimly that it hardly looked like
light at all, but more like filmy mist. A heavy monster splashed
somewhere beneath us and the Mahatma raised the lantern to peer into our
faces.
"Those are _muggers_ (alligators). You may see them now if you would
rather. The same as with the snakes, the rule is you must do them no
harm."
He looked at us keenly, as if making sure that we really were not
enjoying ourselves, and then leaned his weight against an iron door in a
corner. It swung open, and we followed him through into a pitch-dark
chamber of some kind. But the door we came in by had hardly slammed
behind us when a bright light broke through a square hole in the ceiling
and displayed a flight of rock-hewn steps. Some one overhead had removed
a stone plug from the hole.
The Mahatma motioned to King to go first, but as King refused he led the
way again, going through the square hole overhead as handily as any
seaman swinging himself into the cross-trees. King followed him and I
stood on the top step with head and shoulders through the opening
surveying the prospect before scrambling up after him.
I was looking between King's legs. The light came from three large
wood-fires placed over at the left end of a rectangular chamber hewn out
of solid rock. The chamber was at least a hundred feet long and thirty
wide; its roof was lost in smoke, but seemed to be irregular, as if the
walls of a natural cavern had been shaped by masons who left the high
roof as they found it.
A very nearly naked man with a long beard, hair over his shoulders, and
the general air of being some one in authority, was walking about with
nothing in his hand except a seven-jointed bamboo cane. He was a very
old man, but of magnificent physique and ribbed up like a race-horse in
training. His principal business seemed to be the supervision of several
absolutely naked individuals, who carried in wood through a dark gap in
the wall and piled it on the three fires at the farther end with almost
ludicrous precision.
And between the three fires, not spitted and not bound but absolutely
motionless, there sat a human being, so dried out that not even that
fierce heat could wring a drop of sweat from him, yet living, for you
could see him breathe and the firelight shone on his living, yet
unwinking eyes. Every draft of air that he drew into his lungs must have
scorched him. Every single hair had disappeared from his body. And while
we watched they came and fed him.
But he was only one of many, all undergoing torture in its most hideous
and useless forms, and all as free as he was to deliver themselves if
they saw fit. The least offensive was a man within six feet of me who
sat on a conical stone no bigger than a cocoanut; that small stone was
resting on top of a cone of rock about a yard high, in such fashion that
it rocked at the slightest change of balance; the man's legs were
crossed, however, exactly as if he were squatting on the floor--although
they actually rested on nothing; and his arms had been crossed behind
his back for so long, and held so steadily, that the fingernails of the
right hand had grown through the left arm biceps, and vice versa. He,
too, was fed with drops of water and about a dozen grains of rice--every
second day, as the Mahatma told us afterward.
Space was at a premium in that gruesome madhouse. Close beside the
fellow on the rocking stone there hung two ropes from rings in the roof.
There were iron hooks on their lower ends, and these were passed through
the back muscles of another naked man, who kept himself swinging by
touching the floor with one toe. The muscles were so drawn by his weight
that they formed loops several inches long and had turned to dry
gristle; the strain had had some effect on one of his legs, for it was
curled up under him and apparently useless, but the other, with which he
toed the floor to swing himself, was apparently all right. His hands
were folded over his breast, and his beard and hair hung like seaweed.
Near him again there was an arrangement like a medieval rack, only that
instead of having a wheel or a lever the cords were drawn by heavy
weights. A man lay on it with arms and legs stretched out toward its
corners so tightly that his body did not touch the underlying strut; and
he had been so long in that position that his hands and feet were dead
from the pressure of the cords, and his limbs were stretched several
inches beyond their normal length. In proof that his torture, too, was
voluntary, he was balancing a round stone on his solar plexus that could
have been much more easily dumped than kept in place.
The priest stared questioningly at the Gray Mahatma, glancing from him
to us and back again.
The Gray Mahatma beckoned King and me and led the way between the
shuddersome, self-immolated, twisted wrecks of humanity to an opening in
the far wall, through which we passed into another chamber carved out of
the rock, not so large as the first and only lighted by a charcoal
brazier that gave off as much fumes as flame. The fitful, bluish light
fell in a stone ledge, in a niche like a sepulcher, carved in one wall,
and on that ledge a man lay who had every muscle of his body pierced
with thorns; his tongue protruded between his teeth, and was held there
by a thorn thrust through it.
The Gray Mahatma stood and looked at him, and smiled.
"Just a presumptuous fool!" he said pleasantly. "This was the most
presumptuous of them all, but they all suffer for the same offense. Take
warning! They could walk away if they cared to. They are here of what
they think is their free will. They are moths who sought the flame, some
from curiosity, some from desire, some craving adoration for themselves,
all for one false reason or another. This fate might be yours--so take
warning!
"There is not one of these who was not warned," he said quietly. "They
were cautioned not to inquire into matters too deep for them. They were
here to be taught; but that little knowledge that is such a dangerous
thing tempted them too swiftly forward beyond their depth, so that
now--you see them. They seek to get rid of material bodies and to
satisfy themselves that death is a delusion. You revolt at the sight of
these self-tortured fools; yet I tell you that, should you commit the
same offense, you would behave as they, even as the moth that goes too
near the flame. Take care lest curiosity overwhelm you."
"All right, lead along," King answered rather testily. "I've seen worse
than this a hundred times. I've seen the women."
The Mahatma nodded gravely.
"But not even I may lead you forward clothed as you are," he said. "I am
about to reveal such mysteries as set presumptuous fools to seeking
perfection by a too short route. Even I would be slain, if I tried to
introduce you in that garb. Undress."
He set us the example; but as we were not qualified by years of
arduously won sanctity to stand stark naked in the presence he conceded
us a clout apiece torn from a filthy length of calico that some one had
tossed in a corner. And he tore another piece of filthy red cotton cloth
in halves, and divided it between us to twist around our heads. King
laughed at me.
"You look like a fine, fat Bengali," he said.
The Mahatma called to one of the servitors to bring ashes in a brass
bowl. We watched him rake them out from under the fires, shake water on
them, and mix them into paste as casually as if the business were part
of his regular routine. The Mahatma took the bowl from him and plastered
King and me liberally with the stuff, making King look like a scabrous
fanatic, and I don't doubt I looked worse, having more acreage of
anatomy. Last of all he put some on himself, but only here and there, as
if his sanctity only demanded a little piercing out. Then he raised a
flagstone in one corner of the chamber that swung easily on pivots set
in sockets in the masonry, and led the way again.
We were evidently in a system of caves that had been quarried into shape
centuries before the Christian era. They seemed originally to have been
bubbles and blow-holes in volcanic rock, and to have been connected
together by piercing the walls between them. There was certainly no
intelligible plan attached to their arrangement, for we went first up,
then down, then sideways, losing all sense of elevation and direction.
But we passed through at least three score of those connected
blow-holes, and the air in some of the higher ones was so foul that
breathing it made you weak at the knees. Nevertheless, in every single
one there was an anchorite of some kind, engaged in painful meditation.
In each cave was an infinitesimal lamp made of baked clay and fed with
vegetable oil that provided more smoke than flame, and the walls and
ceiling were deep with the soot of centuries.
Following the Gray Mahatma's example King and I took handfuls of the
soot and smeared it on our breasts, stomachs and faces, to mingle with
the ashes in a mask of holiness. By the time we had finished that there
was not much chance of any one mistaking us for anything but two
half-crazed aspirants for sanctity.
I could not possibly have drawn a tracing of our own course, for it was
rank bewildering; but we emerged at last under the stars by the side of
a great stone tank. It might have been a bathing pool, for along each
side steps disappeared into the water. We could dimly distinguish one
end on our right hand with a row of great graven gods all reflected in
the water; but the other end vanished through a black cave-mouth. It was
about a hundred and twenty feet wide from bank to bank, and between us
and the steps that faced us on the far side, in among the quivering
star-reflections, I could count the snouts of eighteen alligators.
"Which way now?" King asked him a shade suspiciously.
"Forward," he answered, with a note of surprise.
But if the Mahatma supposed that a coat of soot and ashes provided
either King or me with a satisfactory reason for hobnobbing with
alligators in their home pool, he was emphatically mistaken. We objected
simultaneously, unanimously, and right out loud in meeting.
"Suit yourself," said I. "This suits me here."
"Go forward if you like," said King, "we'll wait for you."
The Gray Mahatma turned and eyed us solemnly but not unkindly.
"If I should leave you here," he said, "a much worse fate would overtake
you than any that you anticipate, for your minds are not advanced enough
to imagine the horrors that assail all those who lack courage. This is
the testing place for aspirants, and more win their way across it than
you might suppose, impudence of ambition adding skill to recklessness.
All must make the attempt, alone and at night, who seek the inner
shrines of Knowledge, and those creatures in the tank have no other food
than is thus provided.
"Those whose courage failed them are now such fakirs as we have seen,
who now seek to rid themselves of materiality, which is the cause of
fear, by ridding themselves of their fleshy envelope. Follow me then."
He stepped down into the water, and at once it became evident that to
all intents and purposes there were two tanks, the division between them
lying about eighteen inches under water. But the division was neither
straight nor exactly level. It zig-zagged this and that way like the
key-track in a maze, and was more beset with slippery pitfalls than a
mussel-shoal at low tide.
King followed the Mahatma in, and I came last, so I had the benefit of
two pilots, as well as the important task of holding King whenever he
groped his way forward with one foot. For the Mahatma went a great deal
faster than we cared to follow, so that although he had shown us the way
we were still doubtful of our footing. At intervals he would pause and
turn and look at us, and every time he did that those long loathsome
snouts would ripple toward him like spokes of a wheel, but he took no
more notice of them than if they had been water-rats. They seemed more
interested in him than in us.
There were seven sharp turns in that underwater causeway, and the edges
of each turn were slippery slopes, up which an alligator certainly could
climb, but that afforded not the least chance to a man whose foot once
stepped too far and slid. And not only were there unexpected turns at
different intervals, but there were gaps in the causeway of a yard or so
in at least a dozen places, and the edges of those gaps were smooth and
rounded, as if purposely designed to dump all wayfarers into the very
jaws of the waiting reptiles. It was in just such places as that that
they began to gather and wait patiently, with their awful yellow eyes
just noticeable in the starlight.
King and I were standing on one such rounded guessing-place.
The Mahatma, twenty yards away, was taking his time about turning to
give us directions, and one great fifteen foot brute had raised itself
on the causeway behind us and was snapping its paws together like a pair
of vicious castanets.
"Nero and Caligula were Christian gentlemen compared to you!" I called
out to the Mahatma.
"You are fortunate," he boomed back. "You have starlight and a guide.
Those who are not chosen have to find their way--or fail--alone under a
cloudy sky. There is none to hold _them_ while they grope; there is none
to care whether they succeed or not, save only the _mugger_ that desires
a meal. Nevertheless, there are some of them who succeed, so how should
you fail? Take a step to the left now--a long one, each holding the
other, then another to the left--then to the right again."
"Curse you!" I shouted back, staring over King's shoulder. "There's a
_mugger's_ head between us and the next stepping-stone!"
"Nay!" he answered. "That _is_ the stepping-stone."
I could have sworn that he was lying, but King set his foot on it and in
a moment more we were working our way cautiously along the causeway
again, making for the next sharp corner where the Mahatma had been
standing to give us the direction. But he never waited for us to catch
up with him. I think he suspected that in panic we might clutch him and
offer violence, and he always moved on as we approached, leaving us to
grope our way in agonies of apprehension.
The going did not become easier as we progressed. When the Gray Mahatma
reached the steps on the far side and stood, out of the water waiting
for us, all the monsters that had watched his progress came and joined
our party; and now, instead of keeping to the water, two of them climbed
up on the causeway, so that there was one of the creatures behind us and
two in front.
"Call off your cousins and your uncles and your aunts!" I shouted,
bearing in mind the Hindu creed that consigns the souls of unrighteous
men to the bodies of animals in retribution for their sins.
The Gray Mahatma picked up a short pole from the embankment, and
returned into the water with it, not striking out right and left as any
ordinary-minded person would have done, but shoving the brutes away
gently one by one, as if they were logs or small boats. And even so,
they followed us so closely that they climbed the steps abreast of us.
But I'm willing to bet that there is not an alligator living that can
catch me once my feet are set on hard ground, and I can say the same for
King; we danced up those steps together like a pair of fauns emerging
from a forest pool.
Then the Gray Mahatma came and peered into our faces, and asked an
extraordinary question.
"Do you feel proud?" he asked, looking keenly from one to the other of
us. "Because," he went on to explain, "you have now crossed the Pool of
Terrors, and they are not so many who accomplish that. The _muggers_ are
well fed. And those who reach to this side are usually proud, believing
they now have the secret key to the attainment of all Knowledge. You are
going to see now what becomes of the proud ones."
The Mahatma led us forward toward a long, dark shadow that transformed
itself into a temple wall as we drew closer, and in a moment we were
once more groping our way downward amid prehistoric foundation stones,
with bats flitting past us and a horrible feeling possessing me, at
least, that the worst was yet to come.
The hunch proved accurate. We came into an enormous crypt that evidently
underlay a temple. Great pillars of natural rock, practically square and
twenty feet thick, supported the roof, which was partly of natural rock
and partly of jointed masonry. There was nothing in the crypt itself,
except one old gray-beard, who sat on a mat by a candle, reading a roll
of manuscript; and he did not trouble to look up--did not take the
slightest notice of us.
But around the crypt there were more cells than I could count off-hand.
Some were dark. There were lights burning in the others. Each had an
iron door with a few holes in it, and a small square window, unglazed
and unbarred, cut in the natural rock. Enough light came through some of
those square holes to suffuse the whole crypt dimly.
"None but an aspirant has ever entered here," said the Gray Mahatma.
"Even when India was conquered, no enemy penetrated this place. You
stand on forbidden ground."
He turned to the left and opened an iron cell door by simply pushing it;
there did not seem to be any lock. He did not announce himself, but
walked straight in, and we followed him. The cell was about ten feet by
twelve, with a stone ledge wide enough to sleep on running along one
side, and lighted by an oil lamp that hung by chains from the hewn roof.
There were three bearded, middle-aged men, almost naked, squatting on
one mat facing the stone ledge, one of whom held an ancient manuscript
that all three were consulting; and on the stone ledge sat what once had
been a man before those devils caught him.
The three looked up at the Gray Mahatma curiously, but did not
challenge. I suppose his nakedness was his passport. They eyed King and
me with a butcher's-eye appraisal, nodded, and resumed their
consultation of the hand-written roll. The characters on it looked like
Sanskrit.
The Gray Mahatma faced the creature on the stone ledge, and spoke to
King and me in English.
"That," he said, "is one of those who crossed the Pool of Terrors and
became insane with pride. Consider him. He entered here demanding
knowledge, having only the desire and not the honesty. But since there
is no way backward and even failure must subserve the universal cause,
he was given knowledge and it made him what you see. Now these, who know
a little and would learn more, make use of him as a subject for
experiments.
"That thing, who was once a man, can imagine himself a bird, or a fish,
or an animal--or even an insensate graven stone--at their command. When
he is no more fit to be studied he will imagine himself to be a
_mugger_, and will hurry into the tank with the other reptiles, and that
will be the end of him. Come."
I felt like going mad that minute. I sat down on the rock floor and held
my head to make sure that I still had it. I wanted to think of something
that would give me back my grip on sanity and the good, clean concrete
world outside; I don't think I could have done it if King had not seen
and applied the solution. He kicked me in the ribs as hard as he could
with his naked foot, and, that failing, used his fist.
"Get up!" he said. "Hit me, if you want to!"
Then he turned to the Mahatma.
"Confound you! Take us out of this!"
"Peace! Peace!" said the Gray Mahatma. "You are chosen. You are needed
for another purpose. No harm shall come to either of you. There is one
more cell that you must enter."
"No!" said I, and I met his eye squarely. "I've seen my fill of these
sights. Lead the way out!"
He did not appear in the least afraid of me; merely curious, as if he
were viewing an experiment. I made up my mind on the instant to
experiment on my own account, and swung my fist back for a full-powered
smash at him. I let go, too. But the blow fell on King, who stepped
between us, and knocked nearly all the wind out of him.
"None o' that!" he gasped. "Let's see this through."
The Gray Mahatma patted him gently on the shoulder.
"Good!" he said. "Very good. You did well!"