LIKE BALEFUL EYES
According to the aneroid, this great chamber is about four thousand
feet above the level of the sea; in other words, we had already made a
vertical descent of some four thousand feet. We were now about as high
above the sea as the snout of the Nisqually Glacier. But what was our
direction from the Tamahnowis Rocks? So sinuous had been this strange
subterranean gallery, my orientation had been knocked into a cocked
hat. It was Milton's belief, however, that we had been moving in a
northerly direction, that we were still under the peak itself, probably
under the great Emmons Glacier. I confess that I would not have cared
to place a wager on the subject. Goodness only knew where we were, but
of one thing there could be no doubt: we were certainly there.
"Why," I asked, "didn't we bring along a compass?"
"I think," returned Milton Rhodes, slipping loose his pack and
lowering it to the floor, "that, as it was, we had a case of another
straw and the camel's back's busted. Let's take a rest--it's twenty
minutes after one--and a snack. And another thing: we wouldn't know
whether to trust the compass or not."
"Why so?"
"Local attraction, Bill. Many instances of this could be given. One
will suffice. Lieutenant Underwood, of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition,
found a deviation of thirteen and a quarter points on the summit of
the Cobu Rock, in the Feejees--one hundred and forty-nine degrees. The
Island of Nairai was directly north, and yet, according to the compass,
it bore southeast-by-south one quarter south, whilst, placed at the
foot of the rock, that very same compass said Nairai bore north! So you
see that that faithful friend of man, and especially of the mariner,
has in its friendships some qualities that are remarkably human.
"Still," Rhodes added, "I wish that we had brought one along. Also,
we should have brought a manometer, for the aneroid will be worthless
after we have descended below sea-level. Oh, well, the boiling-point
of water will give us the atmospheric pressure: under a pressure of
two atmospheres, water boils at 249.5° Fahrenheit; under a pressure of
three atmospheres, at 273.3°; four atmospheres, 291.2°; five, 306°;
six, 318.2°; seven, 329.6°; eight, 339.5°; and so on. On the summit of
Rainier, it boils at about 185°."
"I wish that we were headed for the summit," said I. "Eight
atmospheres! When we reach that pressure--if we ever do--we'll be ten
and a half miles below the level of the sea, won't we?"
Rhodes nodded.
"According to the law. But, as I remarked, there is something wrong
with the law. 'Tis my belief that we shall be able to descend much
deeper than ten and one half miles--that is, that the atmospheric
pressure will permit us to do so."
"That qualification," I told him, "is very apropos, for there is no
telling what the inhabitants of this underground world will permit us
to do or will do to us--bat-apes or ape-bats, humans, or both."
"That, of course, is very true, Bill."
"And," said I, "we won't need a manometer, or we won't need to
ascertain the boiling-point of water, to know that the pressure is
increasing. Our eardrums will make us painfully aware of that fact."
"When that comes, swallow, Billy, swallow, and the pain will be no
more."
"Swallow?"
"Swallow," Milton nodded.
"Great Barmecide, swallow what?"
"Swallow the pain, Bill. For look you. Deglutition opens the Eustachian
tube. Some of the dense air enters the drum and counteracts the
pressure on the outside of the membrane. You keep swallowing. The air
in the drum becomes as dense as that outside; there is no pressure
on the membrane now--or, rather, the pressures are in perfect
equilibrium--and, presto and abracadabra, the pain is gone."
"Who would have thunk it?"
"A gink," said Rhodes, "going into compressed air had better think it,
or do it without thinking it. He may have his eardrums burst in if he
doesn't."
"But why does the Eustachian tube open only when we swallow?"
"To shut from the ear the sounds produced in the throat and mouth. If
the tube were always open, our heads would be so many bedlams."
"Wonderful Nature!" I exclaimed.
"Oh, she does fairly well," admitted Milton Rhodes.
"And I suppose," I said, "that the pain in the ears experienced by
those who ascend high mountains is to be explained in the same way,
only vice versa. They too ought to swallow."
"Of course. At lofty heights, the dense air in the drum presses the
membrane outwards. Swallowing permits the dense air to escape. One
swallows until the pressure on the inside equals that of the rarefied
outside air, and, hocus-pocus and presto, the pain has evaporated."
"I hope," I said, "that all our difficulties will be as easily
resolved."
"Hey!" cried Milton.
"What's the matter now?"
"Stop _swallowing_ that water! We've got food sufficient for a week,
but we haven't got water to last a week or anything like a week. Keep
up that guzzling, and your canteen will be empty before sunset."
"Sunset? Sweet Pluto! Sunrise, sunset or high noon, it's all the same
here in Erebus."
"You'll say that it's very different," dryly remarked Milton Rhodes,
"if you find the fingers of Thirst at your throat."
"Surely there is water in this place--somewhere."
"Most certainly there is. But we don't know how far we are from that
somewhere. And, until we get to it, our policy, Bill, must be one of
watchful conservation."
A silence ensued. I sank into profound and gloomy meditation. Four
thousand feet down. A mile deeper, and where would we be? The prospect
certainly was, from any point of view, dark and mysterious enough, dark
and mysterious enough, forsooth, to satisfy the wildest dream of a Poe
or a Doré. To imagine a Dante's Inferno, however, is one thing, and to
find yourself in it is quite another. These are things, by the way,
that should not be confounded. 'Tis true, we weren't in it yet; but we
were on our way.
I hasten to say, though, that I had no thoughts of turning back. No
such thought, even the slightest, was entertained for one single
moment. I did not blink, that was all. I believed our enterprise was
a very dangerous one; I believed it was very probable that we should
never return to the light of the sun. Such thoughts are not pleasant,
are, indeed, horrible. And yet, in the very horror of them, I found a
strange fascination. Yes, we might leave our bones in this underground
world, in this very gallery even. Even so, we should have our own
exceeding great reward. For ours would be the guerdon of dying in a
stranger, a more wonderful quest than any science or discovery ever had
known. A strange reward, you say mayhap, and perhaps you wonder what
such a reward can mean to a dying or a dead man. All I have to say is
that, if you do, you know naught of that flaming spirit which moves the
scientist and the discoverer, that such as you should never--indeed,
can ever--seek the dread secrets of Nature or journey to her hidden
places.
We rested there for exactly one hour. The temperature, by the way,
was 57° Fahrenheit. When we resumed the descent, I was using the
phosphorus-lamp instead of the electric one. It was not likely that
even our electric lights would fail us; still there was no guessing
what might happen, and it might be well, I thought, to adopt a policy
of light-conservation also. As for the phosphorus lamps, these would
furnish light for _six months_. In this, they were simply wonderful;
but there was one serious drawback: the light emitted was a feeble one.
The manufacture of this lamp (at one time used, I believe, in
Paris, and probably elsewhere, in magazines containing explosives)
is simplicity itself. Into a glass phial is put a small piece of
phosphorus. The phial is filled two-thirds full of olive-oil, heated
to the boiling point. The thing is hermetically corked, and there you
are. When you wish to use your wonderful little pharos, you simply
allow air to enter. The space above the oil becomes luminous then. You
replace the cork, and the phial remains sealed until there is occasion
to restore the waning light, which you do, of course, by allowing more
air to enter. As has been said, such a phial will furnish light for a
half-year.
These phials of ours were set each in a metal frame and protected by
a guard in such fashion that it would take a heavy blow to break the
glass. When not in use, they were kept in strong metal cylinders. Of
course, the electric light could be turned on at any instant.
There were places where the gallery pitched in a way to make the head
swim, many spots in which we had to exercise every caution; a false
step might have spelled irrevocable disaster. I wondered how the angel
had passed down those difficult places, and many pictures of that
mysterious creature, as I wondered, came and went. Well, she had passed
down and that without mishap. Where was she now? Indeed, where were we
ourselves?
Steadily we toiled our downward way. For a long distance, the gallery
ran with but slight deviation either to the right or to the left,
though the descent was much broken; I mean now was steep and now
gentle, now at some angle intermediate. Rhodes thought that we were now
moving in an easterly direction; it might have been north, east, south
or west for all I knew. Not a trickle of water had we seen, not even a
single drop, which I confess caused some unpleasant thoughts to flicker
through my mind.
[Illustration: The light clung to them like wraiths of fog, to be
slowly dissipated, as they advanced, in little streams and eddies
behind them.]
At five o'clock we were two thousand feet above sea-level; at half past
seven, about half a thousand. And we then decided to call it a day. Nor
was I at all sorry to do so, even though we might be near some strange,
even great discovery, for I was very tired, and sore from the top of
my head to the end of my toes. I was in fair trim, and so was Milton
Rhodes; but it would take us some time to get used to such work as this.
A very gentle current of air, so slight that it required experiment to
detect it, was passing down the gallery. The temperature here was 62°
Fahrenheit.
We had stopped before a cavity in the wall, and, in that little
chamber, we passed the night, one holding watch whilst the other slept.
My dreams were dreadful, but otherwise the night was as peaceful as
any that ever passed over Eden. Neither Rhodes nor I, during that
strange, eerie vigil there in the heart of the living rock, heard even
the faintest, the most fleeting sound. As the watcher sat there waiting
and listening, whilst the minutes slowly passed, he found himself--at
any rate, I know that I did--almost wishing that some pulsation would
come, so heavy and awful was the stillness of the place.
But a sound we were to hear. We had been journeying for about an hour
and a half and had just passed below sea-level. In that place Rhodes
had left the aneroid. Of a sudden Milton, who was leading the way,
halted with a low, sharp interjection for silence. When my look struck
him, he was standing in an attitude of the most riveted attention.
"There!" he exclaimed. "Did you hear that, Bill?"
The air had pulsed to the faintest sound; now all was still again.
"What was it?" I asked, my voice a whisper.
"Don't know, Bill. Haven't an idea. There!"
Again that gentle pulsation touched the ear, and again it was gone. And
a strange thing was that, for the life of me, I could not have told
whether it came from below or from behind us.
"There it is again!" said Rhodes.
I flashed on my electric light, to the full power.
"A whisper!" I exclaimed. "Angel, demon, human or what? And, great
Heaven, Milton!"
"What now, Bill?" he asked quickly.
"It's something _behind us_!"
He started. He turned his light up the tunnel, and for some moments
we stood peering intently. Not a moving thing was to be seen there,
however--only the moving shadows.
"Again!" said Milton Rhodes. "But it isn't a whisper, Bill. And it
didn't come from up there."
"The thing," I told him, "could be hiding in shadow--hiding and
watching us."
"It's not up there; it's ahead."
"Wherever it is, what on earth can it be? Whatever it is, what does
this mean?"
"That we shall learn."
We resumed our descent, every sense, you may be sure, on the qui vive.
The tunnel here inclined rather steeply; a little space, however, and
the dip was a gentle one. The sounds soon became one steady, unbroken
whisper; then a dull melancholy murmur.
Abruptly Milton Rhodes stopped. He turned to me, and he laughed.
"Know now what it is, Bill?"
This was not a moment, I thought, for laughter or anything like it.
"Sounds like the growling of beasts," I said, peering intently down
the passage. "I wonder if the angel--there are two kinds of angel,
you know--has turned loose a whole pack, or herd, or flock, of those
demons."
To my surprise and astonishment, Rhodes burst into outright laughter.
"Well?" said I rather testily. "Why all the cachinnation?"
"Forgive me, Bill. But it isn't a pack of demons--or a flock of those
charming creatures."
"How on earth do you know _what_ it is?"
"It's water."
"Water?"
"Yes. H_{2}O."
"Water? I'm from Missouri. You'd better see that your revolver is
handy. Who ever heard water make a shivery sound like that?"
"You'll see that I'm right, Bill, though I think that you'll hear
first."
Ere long there could be no doubt about it: Milton was right; it was the
sound of falling water. I was not in a hurry, however, to admit the
fact. I had to let myself down gracefully. At length, though, it was
impossible to hold out any longer.
"Must be at quite a distance," I said; "sounds carry a long way in
tubes, and that is what this tunnel is."
Steadily we made our way along and down, and, just as steadily, the
sound increased in volume. The gallery made several sharp turns, and
then of a sudden the sound rose from a loud growl to a roar, and we
fetched up and an exclamation burst from us.
It is impossible to convey to the reader the eerie effect of that
sudden, strange transition. One moment we were in the gallery; the
next we had issued from it and stood in a most tremendous cavern, or,
rather, we stood on a ledge or a shelf high up on one of the walls of
that cavern.
The opposite side was but dimly visible. The roof swept across a
hundred feet or more above our heads. And the bottom? I gazed at the
edge of the rock-shelf on which we stood, out and down into that
yawning abyss, and I felt a shudder run through me and one through my
heart. The roar of the falling waters came from our right. We turned
the rays of our lights in that direction, but nothing was visible
there, save the dark limestone rock and Cimmerian blackness.
We then moved to the edge and turned our lights down into those awful
depths--to depths perhaps never before touched by ray of light since
time began. Far down the beams went plunging and farther still; but we
could not see the bottom. Bottom there was, however, for the water was
tumbling and growling down there.
I was glad to draw back from the edge, and I leaned against the
rock-wall and gazed upon the dark scene in wonder, amazement and in awe.
In a few moments Rhodes joined me.
"Well, what do you think of it, Bill?"
"Milton, this is awful."
"It is. I have never seen a sight more strange and terrible."
"And the angel?" I queried.
"What about her, Bill?"
"How on earth did she make her way through this awful place?"
"Why, along this ledge on which we are standing. There is no other way."
I glanced along that shelf, and I did not like what I saw.
"She's got a better head," I told him, "than I have got. Why didn't
we bring along an airplane? I wonder if the way lies down or up, up
towards the fall."
We bent over and examined the rock.
"Down," I observed.
"Down," Milton nodded.
Whilst I stood there pondering this and wondering what was down there
in the blackness of that frightful chasm, Rhodes moved off to the right
and examined the ledge there.
"And _up_ too," he announced. "Somebody or some thing, or both, has
gone up towards the fall."
"Great Heaven, if we get caught between them!"
"The programme _is_ becoming interesting," Milton Rhodes admitted.
For a time we stood in silence, then he said:
"I suggest, Bill, that we go up and take a look-see."
I nodded. So far as I could perceive, one way was just as good--I mean
just as bad--as the other.
That shelf was, as a whole, not an easy thing to negotiate, and some
spots made my head swim and made me wish mightily that I was somewhere
else. Undoubtedly, some thousands of years in the dim and mysterious
past, the stream once flowed at this level; at any rate, this is the
only theory that, in my opinion, will explain that ledge, and something
which we were soon to discover. Not that I ever spent much time in
worrying about theories and hypotheses; the facts themselves gave me
enough to think about, enough and to spare.
At times the shelf would be twenty or thirty feet in width or even
more, and then the going was easy enough; but at other times the space
would contract to something like a yard, and then it was quite another
story. Indeed, once or twice Milton Rhodes himself, an experienced and
fearless mountain-climber, was glad, I believe, that the way was no
narrower. As for what those moments meant to me--well, I never posed as
a mountaineer or a steeple-jack.
For fifteen minutes or so, I believe, we toiled along that terrible
place, and then of a sudden came the end. Nothing before us but the
bare precipitous rocky wall and the black profundity of the chasm,
and up above a ghostly thing crawling, crawling down, ever down, and
filling the place with thunder--the fall itself. Where did the water
come from? From one of the glaciers? And, a question more interesting,
where did it go?
"We must go back," said Milton Rhodes. "The road to Drome does not lie
here."
Scarcely had we turned when I started, and then I cried out sharply.
"Look!" I said, pointing with my alpenstock down the cavern. "Look at
that!"
Far down the cave a light was gleaming, where a moment before no light
had been. And on the instant another shone beside it. A second or two,
however, and they had vanished.
"Moving," was Rhodes' explanation. "The bearers of those lights moved
behind something."
"No!" I told him. "They didn't move. They just went out. And look!
_Again!_"
There the lights were again--gleaming at us for all the world like the
dim and baleful eyes of some waiting monster.