THE ROAD WITH PITS.
"Come," said the Baker, "come!"
"Where?" asked Smith, with a sick heart.
And looking at his chum, he saw the horror in the poor fellow's face.
For it was wrinkled and seamed, and the courage and hope, which had
helped them both so often, had, for that time at least, left him
utterly.
"I don't know," said the Baker, and he caught Smith's hand, and then
let it go, and took hold of Kitty, who was also the victim of extreme
terror. The sight of the others broken down brought back strength to
the older man.
"What are you scared of?" he cried contemptuously. "Do you funk
death so much, Baker?"
"No," said the Baker in a whisper, "but to go down into a pit, when
one is asleep, oh, my Gawd! it's 'orrible."
He kept glancing round him uneasily, and anxiety made him stare. He
stamped on the loose sand.
"How did you notice it?" asked Smith.
"I slid," said the Baker, "and I saw the sand trickle and trickle.
And we was on an 'ill when we lay down, but when I slid, we was in a
sort of cup, Smith. What was it, Smith?"
But Smith shook his head.
"Let's come on," he said.
"Where?" asked the Baker. "Smith, old man, I'm scared."
His shaking hands and his loosed lips bore witness to the truth of
that.
"Where?" said Smith. "Why, out of this, and as soon as we can. I'll
go first."
And then he heard again the sound of distant thunder. Or perhaps it
was subterranean, for, once more in the hot morning light, they saw
ahead of them big jets and spurts of dun sand thrown up against the
sun, as though some strange beast blew blasts like the spouting of a
whale in that dry sea. And with each dust spout the ground was
shaken, and the sound was heard.
Smith caught the Baker muttering mixed prayers, half child-like
entreaty to an anthropomorphous god, half savage blasphemy against a
treacherous fetish. He remembered, with a smile, the old story of
the sailor who prayed for help, and, as an inducement for the deity
to assist him, said that he had never asked before, and wouldn't
again. He turned and looked at Kitty, who walked like one dazed. It
had taken the courage out of her too.
They walked slowly towards the west, where the tall pine was now
visible. Beyond it was a low range of hills. But their progress was
slow. They avoided every sand hollow, and wound in and out across
the little ridges. If some sand went sliding from under him, the
Baker whimpered like a dreaming hound. And then they stopped again.
"A pit, a pit!" cried Mandeville, with staring eyes, and they saw an
open, black hole before them, crater-shaped and crumbling.
"God help us!" said Smith. "Shall we get off this before the night?
Be a man, Baker. Do you want to spend the night here, and be sucked
down like sand in an hour-glass?"
"I'm coming," said the Baker, gulping down his horror. "Come, Kitty."
But the sun would soon set. It shot level over the desert, and
turned the pine, now some five miles away, into a black bar across
the mouth of a furnace. Then it touched the range, bit out a red
gap, plunged, and left a red star on a blue crest for a moment, and
died. The night came with a swing from the east of lucid stars, and
a moon, with its horns turned westward, was sharply visible towards
the north.
"Come," said Smith, "while there's a little light left."
He led the way as fast as he dared, and did not stop even when the
last daylight was gone on the wings of the after-glow, for, on the
whitish-red sand, the light of moon and stars showed the way almost
as clearly as in the thin day of an Arctic winter. Yet every now and
again there came the noise of subterranean thunder. He began to
guess at its cause. If they could but get off that road of pits, it
bade him hope.
Yet now he, too, was so terribly fatigued that he could hardly lift
his feet; every motion he made required resolution, and his eyelids
dropped as he walked. The Baker was in worse case physically, and
only Kitty held out. Sleep, as heavy as that which takes men in deep
frost, laid hold of Mandeville; he rocked to and fro like a drunken
man. He implored Smith to stop.
"Lemme sleep," and he pitched upon his face.
"Wake him," said Smith, and Kitty lifted him on his feet.
"We are close to the edge of the sand," said the leader. "Let's try
a bit more."
He caught the Baker by the hair; he wrenched his ear till it almost
bled, and Mandeville struck at him blindly. Kitty cried out aloud in
anger, and yet she understood. But at last they could not move. The
Baker lay down like a dead man, and Kitty took him in her arms. She
was asleep in a moment, and then a sudden dream caught the Baker.
"The pits, the pits!" he shrieked, and again deep sleep had him, as
Smith smiled wanly and drifted into dreamland.
And in his dream he saw the desert, and under the desert the sunken
riven which, for long generations had eaten away the foundations of
the desert until the flat rocks and baked earth under the sand was
supported by little columns that melted day by day. And he heard the
columns give, and then the ruptured rocks cracked. There were
distant sounds of thunder, and the huge tilted slabs threw sand into
the air. Down each rift, as through horrible funnel-holes, the sand
fell which measured human lives. He saw himself slip; he heard the
others cry. And then there was loud thunder in his dream, and the
blown sand filled his mouth. He heard an awful scream, and woke with
it in his ears.
"Help, Smith, help!"
He sprang to his feet, and saw a dark body, which was Kitty, sliding
on the flat in front of him towards a great cup, whose edge was
within six feet. He threw himself down, and grasped the girl by her
ankles, and, digging his toes into the sand, he wrenched her back.
But as he did so, she screamed dreadfully, and on her scream there
came another further cry, half-choked, half dream-like--such a cry as
a man would make in a nightmare, if he could free his chest form the
horrible squat beast that chokes him. And Kitty, whom he had saved,
writhed round on him, and struck at him.
"Let me go!" she screamed.
"Where's Baker?" he said.
And she writhed and shrieked terribly.
"The pit--in the pit!"
And rising, he saw the big, black cup which held death. Kitty rose,
too, and half escaped him. In another moment she would have been
beyond help. He caught hold of her, and they fought upon the
increasing verge of the slipping sand, which was like quicksand, and
seemed to cling to them. But Smith lifted her desperately, and ran
ten yards, and, throwing her down, held her till the mad fit passed.
And shaking with horror, and sick at the loss of friend and lover,
they sat there till dawn, with deep holes about them.
But Kitty perpetually wailed for the man who was gone, and half she
said was unintelligible to her companion. For now, not caring to be
understood, she used the commoner talk of the Brodarro, which was
mixed strangely with fragments of many aboriginal dialects.
"My man is gone," she cried; "my little man who was strong and brave."
Yes, the Baker was gone; gone without a farewell, without a
handshake, and his good-bye was a terrible shriek, which still rang
in Smith's ears. Perhaps those who were left would now escape, but
all the joy was gone out of him at the loss of his faithful
companion, whose courage was proof against any natural horror, and
only failed in dangers which appeared ghastly beyond all imagination.
But he was gone, gone, said Smith, for ever.
And the dawn came up in the east upon the plain, and he saw, within
half a mile of him, the big pine tree which had been their landmark.
He rose and took Kitty by the hand. She wished to look into the
crater which had swallowed her man, but he drew her away towards the
west. She walked quietly, with her head hanging down.
As he approached the pine, Smith began to see other smaller timber
about it, and further on, what seemed like the usual gums lining a
river.
"If I'm right," he said, "we shall come to the river; we need it
badly."
The ground was now more broken and not altogether sandy. Here and
there he saw rocks projecting, and once they came to hard ground.
They passed one or two of the ghastly funnel holes, and finally came
out of the sand upon a little higher ground. Right beneath them was
the silver lost river, running slowly through a flat which rose
gradually to the north in the low range they had seen the day before.
As they came in sight of the stream, Kitty broke down and cried.
"Oh, Baker," she said.
But Smith knew what she meant. And he touched her arm.
"Come, Kitty."
Even as he spoke he stayed
"What is that on the bank, Kitty?" he asked.
For, two hundred yards away, there was a black spot on the white sand.
"It looks like a body," said Kitty with a shiver.
And they went slowly towards the stream, wondering what this could
be. Was the dead man black or white? It might mean so much to them.
It might mean further hazard, or strange, quick release from all
their anxiety. But suddenly, when they came upon the level ground,
Kitty loosed her hold of Smith, and ran along the river's edge like a
deer. Smith stopped, and then ran, too.
Was it possible--possible?
Yes, it was possible. For Kitty had the Baker's head against her
bosom, and she was crying over him like a mother.
He was still alive.
Smith dropped on his knees.
"It's half a miracle," he said. "Yes, he's alive, Kitty. Rub his
hands. He dropped into the river, the sunken river. Good old Baker."
And Smith broke down himself, as the Baker opened his eyes, and then
shut them, relapsing once more into unconsciousness.
They stripped off his wet clothes, and laid him in a sunny, sheltered
place. Smith wiped his body with his own shirt, which he took off;
and presently the Baker opened his eyes and saw them.
"Such a bally nightmare," he said. "Where's Kitty?"
And Kitty bent and kissed him. "Good old girl," he said; "what's
wrong?"
"Nothing, nothing," cried Smith cheerfully; "we're out of it all now."
"Ah!" said the Baker, "I remember."
He sat up, and, as real consciousness came back, memory returned,
too, and he shivered. A strange, wan, pinched look was on his face.
He looked a worn, broken man, and much, much older. From that hour
his hair rapidly whitened. But he was quite sane.
"Do you feel all right now?" asked Smith.
"Will I ever feel right?" asked the Baker. "But I feels 'ungry, and
I suppose that's a good sign."
But there was nothing to eat. They held a bit of a council while the
Baker's clothes dried.
"Tell us all about it," said Smith.
But the Baker shook his head.
"Give me a bit of time, old un," he pleaded. "Can you get any
tucker, Kitty?"
She said she thought she might get a lizard. But if she did, they
might have to eat it raw, for the only matches among them had been in
the Baker's possession, and they were wet through. This reminded
them of that, and they spread them out to dry.
"Never mind," said Smith cheerfully, "if they are done for. Mrs.
Mandeville will make a fire aboriginal fashion."
And she acknowledged that she might be able to do that if she tried,
though it was a man's job.
Fortunately, however, there was no necessity for her to attempt it,
as they saved at least half a box of the wet matches. Their dinner
was made of a particularly objectionable-looking lizard, with spurs
and frills, and of a couple of bull-frogs, which Kitty caught near
the river. It made their courage rise again.
"And now it's for the coast," said Smith. "D'ye think you can
travel, Baker?"
"I can that," said Mandeville. "Ain't I a new man? Last night I was
killed. I died, and went down into the pit."
"Tell us," said Smith.
"I'll show you where I came out," said the Baker; and they walked up
stream till they came to the place whence the river issued.
There were several mouths to it along the edge of the sand desert,
some large, and some small, but it was evident that it had once
issued from a single big cave. The new mouths were made by slabs of
rock fallen together or resting on huge lumps of sandstone, mixed
with a harder conglomerate, and they were, pretty evidently, the
result of the last night's destruction.
"I guess I came out 'ere," said the Baker, pointing to a triangular
opening near the north bank. "For this one close to us is very
shaller, and I should 'ave come ashore. But I drifted considerable
after I got into the light. I'll tell you about it."
They all sat down on a sand heap to listen.
"I don't remember going to sleep, Smith--"
"No," said Smith, "you went to sleep walking."
"Anyhow, I don't remember it, and the first thing I do remember, was
doing the bloomin' sliding trick again. And then Kitty 'ere collars
me, and I 'eard 'er 'oller for you plain."
"I caught her by the ankles," said Smith.
"And that done me," said the Baker, "because I was tore out of 'er
'ands before I could ketch 'old myself. And then I gives a yell, and
I just slid, and I thinks, 'Now you're done, Baker,' for I keeps on
fallin' for h'ever. I guess it warn't reely far, but it seemed so,
and then I was over'ead in water all of a sudden, and chokin' with
sand and water at once. Of course, I strikes out blind, and swims
easy, but near choked with the 'orrible scare. And the darkness was
stinking thick, I never see the like, no, never. And I thinks little
bits of you and Kitty over'ead, not able to 'elp me. And you may
believe it or you may do the other thing, but I feels quite sorry for
you. I remember, too, what a bloomin' coward I was over them pits.
And I thinks of 'ome and the Mile End Road of a Saturday night. Then
my 'and touches a rock; I tries to grab the thing, but it was smooth,
and it 'ad nothing to hold by. Then I finds I was slipping past it
easy. And mind you, h'all this time I made sure I was dead; I
couldn't see h'other than that I'd drown. But when I finds the water
was going, another bloomin' horror strikes me. I thinks, 'Now, am I
going into another bloomin' water-pit?' I screams then, and my voice
comes back on me, and a'most stuns me, I grabs at the rock, though
what for I dunno, and just then I thinks, 'Why, to be sure, this is
the blooming sunk river, and maybe it comes out.' So I lets up
trying to 'old, and swims easy with the current. And I believe that
I swum steady for years, for years, yes, and as I got tired I felt
old. Oh, but it was bad, Smith. And just as I thinks I'm done, I
sees that three-square 'ole of light, and afore I knowed, I was
through it, and I seed the stars and the banks. I scrambled to it
and clawed out a yard or so, and then I tumbles flat where you found
me, you and Kitty 'ere; Gawd bless 'er and you."
He kissed Kitty, and held out his hand to his old chum.
They rose, and began their journey once more.