_Among the Labyrinths_
Half an hour later, Ru had commenced the ascent toward the supposed
cave entrance. His only companion was Wuff, who scrambled willingly
after him along the perilous ledges; his only equipment, in addition
to the pouch of pebbles and the club that were slung at his side,
consisted of a flaming torch liberally greased. From below, his
tribesmen stared at him in a great crowd, shouting directions and by
turns encouraging him and jeering; but he paid little heed to them,
and picked his way as rapidly as he could among the crags and boulders
toward the little black spot in the cliff wall.
As he approached, that spot widened promisingly; and when from time to
time he caught glimpses of it through fissures in the rock, he became
increasingly certain that it was indeed the doorway to a cavern. But
what a cavern it must be! The opening was perhaps wide enough to admit
half a dozen men walking side by side, and its coaly opaqueness brought
visions of interminable depths. His imagination was not fully awakened,
however, until he stood on a sort of rocky terrace or balcony directly
facing the gaping hole. Then, when he saw the jagged aperture giving
upon the tunnel-like recess, with the low roof that would barely admit
his unstooping form, and the interior unillumined and blank as if here
were the end of all things, a tremor of fear shot through him, and his
horror-stricken mind conjured up all manner of fantastic terrors.
As if to lend some color of reason to his alarm, Wuff crouched down
before him with bristling hair and eyes angrily shining; and from his
throat there issued low growls and grumblings.
But Ru had no time for hesitation. His torch was already half burned
away, and the cave must be explored while the flame lasted--and so,
trying to forget his unreasoning dread, Ru forced his way into the
blackness.
Reluctantly Wuff followed at his heels; but each second his growls grew
louder.
Yet at first Ru was aware of nothing disturbing. There was only the
bare floor and the shadowy walls dimly lit by the torch; and a new
assurance came to him as he pressed farther into the gloom.
Then--not half a dozen seconds could have elapsed--he became conscious
of a light that was not of his torch. From the darkness beyond, two
phosphorescent eyes were staring out at him!
While he shuddered and thought of flight, and the mutterings of Wuff
rose in a savage crescendo, the phosphorescent eyes lunged toward him,
a sudden wind blew past, and a great body went bounding by. Ru screamed
and waved his torch, and thereupon two more phosphorescent eyes emerged
from the darkness; there came another puff of wind, and a second huge
form went hurtling past. As it plunged into the rim of daylight and
disappeared, Ru recognized the hideous spotted shape of a hyena.
For a moment he stood motionless, to make sure that no other beasts
lurked in the shadows. Then, convinced that the routed pair had been
the cave's sole tenants, he started slowly forward again; while
Wuff, keeping close at his side, still growled a little and sniffed
suspiciously at the cavern floor.
As he advanced, breathing the dank air that reeked with odors of
dampness and decay, Ru observed that this cave was uncannily different
from that which he had known. It twisted and turned confusingly;
not for many yards anywhere did it keep a straight course; its roof
was high in places, and in places so low that he could barely creep
beneath; here and there huge stalactites, like gigantic tapering
clubs, hung from the ceiling; and on the floor the pointed stalagmites
bristled. And now and again he could hear the murmuring of invisible
water--an eery murmuring, which sent queer little shudders down his
spine and made him recall all the tales his people had ever told of
evil spirits that dwelt in recesses of the mountains.
Yet, although he had a curious sense of things unearthly, Ru was
fascinated. There was something enchanted about those great deserted
shadowy vaults and galleries, illuminated only by the flickering of his
torch; the silence, unbroken except by the sound of the unseen waters,
acted upon him like a charm; and, as one in a magic spell, he wandered
on and on, forgetful for the moment of the peril into which he was
thrusting himself.
It was the discovery that his torch was nearly burned out that brought
Ru back to reality. Without light in these dayless corridors, he would
be helpless!--he would be worse than helpless, he would be lost beyond
rescue! Like a dreamer suddenly aroused, he wheeled about, then turned
back at a sprint, following the devious windings at reckless speed.
The torch, fanned by the swiftness of his flight, burned threateningly
low; the molten fat rolled down over his fingers, and he felt the
searing heat of the flames. But with the grip of madness he clutched
that life-bearing brand; and with the fury of madness he raced through
those shadowy labyrinths. He could not be far from the entrance, he
thought--another moment, and he should see the welcome light of day.
But the moment passed, and he did not see the light of day. Instead,
he paused at last in utter bewilderment. Unexpectedly, the gallery
branched in several directions--and he could not remember coming this
way before! Was he lost? he asked himself in terror. Which way should
he go? But there was no time for debating--choosing at random, he shot
off down one of the corridors.
Another minute, two minutes passed--still no sign of the daylight. His
alarm rose to an over-mastering horror; his torch sank to a little
sputtering point that his scorched hands could scarcely hold. Reason
had left him utterly; his mind was a blur of blind passions, passion
to escape, at any price to escape; his breath came by furious gasps;
his legs sagged beneath him; but still he stumbled on and on, like a
harried beast close pressed by the huntsmen.
Then suddenly, from somewhere ahead of him, there came a strange
whirring, a murmur as of many wings. Abruptly he stopped; his heart
gave a great leap--and just at that instant the torch went out.
As a blackness deeper than the blackness of midnight closed about him,
there came a low whine from just beside him. Sinking down to the rocky
floor, he pressed as if for protection against the huddled form of
Wuff--his sole companion amid that appalling emptiness.
Only in the remotest recesses of his old cave had Ru known a darkness
such as this. The gloom was absolute; a blind man could have seen as
well as he. Yet never before had he felt so intensely the need of eyes.
Out of the depths of the cavern that strange whirring still proceeded,
a flapping as of great wings, as of gigantic birds. Louder and louder
it grew, louder and louder although never less eery, until Ru could
have sworn that the air was filled with enormous evil shapes, gliding
back and forth in wide loops and circles through the thick cavern air.
For many minutes he sat hunched on the floor, his hands pressed into
the thick fur of Wuff. He did not dare to move; he was afraid that
his very breathing would betray him; intermittently the whirring
continued, sometimes nearer, sometimes more remote, then gradually
dying down altogether, until the silence seemed more terrible than
sound, and he had visions of stealthy marauders creeping up on him
in the dark. And still a mad eagerness to escape possessed him.
Panic-stricken and yet helpless, he suffered all the torments of
hopeless captivity--his whole being was aflame with desire for the free
air, the open fields, the light of the sun.
At length the darkness and the silence became too oppressive to endure.
With no plan in mind, with a brain too overheated to conceive a plan,
he began to walk slowly away. Fumbling for his course like a sightless
old man, he groped along the wall, sometimes cutting his hands on sharp
projections of the rock, sometimes bruising his bare feet on unseen
stalagmites. At his side Wuff trotted, as bewildered as himself--at
times Ru could hear the heavy breathing or feel the bushy form brushing
against his legs. Where he was going he had no idea; he only knew
that he was curving in and about, bending and twisting and winding
in a series of loops that merely added to the confusion in his mind.
Perhaps he had a vague notion that, at some sudden turn, the longed-for
daylight would greet him--but, if so, the hope died slowly in his
heart. The blackness was everywhere unbroken, everywhere opaque and
impenetrable, as if no sun or star had ever shone--and the farther he
advanced, the more unlikely did it seem that he would ever regain the
open.
Now, as he forced his way haltingly through the invisible, his first
frenzied desire to escape had given place to a steadier but scarcely
less horrifying emotion--a preying dread that would not leave him,
but that persisted and grew while he felt for his path along dark
passageway after dark passageway. What unspeakable monsters prowled in
these labyrinthine recesses? To his impressionable mind, accustomed
from infancy to thinking of all places as populated with evil beasts
and still more evil spirits, there could be no doubt that unseen
eyes were spying upon him, unseen claws clutching and preparing to
strike--and he expected each instant to feel the stroke of rending
talons or fangs, or to go writhing on the floor in deadly conflict with
some unknown adversary.
Blindfolded though he was, he was not long in realizing that he was
wandering through sections of the cave that were new to him. Time after
time the galleries divided into two or even three passages, and he had
necessarily to select at random. That he had chosen wrongly became more
and more apparent as he advanced and found himself even more hopelessly
entangled. The corridors had ceased to run upon the level; now and then
he was faced with a sharp descent, and he would turn back sooner than
take the risk of falling; again, he was confronted with a steep rise,
which likewise he would seek to avoid; and once or twice he entered
what was apparently a blind alley, and paused in bewilderment before
a wall through which he could find no exit. He was impeded, also, by
having occasionally to creep on hands and knees beneath a drooping
ceiling, and several times he crawled through a slit in the wall so
narrow as to admit him only with much crowding; while, by way of
contrast, he had sometimes a sense of ample spaces and wide distances,
as though the vaulted roof were high above and the walls far apart.
As the ascents and descents became more frequent, a new terror began
to take possession of him--what if there were a hole in the floor, and
he should go slipping down into bottomless vacancy? Once, with this
fear foremost in his mind, he actually did slip, and, with a horrified
scream, found himself falling into space! But he did not have far to
go--there was a splash, and unseen waters closed over him. For an
instant he floundered wildly in the cold depths, drinking in huge gulps
while his bewildered mind vaguely apprehended that the end had come;
then, groping by instinct, he found his way shoreward, grasped at an
overhanging rock and pulled himself to comparative safety, while all
about him the echoes of his sputtering and splashing sounded like the
mutterings of evil spirits.
After this ordeal, Ru moved even more cautiously than before. To his
mind it was not credible that he had slipped by natural means--the
simple explanation was that some invisible watcher had shoved him
into the waters. New panic seized him as he wondered how to elude the
attacks of his silent persecutor; and it was long before he could
summon forth the courage to venture on into the unknown.
Yet he had no choice; and for a time that seemed never-ending and a
distance that seemed interminable, he groped through the blackness
of the winding mazes. The only sound was the occasional murmuring of
invisible waters, varied by the unearthly echoes of his soft footsteps
or of his voice when he called to Wuff. For all he could tell, he might
not have moved an inch since entering the cavern--in this lightless
world, space seemed to have been blotted out.
At last, in utter despair that matched his utter exhaustion, Ru flung
himself down upon the cave floor for a few hours' rest. It may be that
in that hazy interval he found needed repose--certainly, he was long in
a state of half-consciousness, in which confused visions trailed across
his mind. First he would see an avenging demon with eyes like fire and
a club as big as a mountain and an evil, sneering face like Grumgra's;
then he would view a dark gallery from which a wolf the size of a bison
would emerge, with long sharp teeth and blood-dripping tongue; then the
scene would change and there would be a murmuring of soft voices, and
he would feel the hands of Yonyo and peer into her sparkling eyes, and
all things would grow comforting and kindly; then once more he would be
alone in the darkness, and all about him would brood slinking demons
with snaky arms, and vulturelike birds with wings wide as a spreading
tree, and enormous bears into whose cavernous jaws he was forced to
walk....
From one such nightmare he was aroused with the consciousness that
many hours had passed. Perhaps in the world above ground another day
had broken--but here all was unchanged. At his side he could hear the
rhythmic breathing of the invisible Wuff; but, except for that faint
murmuring, the silence was undisturbed; and through the pitchy darkness
there was still not a spark to be seen.
But now Ru was aware of a new and most unwelcome sensation, an
emptiness within him that brought dreadful premonitions--the gnawings
of incipient hunger. In a flash of terrible insight, he perceived that
here was a foe more destructive even than the unknown horrors of the
dark. What if he should be a captive for days within the cave, captive
not only without food but without the means of finding food? In old
times of famine he had known starvation and learned what a savage thing
it may be; but never had he imagined so dire a fate as to starve in the
darkness, with only a wolf for companion!
And as Ru recalled that his companion was a wolf, curious and horrible
fancies flitted through his mind. What if, goaded to madness by the
hunger pain, he should be plunged into a life-or-death struggle with
Wuff--yes, even with Wuff, his protector and his friend? What if, in
a fury of self-preservation, he should be tempted to slay Wuff for
food?--or if Wuff, reduced to the ferocity of his kind, should pounce
upon his master with murderous, slashing fangs?
So appalling did these possibilities seem, and so far from remote,
that Ru could retain his sanity only by thrusting them resolutely from
his mind. Springing suddenly to his feet, he called to Wuff, then set
off once more down the lonely galleries at as determined a pace as the
darkness would permit.
The hours went by, and still he wound around interminable curves--and
still there was no relief in sight. His hunger had risen to the point
of torment, his fatigue to the point of anguish; but there was nothing
to do except to go on and on, on and on, lest the fate he dreaded
should overtake him. His anxiety was all the greater because of the
strange manner of Wuff; at times the beast panted heavily, at times
whined in low complaint, at times querulously grumbled and growled,
while once or twice--with a display of evil temper he had never shown
before--he snapped angrily at Ru's hand.
It was after Ru had renounced his last hope that he beheld the first
encouraging sign. Like one wearily trudging on the way to foreordained
doom, he was plodding mechanically along the labyrinths, in such
torment of mind and body that he had almost ceased to dream of
escape--when suddenly, rounding a sharp turn, he was confronted by that
which made him pause in mingled joy and alarm.
Not that he had actually come into the day! But his startled eyes at
least beheld the light! Far from a bright light, scarcely even a dim
crepuscular glow--yet a misty illumination, barely distinguishable from
darkness, did indeed show the high-arching cavern walls in shadowy
outline!
Instantly aroused to alertness, Ru advanced cautiously and with heart
wildly beating. Could the light be a deception, a promise that soon
must fade? Did it perhaps proceed from the goblin tenants of the cave?
Was it luring him to the lair of some fanged monster? Or did it come
from the camp-fire of some savage band of men? or of some festival of
cavern spirits? or of some dancing circle of fiends?
But, no, it could not be a camp-fire! It shone too steadily, and did
not flicker. After all, it must be the light of day!
Cheered by this reflection, Ru increased his pace. As he did so, he
became aware once more of a whirring of wings, a singular buzzing and
flapping as of great flying forms. Terror seized him again, and he
stopped short, and thought of retreat--but this time his doubt was
short-lived. Even as he paused and shuddered, the invisible became
visible--several black-winged creatures went circling and whirling
past, not like birds, for they had no feathers, but rather like flying
rats!
Startled and yet relieved, Ru stood regarding these curious apparitions
in uncertainty. They flitted about blindly as lost souls--veritably,
they seemed shapes of evil! But they had done him no harm, and seemed
to intend no harm--and, beside the mysterious horrors he had feared,
they were insignificant.
At length, grasping his club firmly, Ru started slowly forward again,
while Wuff, plunging about and growling with restored animation, made
many a vigorous but futile lunge at the flying creatures.
Ru's thoughts now returned to the unknown illumination. As he advanced,
the light became a trifle more distinct, although it did not increase
beyond the brightness of a vague twilight; then, when hopes of early
escape were burning warmly within him, he made a discovery which at
once answered his questions and plunged him back into despair.
The light was indeed that of the sun, but it entered from no accessible
source! High in the cavern roof, perhaps a hundred feet above, was
a hole like a skylight, and through this the sunlight tantalizingly
seeped!
But even while Ru stared up at that unattainable opening, the light
began gradually to dwindle. At first the change was barely perceptible;
then by degrees the aperture grew gray with the grayness of the
sunset-time. And, with a sense of renewed hopelessness, Ru realized
that this must be the twilight of the second day.
For many minutes he stood staring helplessly up at the diminishing
light. Then, before the inky blackness was upon him again, he turned to
more practical pursuits. First he followed Wuff's example by quenching
his thirst from a little stream trickling from the cavern wall; and
after that, being faint from his exertions and the lack of food, he
sank down once again upon the cave floor, hoping for nothing except for
sleep.
Before unconsciousness overtook him, he noticed vaguely that Wuff was
sniffing the air significantly. He was even aware that the wolf, guided
no doubt by his keen senses, went sneaking off into the darkness. But
Ru's own senses told him nothing, and he was too weary to attempt to
understand. And long before Wuff had returned, Ru was plunged into
delicious dreams of bison roasts and sizzling joints of venison.
By degrees those dreams lapsed into other and less pleasant visions:
it seemed to Ru that he was gnawing the bone of a bear, and that the
animal returned suddenly to life and seized him in gigantic claws and
slowly rent him apart. Now he could see his own flesh being torn and
slashed, could feel his own bones being cloven and gnawed, could hear a
crunching and grinding as his skull was crushed by teeth as long as his
fingers....
With a cry of horror, Ru awoke--awoke to consciousness that his dream
was gradually merging into reality. The crunching sound had not ceased;
through the intense blackness he heard it still, louder than before,
insistent, rhythmic, like a splitting of huge bones. Terror came
flooding back upon him, terror such as he had scarcely known even in
this cave of fear--some unknown beast lurked in the darkness, chewing
and tearing at bones! Scarcely daring to breathe, he lay as motionless
as though feigning death, while a cold sweat burst out at every pore,
and still from the invisible came that crunching, crackling noise.
At times he even thought he could hear the sound of some monster
breathing, and make out the gusty smacking of heavy lips!
In his over-mastering dread, he did not dare even to call out to Wuff,
lest he betray his presence and fall victim to the prowler. But as he
thought of Wuff, it occurred to him to wonder where his friend might
be. Instantly the explanation, terrible, all-sufficient, came flashing
over him. It was Wuff's bones that he heard being ground to bits! The
unknown beast was making a meal of Wuff!
At this thought he was ready to relinquish all hope. His turn would
come next; he himself would be spied out and smitten! Lightning-like
the slashing fangs would descend; the curving claws would rip his flesh
to ribbons; the giant sabertooth or bear would tear him limb from limb!
Yet he had no way to save himself. There was nothing to do but wait.
He could not attempt to creep away; the least noise would reveal his
presence. And even if he could escape, might he not stumble into the
lair of a second monster?
Still like an animal feigning death, he lay motionless on the cave
floor, listening and listening. For a long, long time, seemingly for
half the night, the crunching continued--then suddenly it ended.
Surprised, Ru listened more alertly than ever. Now, surely, the dreaded
moment had come! But the silence remained undisturbed, and the minutes
went by, and still went by--and nothing happened. And slowly the hope
grew within him that he was saved!
It was much later, certainly hours later, when he awakened from another
dream-troubled sleep to find a dim twilight shining through the rift in
the roof. The objects about him were once more vaguely visible, and to
his amazement and relief his eyes rested instantly on the curled-up,
slumbering form of Wuff!
Beside the sleeping wolf were a number of curious shapes, whose exact
nature Ru could not at first determine. But, upon creeping close to
examine, he discovered them to be the remains of bones--bones in every
stage of decomposition! Some had been shattered as if by sharp teeth;
some showed clearly the marks of gnawing; one or two had been chewed
literally to bits.
The mystery of the night was now plain. Wuff had been feasting on the
bones--and this it was that had caused Ru such unreasonable terror!
But one mystery only opened the door for another. Surely, none of the
bones were those of animals recently slain. Whence, then, had they
come? And how had Wuff discovered them?
Emboldened by the gathering light, Ru arose and started out to inspect.
To his surprise, he did not have far to look--around a bend in the
gallery, not more than a hundred yards away, he found a complete
solution. And at the same time he observed that which filled him once
more with misgivings.
In a little nook or side-grotto of the cavern, the bones of animals
were strewn in bewildering profusion. Cast one on top of another in
a heap that towered above his head over an area great enough to seat
a hundred men, they stared at him with the ghastliness of a graveyard
dismantled--great bones and small bones, bones straight and whole
and bones crushed and shattered, bones clean and white and bones
dirt-crusted and discolored, the skulls of birds mingling with the
broken jaw-bones of wild cattle and bison, the teeth of wolves and
bears, the horns of rhinoceroses, and the curling tusks of the mammoth.
For many minutes Ru stood staring at that gruesome spectacle. He was
not less fascinated than alarmed; he knew that he had made a discovery
as meaningful as it was appalling. Beings of his own kind had inhabited
this cave--no doubt inhabited it at this very moment! At any instant
they might thrust themselves upon him! Perhaps even now they were
peering out at him from unseen recesses! But what sort of men were
they? Were they to be welcomed or dreaded?
To this question he received an early answer. As he stood regarding
the great mass of bones inquiringly, his attention was caught by a
half-hidden object with familiar outlines. And, reaching down with a
shudder, he drew forth--a battered human skull!
Recoiling as if shot back by a spring, he cast the hideous trophy from
him--and at the same instant caught sight of another skull with leering
human eye-sockets!
A shiver came over him; the hair on his head and neck prickled and
bristled as if to stand up straight. All too well he understood!
Sudden and terrorizing visions came to him of the man-eaters he had
encountered among the woods; and he knew that once again he was
straying into the haunts of cannibals!