"GOGRUGRON!"
They were visible for a few seconds only--those great eyes burning with
a greenish fire.
"Where did they go?" exclaimed Rhodes.
"And," said I, "what can it be? An ape-bat?"
"That is no ape-bat."
He turned to Ondonarkus.
"_Loopmuke?_" he queried.
No; it was not a _loopmuke_. But what it was neither Ondonarkus's
pantomime nor Drorathusa's could tell us.
"I don't think it's as bad as that. But the Dromans all know what it is
themselves."
"There!" I cried, whirling round. "Did you hear that, Milton? There's
that other thing again--that thing behind us!"
"I heard nothing."
"I heard something, I tell you. That mystery with the eyes is not the
only thing that is watching us, watching us and waiting."
Some moments passed, perhaps minutes, in expectant watching, our
glances incessantly darting about the cavern, through which the
light-mist was moving in troubled, writhing streams, the nebulous,
spectral glow of it seeming to enhance the fearsome gloom of that
dreadful place.
"I see nothing," Rhodes said at last, "and the cavern is as silent as a
tomb."
"But we are _seen_. And, if we don't get out of this, it may be _our_
tomb."
"I don't think it's as bad as that. But the Dromans are signing to us
to come on--let us hope to a place more pleasant than this one."
I had turned to quit the spot, my look, however, lingering in that
direction whence had come those low, mysterious sounds, a direction
right opposite to that in which the moving eyes had shone. And scarcely
had I taken a step forward when I fetched up, cried out and pointed.
"See that! See it moving?"
A large fungus-tree, its form one indescribably grotesque, was
quivering. It began to shake violently. Some heavy body, hidden from
our eyes, was moving there, and it was moving toward us.
Of a sudden the tree was thrust far over, there was a squishy,
sickening sound, then down it came, the spot where it fell involved in
a cloud of phosphorescence, which thinned and faded in the air like
dust or mist as it settles.
"Shades of the Gorgons," I cried, "what is in there?"
A sound from Milton Rhodes turned me round on the instant.
"The eyes again!" he cried. "There they are. See them? Have we at last
got into Dante's Inferno itself?"
I was beginning to think that we had got into something worse.
Yes, there the eyes were, and they were nearer this time. But that was
all we saw, eyes and nothing more. The thing itself was hidden in the
fungoid growth and the shadows.
Rhodes raised his revolver, rested it on his left arm, took careful aim
and fired.
The report seemed to bellow like thunder through the cavern. There was
a scream from the Dromans, none of whom, save Drorathusa, had ever
heard a firearm before; and I doubt that even Drorathusa knew what had
killed her demon. On the instant, whilst the report of the weapon and
the cry of the Dromans were ringing in our ears, came another sound; it
was a shriek, high, piercing, unearthly, one that seemed to arrest and
curdle the very blood in our hearts.
It sank, ceased. But almost instantaneously it came again; it rose
until the air seemed to quiver to the sound.
The effect upon the Dromans was most sudden and pronounced.
A nameless fear, and something worse, seized upon me as I saw it.
They started from the spot as if in a panic, signing to us with frantic
gestures to follow.
I started; but Rhodes, for some inexplicable reason, stood there, his
look fixed on the spot whence came those demoniacal shrieks. The eyes
had disappeared, but in almost that very instant that I turned, they
shone again. I gazed at them as though in fascinated horror, forgetting
for the moment that there was something behind me.
Up the eyes rose. A black thing was visible there in the darkness,
but its shape was amorphous, mysterious. Up the eyes rose, seeming
to dilate, and the fire in them grew brighter and brighter, became
so unearthly that I began to wonder if I were going insane. The eyes
swayed, swayed back and forth for some moments, then gave a sudden
lurch into darkness. The shrieks broke, then came again, more horrible,
if that were possible, than before.
"Come on!" I cried, starting. "For Heaven's sake, Milton, let's get out
of this, or I'll go mad!"
"What in the world," said Rhodes, reluctantly turning to follow, "can
that thing be?"
"Let's get out of this hellish place. Let's do it before it's too late.
Remember, there is something _behind us_. Maybe monsters in other
directions too."
"Well," said Rhodes complacently as he followed along in my wake, "we
have our revolvers."
"Revolvers? Just see what your revolver has done. A revolver is only a
revolver, while that thing--who knows what that monster is?"
"The Dromans know, or at any rate, they think that they do."
"And look at the Dromans. Fear has them. Did you ever see fear like
that before? See how they are signing to us to come on. Even Drorathusa
is shaken to the very soul."
"After all, 'tis no wonder, Bill, that she is. Those shrieks! How can
it continue to shriek and shriek like that?"
Ere long we had come up with the Dromans, who at once quickened their
pace. On we went, casting apprehensive glances into the gloom about
us. Those frightful sounds sank as we moved onward. They became faint,
fainter still, and at last, to my profound thankfulness, they were no
longer to be heard, even when we paused to listen.
"If that," said I during one of those pauses, "is a good sample of what
we are to have here in Drome, then I wish that, instead of coming down
here, I had stepped into a den of cobras or something."
Drorathusa's eyes were upon me. As I ceased speaking, she raised a hand
and pointed in the direction whence we had come.
"_Gogrugron!_" she said.
And I saw fear and horror unutterable well up in her eyes as she said
it.