BEYOND THE VEIL.
It was Phelan who said it was not the hand of mortal man that had
kindled the fire the four men in the Red Cave saw after the dying of
the red light on the water.
For a long time after he had spoken no human voice was heard. All was
silence save the mystic whispers and breathings of the cave, which,
after the prodigious clangour lately filling the void, were no more
than the ripple of faint air flowing through mere night.
The three men watched the light breathlessly. At first it seemed
steady, but now it began to waver slowly this way and that way, like a
warning hand admonishing or threatening, a spiritual hand beckoning or
blessing.
It was not crimson, as the other flame had been, but pale yellow, like
the early east. It was not fierce and dazzling, but lambent and soft.
It was not light in darkness, as a zenith moon, but light against
darkness, as a setting star. It was independent, absolute, taking or
giving nothing. Space lay between it and the eyes that saw; infinity
between it and the sightless vault.
There was something in this cave that killed you, and yet in that
place you must not die.
"Heaven be merciful to us!" whispered a human voice.
"To us," whispered the phantom voice against the men's hair.
"It's the corpse-candle of the dead men of the Black Rock," whispered
Phelan.
"Of the Black Rock!" echoed the spirit.
The words "Black Rock" acted like a charm, and broke the terrible
spell of the place. Never before had the name of that fatal and hated
shelf of land sounded grateful to human ears.
The two boatmen had been often in that stupendous cave before, had
seen its colossal glories in the ruby flare, and heard its
reverberating thunders in the inexorable gloom. But never until now
had they gazed upon this weird light; they were certain that if it had
existed when they had been visitors on other occasions they could not
have missed observing it.
What they now saw made a profound impression on them, and powerfully
excited their superstitious minds. They had never rowed to the end of
that eastern shaft of the labyrinth, but they knew from the sharp turn
it struck west, and the great depth to which it penetrated, that the
onward limit of it must be near the rear of the Black Rock.
This filled them with doubt--uneasy doubt. Owing to the darkness and
the nature of the remote light, they could not form an exact notion of
its position, but they guessed it to be no less than a mile from the
Red Gap, and, allowing for everything, that would be the back of the
Black Rock.
Why should there be a light at the back of the Black Rock? How could a
light be accounted for there? except it was a corpse-candle on that
murderous reef.
It was a thought to shudder at.
With the other two men the effect was wholly different. Neither had
ever been in this marvellous place before; neither had seen its
sights, or heard its sounds, or endured its darkness until now, and
their imaginations had been powerfully excited and exercised. At one
time they were exalted by the visible--at another overawed by the
unseen. Sobriety of thought and familiarity of experience were absent,
and they were face to face with things undreamed of and enormous, and
with phantoms and monstrous ideas that baffled investigation and
pursuit.
But to them the mention of the Black Rock meant the re-entry of
ordinary ideas and homely thoughts. It lay out there in the noonday
sunlight beside the sunlit sea. It was part of the pastoral land where
people sang and trees waved their leaves and winds bore perfumes.
There was nothing more disquieting about it than about a ship, or a
house, or a rampart.
O'Brien's thoughts had now gone back to their ordinary course. If this
light came from anywhere near the Black Rock, might it not have
something to do with the Puffing Hole?
The question was fascinating, alluring. It might prove a beacon to
discovery.
"Where do you think it is from, Phelan?" he asked, in a whisper.
"Somewhere near the Black Rock. I can't say exactly where."
"What do you believe it is?"
"A corpse-candle. The corpse-candle of the men that the Rock killed."
"Nonsense! You ought to know better. A corpse-candle is not for the
dead--it's for the living."
"Above ground it may be so. But under ground it may be different."
"Let us go and see what it is."
"Not a stroke."
"What, Phelan!--afraid again? There's hardly a thing you are not
afraid of."
"I'm not afraid of you or any other man."
"If you don't go to it with me, I'll swim to it."
"If you do, it will be _your_ corpse-candle."
"I don't care. If you won't go, I'll swim to it. If you don't make up
your mind while I'm counting twenty, I'll dive off and swim."
"It would be murder to let you, O'Brien. Put it out of your head. We
won't let you go."
None of the men could see where another was standing.
O'Brien laughed.
"You can't touch me--you can't stop me."
"Whisht--whisht! For heaven's sake, don't laugh. This is no place for
laughing with that candle before you."
O'Brien laughed softly, and counted, "One."
"If you laugh again, by heavens, I'll throw you in, O'Brien."
"Two!" O'Brien laughed. "Then you won't let me count twenty? You
launch me on my swim at 'three'?"
"He'll bring the cliffs down on us."
"Four! Ha, ha, ha!"
Up to this the words and the laughter had been in whispers. This time
O'Brien counted and laughed out loud.
The effect was prodigious. Those vast chambers of solemn night had
never before heard human laughter, and they roared and bellowed, and
yelled and shrieked, and grumbled, as though furiously calling upon
one another to rush together and tear asunder or crush flat the
impious intruders who dared to profane with such sounds the sanctuary
of their repose.
"I'll go," whispered Phelan--"I'll go. But--wait!"
A torch was now lit, and by the aid of its fitful flame the four men
scrambled into the yawl. The two rowers took their places standing and
facing the bow. O'Brien held the flaring torch on high, and the
boatmen gave way.
As they glided gently along, the irregular walls of the aisle came
nearer to them out of the darkness with a nearness that was sinister
and hateful. It was as though they crept close with the full intention
of crushing the craft and grinding the men to death between their
ponderous fangs and molars. They seemed avengers of the echoes
outraged by the laughter.
The luminous shaft still shone; but as they came nearer, the light
grew whiter and less like flame. The red glare of the torch seemed to
overcome it.
The men watched it with starting eyes.
The walls of the cave came closer out of the darkness, and the roof
lowered.
By this time Phelan had lost all his fears, and was as curious as the
others to know what the light was.
All at once he cried out--"Ease!"
Both men stopped rowing. The sound of the oars ceased, and the noise
of the ripple from the oars. All listened intently. A hissing sound
could be distinctly heard--a loud hissing sound which they had not
noticed before, because, no doubt, of the gradualness of their
approach and the noises made by the rowers.
"It's water--falling water. But, in the name of all the saints, where
is it falling from, and how can we see it in the darkness? Give way,
Tim."
The cave grew narrower still, and now there was barely room for the
shortened oars. The sides of it came closer, the roof lowered until it
was no more than an arm's length above the heads of the standing men.
The bright patch grew higher and broader. The torch still burned. A
dull whiteness shone on the rocks.
The luminous space now looked like a faintly-lighted sheet of glass.
The hissing sound of the water had gathered intensity.
"I don't know what's beyond, but I'll risk going through if you are
willing," cried Phelan, who was now in a state of almost frenzy from
suppressed excitement.
"Go on--go on!" shouted O'Brien, who found it difficult to keep from
jumping overboard.
"Go on!" repeated Alfred, who, too, was now standing up.
"Give way with a will!" shouted Phelan; and in a minute the boat shot
through a thick sheet of foam and falling water, and glided into a
placid pool.
For a moment the men were blinded by the foam and water, and could see
nothing.
They rubbed their eyes, looked up obliquely, and were blinded once
again.
The mid-day sun flamed above their heads at the end of a stupendous
tube.
An indescribable cry arose. Then all was still.
A crow flew between them and the sun. All bent their heads and
crouched low as though instant death was rushing down upon them. The
crow went by harmlessly.
"Do you know where we are?" asked Phelan, in the voice of an awestruck
child.
"No."
"At the bottom of the shaft of the old mine. It slants to the
southward, and that's the sun!"
They looked around: some wreckage floated on one side of the boat.
"The planks that covered the mouth of the shaft. They must have fallen
in."
Something that was not a plank floated on the other side of the boat.
It was the body of Fahey!