I ABANDON HOPE
At last Milton and I arose and proceeded to examine carefully
this chamber of carven horrors. By the altar, another passage was
discovered. Like the great chamber itself and the passage by which we
had entered, this tunnel had been hewn out of the living rock by the
hand of man. It was some sixty feet in length and conducted us into a
small but most remarkable grotto, or rather a series of grottoes. We
advanced, however, but a little way there; a few minutes, and we were
again in the hall of the dragon.
We continued, and finished, our examination of the place. Another
passage was discovered, in the roof and leading, of course, to
we knew not where. Then there were those stone horrors ranged
along either wall; but I shall not attempt to describe those
nightmare-monstrosities, some of which, by the way, had two heads.[10]
[Footnote 10: "The Chevalier d'Angos, a learned astronomer, carefully
observed, for several days, a lizard with two heads, and assured
himself that this lizard had two wills independent of each other,
and possessing nearly equal power over the body, which was in one.
When a piece of bread was presented to the animal, in such a manner
that it could see it with one head only, that head wished to go
towards the bread, while the other head wished the body to remain
still."--Voltaire.]
The Dromans had drawn back some distance from the altar, and all had
sunk down to a seat upon the floor, all save Drorathusa.
Our examination ended, we moved toward the little group. Milton looked
at his watch.
"Midnight," he said.
As we drew near, Drorathusa suddenly raised a hand and made a
significant motion toward the entrance. Those seated rose from the
floor with an alacrity that astonished me. Evidently they were very
anxious to quit this chamber of horrors. Well, I confess that I was not
sorry to do so myself.
"Shades of the great Ulysses," said I as we moved along in the rear,
"are we going to keep up this wandering until we drop?"
"Just what I was wondering myself, Bill. I fancy, though, that our
Dromans are beginning to think that a rest would not be inexpedient."
Inexpedient!
Shortly after issuing from the passage, the party came to a halt, and
Drorathusa, to my profound thankfulness, announced that the time for
rest and sleep had come.
"Sleep?" said I to myself. "Who can sleep in such a place and at such a
time?"
From his pack, Ondonarkus took a small silk-like bundle; like the tent
that Captain Amundsen left at the South Pole,[11] one could have put it
into a fair-sized pocket. The white-haired girl handed Ondonarkus the
sort of alpenstock which she carried, and, lo and presto, there was a
tent for the ladies!
[Footnote 11: See _In Amundsen's Tent_, by John Martin Leahy, in
August Derleth's anthology called _The Sleeping and the Dead_, page
386.--Darwin Frontenac.]
Rhodes and I betook ourselves off to a hollow in the wall, where we
halted and disposed ourselves for rest. This disposition, however, was
a very simple affair: we simply removed our packs and sat down on the
floor, the softness of which by no means vied with that of swan's-down.
I drank a little water, but it seemed to augment rather than to assuage
my burning thirst. For a time I sat there, my aching body leaning
back against the rock-wall, my fevered, tortured mind revolving the
grisly possibilities that confronted us. Meditation, however, only
served to make our situation the more appalling. With an exclamation
of despair, I lay down, longing for sleep's sweet oblivion. At this
moment Ondonarkus and the young man--whose name, by the way, was
Zenvothunbro--were seen approaching. They laid themselves down nearby,
their lanterns extinguished. We had shut off the electric lights, but
our phosphorus-lamps, and those of the Dromans, shed their pale and
ghostly light around.
Rhodes was sitting up, engaged in bringing his journal forward, as
carefully and cooly as though he were in his library at home, instead
of in this mysterious and fearful abode of blackness and silence,
thousands of feet below the surface of the earth, far--though how far
we could only guess--below the level of the sea itself.
When I closed my eyes, pictures came and went in a stream, pictures
swaying, flashing, fading. The amazing, the incredible things that had
happened, the things that probably were to happen--oh, was it all only
a dream?
I opened my eyes and raised myself up on an elbow. I saw Milton Rhodes
bent over his book, writing, writing; I saw the recumbent forms of the
two Dromans, whose heavy breathing told me that already they slept;
over there was the tent, in it the beautiful, the Sibylline Drorathusa
and her lovely companions--and I knew, alas, that it was not a dream.
I sank back with an inward groan and closed my eyes again. Oh, those
thoughts that came thronging! If I could only go to sleep! A vision of
treachery came, but it was not to trouble me now. No; Rhodes was right:
our Dromans _were_ lost. If only those other visions could be as easily
banished as that one!
Ere long, however, those thronging thoughts and visions became hazy,
confused, began to fade; and then suddenly they were blended with the
monsters and the horrors of dreams.
It was six o'clock when I awoke. Rhodes was sitting up. He had, he told
me, just awakened. One of the Dromans was stirring in his sleep and
muttering something in cavernous and horrible tones. As I sat there and
listened, a chill passed through me, so terrible were the sounds.
"I can't stand that!" I exclaimed. "I'm going to wake him up. It's time
that we were moving, anyway."
"Yes," nodded Milton. "Surely, though, we'll find water today."
"Today? Where is your _day_ in this place? It's night eternal. And for
us, I'm afraid, it is good night with a vengeance."
"Aw, Bill, quit your kidding," was Rhodes' answer.
Now, the thing that I want to know is this: what can you do with a man
like that?
Ere long we were again under way. My canteen was now as dry as a bone,
and I tell you that I felt mighty sad. However, I endeavored to mask,
since I could not banish them, those dark and dire forebodings. When we
set forth, it was with the hope that we might find, and be conducted
by it to safety, the road by which those old worshippers had journeyed
to and from that hall of the dragon. But not a vestige of such a route
could we discover.
Hours passed. On and on we went, deeper and deeper. Noon came. No
change. No one had a drop of water now. Rhodes and I estimated the
distance traveled since quitting the temple of the dragon at ten miles
and the descent at something like four thousand feet. This estimate, or
rather guess, may, however, have been wide of the truth. We were still
involved in the maddening intricacies of the labyrinth.
I confess that our situation began to assume an aspect that made my
very soul turn sick and cold. Rhodes, however, divining perhaps what
was in my mind, pointed out that we had not been lost very long! and
that surely we would find water some place. A man, said he, in the
equable temperature of this subterranean world, could live for quite a
time without water. I have no doubt that a man could--if he were lying
in bed. But we were not doing that; we were in constant motion. The
arduous exercise that we were undergoing, our fatigue, the anxieties
and fears that preyed upon the mind--each was contributing its quota to
the dire and steady work of enervation.
No, I would fight against despair; but certainly I could imbibe no
consolation, no strength, either mental or physical, from a deliberate
blinking of facts. And one of the facts was that, unless we soon found
water, ours would be that fate which has overtaken so many of those who
have gone forth to search out the secrets of mysterious places.
During that halt for lunch--and what an awful lunch that was--Milton
brought forward his journal, and Drorathusa, by means of pictures drawn
in the book, made it clear to us that they would never have missed the
route had it not been for the loss of their beloved demon. That, of
course, made Rhodes and me very sorry; but, if the demon had not been
killed, we certainly should have been even more sorry--and, I'm afraid,
in a worse place than this in which we now found ourselves.
This strange intelligence, too, reminded me of grandfather Scranton's
wonder as to how _his_ angel and her demon had journeyed over rock,
snowfield and glacier to the Tamahnowis Rocks through that dense,
blinding vapor. I understood that now; they were guided by the
wonderful instinct of the ape-bat. How truly wonderful that instinct
is, we were yet to learn. Little wonder that Drorathusa mourned the
loss of her dear, beloved, her hideous demon!
The bat has in all ages been the personification of repulsiveness,
gloom and horror; and yet it is in many ways a very wonderful creature.
For instance, it can fly through intricate passages with ease and
certitude _when blinded_, avoiding any obstacle in or across its way
as though in possession of perfect vision. No marvel, therefore, that
some scientists have declared that the bat must possess a sixth sense.
The accepted explanation, however, is that the creature discovers the
objects, in the words of the great Cuvier, "by the sole diversity of
aerial impressions."
However that may be, this wonderful faculty is possessed by the great
ape-bats of Drome. Not that it is for this that they are valued by the
Dromans. It is because it is impossible for the ape-bat to get lost. It
matters not how long, how devious, how broken, savage, mysterious the
way; the demon is never uncertain for one single moment. And a singular
feature of this most singular fact is that the creature does not have
to retrace the route itself, and it does not matter what time has
elapsed. It may be a month, years; it is all the same to the demon. He
may return to the point of departure by the outward trail, or he may go
back in a bee-line or in a line as closely resembling a bee-line as the
circumstances will permit.
From this it may easily be inferred how greatly the Dromans value these
dreadful, repulsive creatures. When venturing out into the "lands of
shadows" or into the caverns of utter darkness, these beasts are simply
invaluable. In the "lands of shadows," they never fail to give warning
of the approach of the wild ape-bats, those wolves of the air, or of
other monsters; whilst, in the dark caverns--into which the wild bats
sometimes wander for considerable distances--a man, though he may be
utterly lost himself, knows that his demon will guide him safely back
to the world of light.
In other ways, however, save as veritable Cerberi, they are of little
use, are, indeed, objects of distrust and not a little dread. For they
are, as a rule, of a most savage and uncertain temper. Not that the
owner fears attack upon himself, though instances are not wanting in
which master or mistress has been set upon. To its owner, a demon is
truly doglike; but other people had better be careful.
"Since the loss of a demon on such a journey as this may spell
disaster, I wonder," I said, "why they didn't bring along more than
one."
"Food, Bill, food," returned Rhodes. "I am no authority, of course, on
demonian dietetics, but I don't imagine that they fed the monster on
canary-bird seed."
On we went, blindly and in desperation, on and on and deeper and deeper
into the earth. At length there was a change, whether for good or ill
we could not know; but we welcomed it, nevertheless--simply because it
was a change. At last we were emerging from the labyrinth. But what lay
ahead?
Yes, soon we were no longer in a maze of caverns, grottoes, passages,
but in a wide and lofty tunnel. We had made our way down it but a
little distance when an inscription was discovered on the right-hand
wall. The discovery was made by Rhodes, who happened to be in the rear.
A rectangular space, perhaps three feet by six, had been hewn perfectly
smooth, and upon this rock-tablet were many chiseled characters,
characters utterly unlike any we had seen. Before this spot, we
clustered in hope and questioning. It was at once patent, however, that
our Dromans could make nothing whatever of the writing.
But we regarded this discovery as a happy augury, and we pressed on
with a lighter step.
On to bitter disappointment.
Hours passed. We were still toiling down that awful tunnel.
At last--it was then nine o'clock--the way became very difficult. The
rock has been broken, rent, smashed by some terrible convulsion. The
scene was indescribably weird and savage. And there we halted, sank
down upon the rocky floor. Rhodes and Drorathusa evinced an admirable
nonchalance, but in the eyes of the others burned the dull light of
despair. And perhaps, too, in my own. I tried to hide it, but I could
not disguise it from myself--the numbing, maddening fact that I had
abandoned hope.
For a time I lay watching Rhodes, who was writing, writing in his
journal. How could he do it? Who could ever find the record? At any
rate, even though found, it could never be read, for the finder would
be a Droman. It made me angry to see a man doing a thing so absurd.
But I bridled speech, curbed that rising and insensate anger of mine,
rolled over, closed my eyes and, strange to say, was soon asleep.
But that sleep of mine was an unbroken succession of horrors, horrors
at last ended by an awakening as horrible.
Once more I was in that hewn chamber, once more I stood before the
great dragon. But we had been wrong: the monster was alive. Down he
sprang as I turned to flee, sank his teeth into my shoulder, raised his
head high into the air and shook me as a cat shakes a mouse.
Then suddenly I knew that it was not all a dream.
Teeth _had_ sunk into my shoulder. I struggled madly, but the jaws only
closed the harder. And, horror of horrors, the spot in which I had lain
down was now in utter blackness.
Then I was wide awake: the teeth were Rhodes' fingers, and I heard his
voice above me in the darkness:
"Not a word, Bill--unless guarded."
"What is it?" I whispered, sitting up. "And where are our
phosphorus-lamps?"
"In their cylinders," was Rhodes' low answer. "We want to see without
being seen, that is why. I can turn on the electric, of course, at
any instant. Wish the Dromans had been nearer, on this side of that
rock-mass; I would have darkened theirs too."
"Without being seen?" I queried. "In Heaven's name, Milton, what does
it mean?"
"I don't know. Got your revolver handy?"
"Yes."
"Good! Keep it so!"
"But what is it?"
"Did you," said he, "notice that passage in the opposite wall, a few
yards back?"
I whispered that I had.
"Well," said Milton Rhodes, "there is something in there. And it's
coming this way!"