AS WE WERE PASSING UNDERNEATH
Something was following us. And we were not dependent solely upon that
mysterious sixth sense of mine for knowledge of that sinister fact,
either. Sounds were heard. Sometimes it would be a low rustling, as
though made by some body gliding through the foliage. Sometimes it
would be the snapping of a twig, behind us, off to the right, perhaps,
or to the left; never in front of us. Alas, it grieves me to do so, but
I am constrained by the love of truth, and by nothing else, to inform
the admirers of that great scientist Mark Twain that twigs _do_ snap
when they are stepped upon. Yes, I wish that we could have had some
of those obstreperous applauders of Mark's absurd essay on Fenimore
Cooper with us there in that Droman wood! There were other sounds, too,
one of them a thing that I could never describe--a faint humming,
throbbing sound that seemed to chill the blood in our veins, so weird
and frightful a thing that neither Milton Rhodes nor I could even dream
of an explanation. And it was in vain that we looked to our Dromans for
one. They tried to explain, but their explanation was as mysterious as
the fact itself.
Onward we pressed through that terrible place, that abode of
snake-cats, tree-octopi and unknown monsters.
At last, and for the first time since we had entered the forest, a
current of air touched our cheeks, stirred the foliage and the lovely
tresses of the ladies. Soon the breeze, soft and gentle, was whispering
and sighing among the tree-tops. A gloom pervaded the place; the wood
became dark and awful, though through it the light-mist was still
drifting, drifting in streams that swayed and shook and quivered.
Rhodes and I thought that we were going to have another eclipse. But
we were wrong. It began to rain, if I may so call that misty drizzle
that came drifting down and, indeed, at times seemed to form in the air
before our eyes.
I thought that this would stop us, for soon everything was wet and
dripping--dripping, dripping. But the Dromans pressed on steadily,
grimly. Soon every one of us was wet to the skin.
An hour or so passed, and then the drizzle ceased and the gloom lifted.
Rhodes and I were discussing this strange phenomenon when abruptly he
cried out and pointed.
"There!" said he, reaching for his revolver. "At last we have ocular
proof that we are being followed!"
Even as he spoke, that faint humming, throbbing sound again filled the
air.
"Look there! See it, Bill?"
"I see it."
What I saw was an agitation, slight but unmistakable, in the thicket
from which we had emerged but a few moments before.
Something was moving there, something was gliding through the dense
undergrowth.
I jerked out my revolver. Rhodes had already drawn his.
"Might as well try a shot," said he, "for it won't show itself, in all
likelihood, while we are standing ready to receive it."
We fired almost simultaneously. There was a smothered crash in the
thicket, as though some heavy body had given a powerful lurch sideways.
The throbbing of that mysterious sound grew faster, louder; the
agitated foliage began to shake and quiver violently; and then of a
sudden sound and agitation were stilled.
"We got it, Bill!" cried Milton, starting towards the spot.
"For Heaven's sake," I called after him, "don't go over there! Let's
get out of this. It may not be dead, and--and we have no idea what in
the world the thing is."
"We'll find that out."
I suppose that I should have been going along after him the next
moment, but Drorathusa sprang forward with a cry of horror, began
tugging at his sleeve and begging him to come back. So earnest was her
manner, so great the fear shown by this woman usually so self-contained
and emotionless, Rhodes gave in, though with great apparent reluctance.
A few moments, and we were moving away from the spot.
This Rhodes has always regretted, for to this day we do not know for
certain what that thing was which followed us for so long. I have
regretted it more than once myself; but I confess that I had no regrets
at the time.
I say we do not know for certain: we do know what Drorathusa and the
others thought that it was; but that is a creature so grisly that it
must (at any rate, such is the belief of Rhodes and myself) be placed
amongst Chimeras, Hydras and such fabled monsters.
At length, after a long and fatiguing march, we reached the spot where
the water goes plunging over a tremendous precipice. The falls are
perpendicular, their height at least half a thousand feet. It was
necessary to move off to the right for a considerable distance to find
a way of descent. The bottom reached, we headed for the stream. There
we found the boat which the Dromans had left in their outward journey,
and beside it was a second and smaller one.
This strange craft was something of a mystery to our Hypogeans; but
Drorathusa found a message, traced on the inner surface of a piece of
bark, and that seemed to clarify the matter somewhat. Drorathusa held
up three fingers; three men had come in that boat. And one of them, she
told us, must have been the man whose body we had found hanging in the
tentacle of the octopus. What had become of the victim's companions?
Why had the trio come into a place so dreadful? Well, why had we?
Our journey for this day was already a long one, but we did not halt in
that spot. We got into the boat and went floating down the stream, to
get away from the thunder of the falling waters.
As the current caught the craft, Rhodes turned to me, and, a smile in
his eyes, he said, quoting from _The Faerie Queene_:
"'Have care, I pray, to guide the cock-bote well,
Least worse on sea then us on land befell.'"
Drorathusa, who had learned a few words of our language, was watching
him, and, after a moment's silence, she waved a hand in the downstream
direction and said:
"_Narranawnzee_--fine and dandy."
One thing, by the way, that from the very beginning had intrigued
Rhodes and me not a little was the relationship existing amongst our
Dromans. It had at first been my belief (though never that of Rhodes)
that Drorathusa was the wife of Ondonarkus. Ere long, however, it
had become clear to me that wife she was not. But what was she? His
daughter, Rhodes had said. And daughter I had at length decided, and
still believed, that she was. In short, we put the relationship as
follows, and I may as well say at once that the future was to place its
O.K. upon this bit of Sherlock-Holmesing of ours: Ondonarkus was the
father of all our Dromans except one, Silvisiris, and to her he was
father-in-law.
This little mystery cleared up--at any rate, to our satisfaction--we
tackled another, which was this: what _was_ Drorathusa. I think it has
been made sufficiently obvious that she was no ordinary woman. But what
was she? The only answer that Rhodes and I had been able to find was
that Drorathusa was indeed a Sibyl, a priestess or something of the
kind. And again I may as well say at once that we were right.
But why had they set out on a journey so strange and so
hazardous--through the land of the tree-octopi and the snake-cats,
through that horrible, unearthly fungoid forest, and up and up, up into
the caves of utter blackness, across that frightful chasm, up to the
Tamahnowis Rocks, into the blaze of the sunshine, out onto the snow and
ice on Mount Rainier?
* * * * *
It was as though we suddenly had entered a fairyland, so wonderful was
this gliding along on the placid bosom of the river when contrasted
with the fatigues, the dangers and the horrors through which we had
passed. There was nothing to do but steer the boat, keep her out
in the stream; and so hours, the whole day long was passed in the
langourous luxury of resting, in watching the strange trees glide past
and in making such progress as we were able in acquiring a knowledge
of the Droman language. We found the ladies much better teachers than
Zenvothunbro and Ondonarkus. In fact, there was simply no comparison.
Why they should have proved so immeasurably superior in this respect
to the representatives of the brainy sex, I do not presume to try to
explain. I merely record a fact; its explanation I leave to those who
know more about science than I do.
For three days we glided through that lovely land, whose loveliness was
a mask, so to speak, and but made the place the more terrible, for it
was a habitat of creatures very strange indeed.
Late in the afternoon of this third day--how strange these words seem!
But what others can I use? Late in the afternoon of this third day, we
entered a swamp. The current became sluggish, our drift even more so,
and right glad were we to put the oars--of which, though, there were
only two pairs--in motion and send her along, for that was not a place
in which any sane man would want to linger. Besides the oars, however,
there were several paddles, and we sent the boat at a good clip through
the dark and sullen waters.
Weird masses of moss and weirder filaments hung from the great
branches, which at times met over the stream.
We were passing underneath one of these gnarled and bearded arches when
there came a piercing shriek from Nandradelphis, accompanied rather
than followed by a cry from Drorathusa of:
"_Loopmuke!_"
I dropped the oar and reached for my revolver, turned and saw
Ondonarkus, standing in the bow, whip out his sword and slash savagely
at the winged monster as it came driving down upon him.