_Plunged Into Mysterious Terrors. Christopher’s Obscure Powers at Work.
A Struggle for Our Lives. Stout Hearts Fail. A Dear One Lost._
THE passage was crooked. The darkness was unqualified, and so dense
that it seemed resistant and hard to breathe. It was the sort of
blackness that penetrates to the heart and quenches the light there.
Matches had long ago disappeared from the colony, and I had no means
of making a light. Nor had Beelo provided against the blackness. All
time-reckoning had been lost, but our rate was slow, and I knew that the
passage must be long.
Thus far the odors had been of the sun-sweetened water crossed with
those of the underground dank, and were pleasant. But presently a faint
pungency invaded the cold air. I knew by the change in Beelo’s breathing
that his quick sense had discovered it. It suggested things over
which my memory halted. Christopher gave no sign. With unflagging
watchfulness, aided by a perception far keener than mine, he kept the
raft free in the stream, except for occasional bumps.
“Do you smell it, Christopher?” I asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Sir?”
“What is it?”
There was an interval before his answer, “Fire, sir.” Beelo cowered in
my embrace. Since Christopher had mentioned it, I knew it was fire;
I cannot say how I knew, because the odor was unlike that from any
combustion I had ever known.
“Do you know what is burning?” I asked.
“Me, sir?”
“Yes.”
This silence was longer than the other; Christopher must have listened
far.
“The world, sir.”
Beelo shook with a silent chuckle, and squeezed my hand; but I knew that
Christopher’s words had a meaning.
“The world?” I quietly repeated.
“Yes, sir. I hear it.”
Beelo and I straightened up and set our ears on a strain.
“I hear nothing,” I said.
“I hear it, very faint,” Beelo breathlessly returned.
It made no difference with the steadiness of Christopher’s work. The
odor gradually grew more pronounced, and then I recalled an iron smelter
that I had seen in boyhood. Presently I too heard a distant roar as of
a furnace that ground while it burned. Beelo crept close under my
arm again. I could feel his quick heart-beats and shortened breathing
against my side.
Creeping through these increasing sensations came the deep note of
falling water. Why ask Beelo whether he had ever heard that our stream
took a subterranean plunge? Christopher kept coolly at his task. The
sharp striking and scraping of his tireless pole had long ago informed
me that rock made our channel and shores, which were uneven and
dangerous. Now and then the raft would make a sudden swing to avoid
underwater rocks that Christopher’s soundings had discovered. At other
times it would come to a lurching halt until the man carrying our lives
in his hand had made sure of the way.
“What do you think of that water falling, Christopher?” I asked.
He waited a long time, and his slow answer chilled me:
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You’ll go slow when we come nearer?”
“Yes, sir.”
Beelo gave me a hand-pressure intended to silence my foolish tongue.
With a growing intensity in the odor, in the furnace roar, and in the
rumbling of the waterfall, came stealing something new and surpassingly
uncanny. It was a very dim glow, with no visible source, and without
the power to make anything seen but itself. Apparently it was but the
darkness in a more oppressive phase. In vain did I strain my eyes to see
Christopher, Beelo, the raft, the water,--anything that light could make
visible; but the glow was as impenetrable as the darkness.
Beelo was going to pieces under the weight of this encompassing awe.
I knew that his weakness was born of his yielding to an extraneous
reliance--Christopher and me. He put his lips to my ear and whispered:
“I’m afraid.”
“Steady, lad. You are our guide; you are responsible for us.”
“Yes, I know.” He made a pathetic effort to regain himself. “This
light--don’t you _feel_ it, Choseph?”
“I do, dear lad, but my name isn’t Choseph.”
“Yoseph!” he triumphantly said.
“Joseph,” I insisted.
“Mr. Tudor!” In a whirlwind he threw both arms round my neck, and
softly laughed. The old Beelo was on guard again, except that with his
recovered courage he was uncommonly gentle and affectionate. I wondered
if I should ever reach the end of the boy’s phases.
From some indeterminate direction came the muffled sound of an
explosion.
“Hold tight!” cried Christopher, violently lurching the raft round and
jamming it sharply against high jutting rocks on the bank. “Down!” he
added.
A mighty rush as of many winds came tearing up the passage far ahead.
I threw Beelo face down, and flattened my body. Then came the blow,
and hurled Christopher backward upon us. In a moment he had recovered
himself. The impact must have strained Beelo’s ribs, but he lay still.
It was a combination of atmospheric concussion and hot gases,
principally steam, that had struck us. I raised my head, gasping for
breath. Beelo was inert. I lifted him. One arm feebly groped for my
neck, and clung there.
“We are safe!” I cheerily said. “Where is my brave little brother?”
He only held me the closer. Indeed, speech was difficult, since the air
was packed with smothering vapors. The desire to breathe was checked by
an instinctive fear to inhale.
Christopher cautiously pushed out, and again we drifted free, The pole
dipped and clicked and scraped.
But a change had come. The furnace roar had ceased; the waterfall grew
louder. Most striking of all was the unearthly luminosity of the steam
filling the tunnel. That vapor, rapidly chilling in the cold of the
passage, increased in opaqueness, but glowed the more. Before long the
light became radiant and faintly illuminating, and the air sweetened.
I had known by Beelo’s breath on my cheek that his face was upturned to
mine, and near. Thus it was that after long peering I found the light in
his eyes. My arms were enclosing him.
“I see my lad!” I said in gladness.
A queer little movement of withdrawal began. I tried to hold him, but
found no yielding. Gradually he slipped out of my clasp, and sat alone.
Christopher slowly took body in the haze, a ghostly Charon on the
Styx. The color of the glow grew from white to rose, with an occasional
effulgence of bluish purple. The surface of the earth knew no such tints
in fire; these were royally plutonic. The black rocks overhead and on
either hand assumed a vague, grim definition, and to my keyed fancy
displayed grotesque suggestions. Blank spaces a shade darker than the
grimacing, minatory rocks fell away; these I supposed to be cavernous
reaches out of the passage, for from them came echoed multiples of the
pole-sounds.
The temperature began to rise as the waterfall grew louder, the light
more revealing, the haze weaker. We swung round a wide curve, and all at
once a terrifying vision sprang forth in a blood-red light. Our stream
opened into a small lake, which was violently churned by a cataract of
crimson water brilliantly illuminated and plunging out of the overhead
darkness into it. The roar was deafening.
Beelo, scrambling in terror to his feet, his eyes blazing with the red
madness that packed the cavern, required a strong hand to subdue him.
He struggled in my grasp, pointed frantically backward with implorings
that we return, and fought my restraint with sheer animal desperation.
Christopher’s conduct, though showing extraordinary exhilaration,
betrayed no fear, but only a grimmer hold on our situation. With a
rearward glance and the discovery that I was holding Beelo securely, he
stood up, a gigantic red figure, and with all his might shot the raft
forward into the maelstrom. The frail thing plunged in the surge, but
Christopher’s eye and arm were sure. The suck of the water, curving
downward where the cataract struck the pool, was cunningly avoided as
he circled the rim of the lakelet, having as able work to do in avoiding
the dripping rocks there as in keeping out of the breakers.
I thanked God there was light, formidable though it was; it helped me in
my control of Beelo, whose struggles were becoming weaker, and enabled
me to find a good grip on the raft, for there was danger of slipping
off. Through all the wild lurching Christopher kept a sailor’s feet;
and, although his back was toward me, I saw by his quick movements that
all his shrewd forces were in the fight.
Whence came the light? It appeared to be in the cataract itself, a
living flame in the heart of its greatest enemy. The water was joyously,
terribly alive.
The raft described an arc of the pool, slipped out of the boiling churn,
and, before Christopher was aware, caught an eddy and went swinging and
lurching in behind the cataract. The man so strong in both soul and body
threw up his hands in the surrender of terror, for a thing more awful
than the red light and the waterfall confronted us. He dropped the pole.
Its middle struck the edge of the raft, and our one weapon of defense
rebounded into the water. Beelo saw the catastrophe. He clutched me
frantically about the neck, nearly strangling me before I broke his
hold.
[Illustration: 0133]
Christopher looked about for the pole, and saw it bobbing on end as it
struggled against submergence in the down-thrust behind the fall. It
was twenty fatal feet away. The ferocity of elemental self-preservation
seized on the man and transformed him. This was not the attitude of
patient, gentle Christopher, the humble, serving Christopher, but that
of a bayed animal. My hands were tied by the necessity of Beelo’s care.
The spectacle that had unmanned Christopher was in a profound recess
reaching indeterminately out of the cavern and behind the waterfall. It
had not been visible until we rounded the fall and went scurrying behind
it in the eddy. Apparently far back,--I cannot guess how far,--ran a
broad, high, fantastically irregular tunnel ending in a pit of boiling
lava, at an unknown depth below the level of the tunnel, which itself
was slightly above the surface of the pool. Deep rumblings issued from
it, as from a heavy ebullition, punctured with smothered detonations.
Rising from it were thin, cloud-like masses of vapor, like the
pale mauve haze of distant mountains. In its rolling it thickened
concealingly here and opened revealingly there, with constantly shifting
effects.
The dominant color was a deep, transparent crimson of a tint such as
may be seen in the cooling iron of a foundry or in the great crater of
Kilauea; but following the detonations came leaping flames of bluish
purple. It was the red shining through the water that had made the
cataract a fall of liquid crimson when seen from the front.
This, then, was the funnel of a volcano, with a lateral vent. Was it one
of Pluto’s cooling forges? Was its present activity transient? Was this
the beginning of a seismic convulsion that might blow the valley rampart
into the sea?
I cannot say when those questions arose. The urgency of an immediate
threat demanded all attention. Beelo was in an ecstasy of terror, and
Christopher was desperately casting about with all his reassembled wits.
In the tumult of noises our voices were useless. We had been flung out
of the larger eddy into a smaller one swirling between the back of the
fall and the tunnel-mouth. It had a swifter and more dizzying whirl.
Soon it seemed that we were still, except for the ceaseless rolling of
our craft, and that the roaring fall and the grumbling, blazing tunnel
were swinging round us. With the rest passed the bobbing pole, a live,
insane thing, nodding this way and that, approaching the downpour
gingerly, diving under a sharp water-blow, and leaping up with malicious
sprightliness a few feet back. At any moment it might be caught sidewise
and crushed.
There was another danger. The centrifugal force of our swing in the eddy
was carrying us out to the periphery of the swirl. On one side were
the rocks at the mouth of the tunnel; opposite was the waterfall, the
slightest blow from which (since it fell from a height of at least a
hundred feet) would mean the end. Our swinging was taking us nearer to
both those dangers.
Something roused within, overcoming my pity for Beelo. I shook him and
slapped his cheek. Astonishment and anger blazed in his eyes, and then
with a mighty indignation he crawled away and sat glaring at me. At
another time the comical picture would have amused me, for the boy
behaved just as a proud kitten under similar treatment. Having secured
the desired result with Beelo, I worked to the edge of the raft, and
prepared to make a leap for the pole. I was waiting till the raft should
swing round and bring me nearer. Before that happened, two soft arms
were flung round me from behind, a cheek pressed mine, and I was borne
down backward. Two small, firm hands held my wrists down. For the moment
I was helpless.
Of course, Christopher knew that our nearer approach to danger brought
us closer to hope, which lay in the pole. He was biding the moment,
and it came. He crouched on the raft, and a long arm shot out. Beelo’s
nerves were quivering till Christopher rose; then they stilled, and he
released me.
Christopher had learned from experience, and it was a surer hand now
that gripped the pole and sent the raft spinning out of the eddy. To
keep it somewhat trimmed against Christopher’s movements had been a
small part of my task hitherto, so thoughtful of everything had he
been; but now that he saw Beelo and me better used to the situation, he
quietly gave us something of that to do, thus securing more freedom of
movement.
He found the egress of the stream from the pool, and pushed out. Slowly
we crept through the gloomy, misty light, which paled as we went.
Christopher must have felt a dread that oppressed me--the danger of
recurrent explosions--for he worked with less extreme caution than
before, and our progress was better. After a time the light was too dim
for me to see Beelo sitting in his sullen pout; and when darkness again
fell, he crept up beside me and stole out a hand for mine. The noises
had nearly ceased, and Beelo no longer feared the weird echoes.
“I’m glad it’s past,” he sighed, nestling against me. “Aren’t you,
Choseph?”
“Joseph.”
He hugged my arm and softly laughed.
“Yes, I’m glad,” I answered.
It seemed many hours since we had entered the passage, and I hoped we
should emerge in the morning of the day following that of our start.
New conditions began to arise. Above the cataract the stream had
been slow, with few approaches to rapids. Those had been the worst
danger-points. Now we discovered that the current was swifter and
the rapids more numerous and turbulent. The celerity of Christopher’s
movements increased. He no longer tried to spare us the water dripping
from his pole as he repeatedly shifted it and groped for bearings.
This made me more apprehensive. I wondered whether, even with better
facilities, we could return to the valley through this passage, and how
the two hundred and fifty colonists could manage to come safely through.
Presently I felt in the water a turgidity where the current was slow,
and heard a hoarse, growling rumble quite different from the sounds that
we had left behind. Beelo tightened his clutch and breathlessly said:
“It has come!”
“What has, lad?”
“Hush!”
Except for an unusual slapping of the water against the rocks, the
commotion had passed. I wondered if the storm had broken in the valley
and the torrent was coming; but this did not look like it.
“It has gone, Beelo. What was it?”
“No, it hasn’t. Hold tight. Sit hard, Christopher!”
“Beelo,” I impatiently demanded, “you must tell me what----”
The speech was stopped by a groaning crunch that tossed the stream,
splashed the water high on the rocks, and filled the passage with a
sound like that of crushing glass. Beelo was again in terror.
“Be quiet, lad. There’s nothing-----”
“Don’t talk!” he desperately commanded. “The third one will come. That’s
the worst. Wait!”
The seconds dragged through an awful silence. Beelo’s breath struggled
spasmodically through the repression under which he tried to hold it.
The third shock came, and then, though I had never felt one before, I
knew what it was. The whole world seemed to heave and writhe and jolt
and grind, all with a fearful noise. The earthquake, grim brother of
the boiling cauldron we had left, had us in its jaws, and its power was
manifest in the ease with which it crushed and ground the rocks about
us. Fragments of these began to splash in the water and rattle on the
raft. Just in front, a huge block plunged into the stream and dashed us
with water.
Beelo flung himself upon me; I again bent over him to shield him.
Another heavy stone struck the raft in the narrow space between
Christopher and us, and tore through it into the water, sending up a
geyser through the hole.
A stiffening wave of terror overswept Beelo. He sprang to his knees and
tightly embraced my neck in both arms.
“We are going to die!” he feebly cried, and pressed his lips to mine,
sinking inert into my arms. My fingers anxiously sought his pulse. It
was fluttering.
“Christopher!” I called in alarm,--not realizing that the earthquake
had passed and that a dim light made visible the rocks in a turn
ahead,--“Christopher! Something has happened to Beelo!”
“Yes, sir,” came with the steady old calm.
“Stop! We must do something for him.”
“We are going out, sir.”
We swung the curve, and the blessed daylight smiled ahead. The raft slid
out of the passage in placid water, which here, as at the other end, was
deeply embowered. The glorious day, though overcast, was brilliant to
our eyes as it sifted through and rested sweetly on the water. As Beelo
was unconscious, Christopher observed extraordinary care in proceeding,
and as soon as possible secured the raft in the sheltered reach.
I was looking down into Beelo’s face. His head had fallen back, and
although his eyes were closed, his lips were open. It came over me with
a pang that a richness and a maturity which I had not before noticed in
his face, rested there now.
“How long has it taken us to come through?” I asked Christopher.
“‘Mos’ four hours, sir.”
I was surprised. It had seemed much longer.
He came to lift Beelo out, but I myself bore him ashore and laid him on
the ground, and knelt over him. Christopher was standing near, studying
him, but showing no anxiety.
“It is only fainting, isn’t it, Christopher?” I asked.
“That’s all, sir.”
To give him air, I began to open his blouse.
“I wouldn’t, sir,” interposed Christopher.
“Why?” I asked, looking up in surprise.
He only regarded me in silence. At first I thought that Christopher’s
singular penetration had discovered that Beelo was lighter of color than
a full-blooded native and was delicately warning me not to invade the
carefully guarded secret. I recalled the story that I had told Beelo,
and my suspicions as to the purity of his native blood. And what harm
could come if I did learn?
Then the truth came upon me with the overwhelming force of long
cumulation. His conduct in the tunnel, his sweetness and gentleness,
the strange conclusion of the scene with Annabel when they had met,--a
thousand memories of things that had passed unheeded in the stress
of dangers,--came as a blinding light. I do not know when Christopher
learned the truth, but in his chivalry he would have seen me go blind to
the grave without a word from him in betrayal of Beelo’s secret.
The shock stunned me, and my head was bowed in reverence. When I again
looked into the patient face, now having for me so sweet and touching a
pathos, the deep-blue eyes were looking up into mine; then they turned
to Christopher, and all about. The old mischievous, bantering smile
parted the perfect lips. The eyes again sought mine.
“Choseph! It’s fine to be dead!” But the voice held a different music
from that of the lad whom I had loved and who was now gone forever.