INTO THE CHASM
Milton Rhodes threw himself prone on the rock and his right arm around
the angel's waist.
"Quick, Bill, quick! Her arm--the whole weight of the monster!"
Her screams had ceased, but from her throat broke a moan, long,
tremulous, heartrending--a sound to shake and rend my already quivering
nerves, to most dreadfully enhance the indescribable horror of the
scene and the moment.
I could do nothing where I was, had to step over the prostrate forms,
which, in my heated imagination, were being dragged over the edge.
The wings of the demon were still beating against the rock, the blows
not so strong but more spasmodic--the sound a leathery, sickening
tattoo.
It will probably be remembered that the angel had held the demon with
her right hand. I was now on the angel's right; and, stretched out on
the rock, I reached down over the edge in an effort to free her from
that dragging monster, the black depths over which we hung turning me
dizzy and faint.
I now saw how the angel had been caught and that she had been dragged
so far over the edge that I could not, long-armed though I am, reach
the leash. So I grasped her arm and, with a word of encouragement,
began to pull. Slowly we drew the monster up. Another moment, and the
chain would be within the reach of my other hand. Yes, there. Steady,
so. I had reached down my other hand, my fingers were in the very act
of closing on the chain, when, horrors, I felt myself slipping along
the smooth rock--slipping over into that appalling gulf.
To save myself, I had to let go the angel's arm, and, as the chain
jerked to the monster's weight, an awful cry broke from the angel and
from Milton Rhodes, and I saw her body dragged farther over.
"Cut it, Bill, cut it!"
"It's a chain."
Rhodes groaned.
"We must try again. Quick. Great Heaven, we can't let her be dragged
over into the chasm."
"This horrible spot makes the head swim."
"Steady, Bill, steady," said Rhodes. "Here, hold her while I get a grip
with my other arm. Then I'll get a hold on you with my right."
"We'll all be dragged over."
"Nonsense," said Rhodes. "And, besides, I've got a hold with my feet
now, in a crack or something."
A few moments, and I was again reaching down, Rhodes' grip upon me
this time. Again I laid hold on the angel's arm, and again she and I
drew the monster up. This time, though, I got my other hand too on the
chain. And yet, even then, the chain hanging slack above my hand, the
angel was some time in freeing her own, from the fingers of which
blood was dropping. But at last she had loosened the chain, and then
I let go my hold upon it, and down the demon went, still flapping its
wings, though feebly now, and disappeared into those black and fearful
depths.
I have no recollection of any sound coming up. In all probability a
sound came. Little wonder, forsooth, that I did not hear it.
A moment, and I was back from the edge, and Milton and I were drawing
the angel to the safety of that narrow way. She sank back in Rhodes'
arms, her eyes closed, her head, almost hidden in the gleaming golden
hair, on his shoulder.
"She's fainted," said I.
"Little wonder if she has, Bill."
But she had not. Scarcely had he spoken when she opened her eyes. At
once she sat up, and I saw a faint color suffuse those snowy features.
"Well," said I to myself, "whatever else she may be, our angel is
human."
We remained there for a little while, recovering from the effects of
the horrible scene through which we had passed, then arose and started
for that place of safety there amongst the wonderful, stupendous
limestone pillars. I was now moving in advance, and I confess (and
nothing could more plainly show how badly my nerves had been shaken)
that I would gladly have covered those few remaining yards on all
fours--if my pride would have permitted me to do so.
Yes, there we stood, by that very pillar behind which the angel had
waited for us with her demon. There was her lamp, lantern rather, and
dark, save for a mere slit.
I looked at it and looked all around.
"We saw _two lights_," I said. "And yet she was waiting for us here
_alone_."
"There certainly were two lights, Bill; in other words, there certainly
were two persons at least. Her companion went somewhere; that is the
only explanation that I can think of."
"I wonder where," said I, "and what for."
"Help, in all likelihood. You know, Bill, I have an idea that, if we
had delayed much longer, our reception there," and he waved a hand
toward the bridge, "would have been a very different one."
"It was interesting enough to suit me. And, as it is, Heaven only knows
what is to follow. This is, perhaps, just the beginning of things."
The angel, standing there straight and still, was watching us intently,
so strange a look in her eyes--those eyes were blue--that a chill
passed through my heated brain, and I actually began to wonder if I was
being hypnotized. Hypnotized? And in this cursed spot.
I turned my look straight into the eyes of the angel, and, as I looked,
I flung a secret curse at that strange weakness of mine and called
myself a fool for having entertained, even for a fleeting moment, a
thought so absurd.
Rhodes had noticed, and he turned his look upon me and upon the
woman--this creature so indescribably lovely and yet with so
indefinable, mysterious a Sibylline something about her. For some
moments there was silence. I thought that I saw fear in those blue eyes
of hers, but I could not be sure. That strange look, whether one of
fear or of something else, was not all that I saw there; but I strove
in vain to find a name or a meaning for what I saw.
Science, science! This was the age of science, the age of the
jet-plane, the atom-bomb, radium, television and radio; and yet here
was a scene to make Science herself rub her eyes in amazement, a scene
that might have been taken right out of some wild story or out of
some myth of the ancient world. Well, that ancient world too had its
science, some of which science, I fear (though this thought would have
brought a pooh-pooh from Milton Rhodes) man has lost to his sorrow.
And, like that ancient world, so perhaps had this strange underground
world which we had entered--or, rather, were trying to enter. And
perhaps of that science or some phases of it, this angel before us had
fearful command.
One moment I told myself that we should need all the courage we
possessed, all the ingenuity and resource of that science of which
Milton Rhodes himself was the master; the next, that I was letting my
imagination overleap itself and run riot.
My thoughts were suddenly broken by the voice of Milton:
"Goodness, Bill, look at her hand. I forgot."
He stepped toward the angel and gently lifted her blood-dripping hand.
The chain had sunk right into the soft flesh. The angel, with a smile
and a movement with her left hand, gave us to understand that the hurt
was nothing.
The next moment she gave an exclamation and gazed past me and down the
pillared cavern.
Instantly I turned, and, as I did so, I too exclaimed.
There, far off amongst the sinister columns, two yellow, wrathful
lights were gleaming. And soon we saw them--dark hurrying figures
moving towards us.