WHAT DID IT MEAN?
"The help is coming, Bill," said Milton Rhodes. "And that reminds me: I
haven't reloaded my revolver."
"I would lose no time in doing so," I told him.
He got out the weapon and proceeded to reload it. It was not, by the
way, one of these new-fangled things but one of your old-fashioned
revolvers--solid, substantial, one that would stand hard usage,
a piece to be depended upon. And that it seemed was just what we
needed--weapons to be depended upon.
The angel was watching Rhodes closely. I wondered if she knew what had
killed her demon; knew, I mean, that this metal thing, with its glitter
so dull and so cold, was a weapon. It was extremely unlikely that she
had, in that horrible moment on the bridge, seen what actually had
happened. However that might have been, it was soon plain that she
recognized the revolver as a weapon, or, at any rate, guessed that it
was.
With an interjection, she stepped to Rhodes' side, and, with swift
pantomime, she assured us that there was nothing at all to apprehend
from those advancing figures.
"After all," Milton said, slipping the revolver into his pocket,
"why should we be so infernally suspicious? Maybe this world is very
different from our own."
"That's just what I'm afraid of. And it seems to me," I added, my right
hand in that pocket which contained my revolver, "that we have good
cause to be suspicious. Have you forgotten what grandfather Scranton
saw up there at the Tamahnowis Rocks (and what he didn't see) and the
death there, so short a time since, of Rhoda Dillingham, to say nothing
of what happened to us here a few minutes ago? That we are not at the
bottom of that chasm--well, I am not anxious to have another shave like
that."
"I have not, of course, forgotten any of that, Bill. I have an idea,
though, that those tragedies up there were purely accidental. Certainly
we know that the demon's attack upon ourselves was entirely so."
"Accidental? Great Scott, some consolation that."
I looked at Milton Rhodes, and I looked at the angel, who had taken a
few steps forward and was awaiting those hurrying figures--a white-clad
figure, still and tall, one lovely, majestic. And, if I didn't sigh, I
certainly felt like doing so.
"No demon there, Bill," observed Milton at last, his eyes upon those
advancing forms.
"I see none. Four figures. I see no more than four."
"Four," nodded Rhodes. "Two men and two women."
A few moments, and they stepped out into a sort of aisle amongst the
great limestone pillars. The figure in advance came to an abrupt halt.
An exclamation broke from him and echoed and re-echoed eerily through
the vast and gloomy cavern. It was answered by the angel, and, as her
voice came murmuring back to us, it was as though fairies were hidden
amongst the columns and were answering her.
But there was nothing fairylike in the aspect of that leader (who
was advancing again) or his male companion. That aspect was grim,
formidable. Each carried a powerful bow and had an arrow fitted to the
string, and at the left side a short heavy sword. That aspect of theirs
underwent a remarkable metamorphosis, however, as they came on towards
us, what with the explanations that our angel gave them. When they at
last halted, but a few yards from the spot where we stood, every sign
of hostility had vanished. It was patent, however, that they were wary,
suspicious. That they should be so was, certainly, not at all strange.
But just the same there was something that made me resolve to be on my
guard whatever might betide.
The leader was a tall man, of sinewy and powerful frame. Though he had,
I judged, passed the half-century mark, he had suffered, it seemed, no
loss of youthful vitality or strength. His companion, tall and almost
as powerful as himself, was a much younger man--in his early twenties.
Their hair was long. The arms were bare, as were the legs from midway
the thigh to halfway below the knee, the nether extremities being
incased in cothurni, light but evidently of very excellent material.
As for the companions of the twain, one was a girl of seventeen or
eighteen years of age, the other a girl a couple of years older. Each
had a bow and a quiver, as did our angel. Strictly speaking, it was
not a quiver, for it was a quiver and bow-case combined, but what the
ancients called a _corytos_. The older of these young ladies had golden
hair, a shade lighter than the angel's, whilst the hair of the younger
was as white as snow. At first I thought that it must be powdered,
but this was not so. And, as I gazed with interest and wonder upon
this lovely creature, I thought--of Christopher Columbus and Sir Isaac
Newton. At thirty, they had hair like hers. That thought, however,
was a fleeting one. This was no time, forsooth, to be thinking of old
Christopher or Sir Isaac. Stranger, more wonderful was this old world
of ours than even Columbus or Newton had ever dreamed it.[8]
[Footnote 8: "Considering that the mean density of the whole earth is
only about five and a half times that of water, and that the materials
of which the crust of the earth is composed are all compressible in
a greater or less degree, so that even at no very great depth the
density of the different substances must be greatly increased by the
mere pressure of the superincumbent materials, some philosophers have
supposed that the effects of pressure must be counterbalanced by the
expansive force of a great heat subsisting in the interior of the
earth; and others that the earth is not solid, _but merely a hollow
shell_ of inconsiderable thickness."--Brande.]
The age of our angel, by the way, I placed at about twenty-five years.
And I wondered how they could possibly reckon time here in this
underground world, a world that could have neither days nor months nor
years.
The quartette listened eagerly to the explanations given by our angel.
Suddenly the leader addressed some question to Persephone, as Rhodes
called her. And then we heard it!
"Drome," was her answer.
There it was, distinct, unmistakable, that mysterious word which had
given us so many strange and wild thoughts and visions. Yes, there it
was; and it was an answer, I thought, that by no means put the man's
mind at ease.
Drome! Drome at last. But--but what did it mean? Drome! There, we
distinctly heard the angel pronounce the word again. Drome! If we
could only have understood the words being spoken! But there was no
mistaking, I thought, the manner of the angel. It was earnest, and
yet, strangely enough, that Sibylline quality about her was now more
pronounced than ever. But there was no mistaking her manner: she was
endeavoring to reassure him, then, to allay, it seemed, some strange
uneasiness or fear. I noticed, however, with some vague, sinister
misgivings, that in this she was by no means as successful as she
herself desired. Why did we see in the eyes of the leader, and in those
of the others, so strange, so mysterious a look whenever those eyes
were turned toward that spot where Milton Rhodes and I stood?
However, these gloomy thoughts were suddenly broken, but certainly
they were not banished. With an acquiescent reply--at any rate, so I
thought it--to the angel, the leader abruptly faced us. He placed his
bow and arrow upon the ground, slipped over his head the balteus, from
which the _corytos_ hung at his right side, drew his sword--it was
double-edged, I now noted--from its scabbard, and then he deposited
these, too, upon the ground, beside his bow and arrow. His companion
was following suit, the two girls standing by motionless and silent.
The men advanced a few paces. Each placed his sword-hand over his
heart, uttered something in measured and sonorous tones and then bowed
low to us--a proceeding, I noted out of the corner of my eye, that not
a little pleased our angel.