THE COUNTRY OF CRATERS, THE PATH OF SKULLS, AND THE SNAKE
Filled, as I could but be, with thankfulness at my escape from
captivity and from an awful death, I did not realize for a time what
the loss of the diamonds meant to me; indeed I was too exhausted by my
terrific struggle to do more than crawl a few yards away from the
brink, throw myself down in the sand and sink into the sleep of utter
weariness.
But with my awakening the bitter truth was borne upon me in a flash.
All my struggle had then been in vain. I had won my freedom but had
lost all that would make life bearable. Even if I could win back
through the desert, what had I now to compensate me for the horrible
disfigurement that would make me shunned and despised a leper amongst
my fellowmen?
Bitterly did I regret my pleasant prison down below surely it would
have been better to stay there in peace till I died, as fate had
apparently decreed; and if I could have done so I would certainly have
returned. But to return was impossible, and I must make up my mind to
struggle through the desert or die where I was. Moreover, in the midst
of my bitter reflections there came the comforting recollection that I
had still the blue diamonds that I had kept apart and put in my pocket.
Eagerly I felt for them yes! they were safe, and in themselves they
must be worth a fortune!
My spirits rose with a bound again; why should I dream of giving in? I
was strong and hard, and if I could win through, the diamonds would
surely enable me to fit out an expedition and return; and with ropes
the descent into the crater would be easy.
Rested by the cool of the night I felt little the worse for my climb,
and was all eagerness for dawn to break that I might see what manner of
country I was in, for I had been half demented when my terrible ride
from the pursuing sandstorm had brought me into it.
At last daylight came, and I saw that although in the midst of a wide
sandy plain, there were no dunes; scattered bushes grew here and there,
and dotted about in the distance were a number of bare granite rocks.
The crater I had climbed from went sheer down at my feet so abruptly
indeed, and with so little to denote its presence, that within a few
yards of its brink nothing whatever could be seen of it.
I looked once more into its depths, to where the pool lay dark in the
still dim light of dawn, and from it my eyes followed the course that I
had taken in my climb, and I marveled that I had ever reached the top.
And a great thankfulness rose in my heart and drowned the unworthy
regret that I had felt at the loss of the diamonds.
And with a last long look at my late prison, I turned and made my way
towards a prominent pile of rocks in the distance, from which I hoped
to be able to see more of my surroundings. My waterbottle was nearly
empty already, and the old haunting dread of thirst was beginning to
fill my mind, but soon this fear left me, for within a mile I found
t'samma flourishing, and at the first pile of rocks a little spring of
water.
Cheered and encouraged I made good progress in spite of the now blazing
sun, and soon I reached the pile of rocks. And to my astonishment I
found that they formed part of the margin of a crater almost identical
with the one from which I had escaped; deep and inaccessible, and with
a mass of vegetation filling the bottom.
This discovery gave me food for thought. It had never entered my head
that the queer place of my imprisonment had been one of many, and I had
thought that once I could reach even a friendly native tribe where some
kind of rope was obtainable I could locate the crater again and secure
the bag of diamonds. But I had already stumbled upon another crater,
and maybe there were many? And this indeed I found to be the case, for
they became more numerous as I proceeded, until the whole country was
pitted with them. They were of all sizes and depths, some mere pits of
fifty feet in diameter or less, some huge gulfs a mile or more across,
and so deep that it was difficult to distinguish what was at the
bottom. Invariably their walls were sheer and I could explore none of
them, but in nearly all I saw the gleam of water.
So numerous were they, as I penetrated farther into this strange
country, that I was forced to make wide detours in my endeavor to avoid
them, and so bewildering did this labyrinth of huge pits at last become
that I became hopelessly lost among them, and at times thought that I
should never break clear of them again. Day after day I wandered about
this vast and apparently level plain, finding every short distance a
huge yawning gulf at my feet, forced to try new routes, and constantly
being pulled up by similar obstacles. And all this time I saw no sign
of life, not even a spoor in the sand to show that mankind had ever
trod there. There was no animal life even; a few birds, and a few
snakes, nothing more indeed so deserted and dead was this weird land
that it appeared unreal, and often I imagined that by some strange
chance I had been transported to some other and long-dead planet, so
little was this maze of craters like Mother Earth.
I had food and water enough, and as the moon now gave plenty of light I
walked only at night, resting in the shadow of the rocks by day.
One night I had made better progress than usual, having walked for some
hours without having to deviate from my path, and was beginning to hope
that I had escaped from the labyrinth, when suddenly, at my very feet,
there yawned the usual abyss, but this time so huge that I could scarce
make out the farther cliffs, though the moon was full and it was almost
as light as day. It would mean a long and weary detour, and my heart
sank as I thought of it; then leapt as it had not leapt since the day I
found the diamond by the pool in the crater. For there in the misty
depths, far away towards the farther cliffs, twinkled a fire!
A fire! Yes; and I had seen no fire except of my own kindling since the
night that Inyati had died . . . months months surely it must have been
years ago? . . .
Here at last must be human beings: savages maybe, but still flesh and
blood like myself; and if they were in the crater there must be a way
down.
That night I walked as I had never walked before, following the brink
of the chasm, and scarcely taking my eyes from the tiny flame that
meant so much to me. A way out, a way back to civilization, to life
among beings like myself, all this it would mean to me, even if I found
but savages by the fire for they could put me in the right path . . .
and it never occurred to me to fear them.
Now as the broad moon rose higher I could see into the crater's depths,
and this, besides being more vast, was not as the others I had seen.
Its floor appeared to be quite level, and looked to be of pure white
sand; but everywhere it sparkled in the bright moonlight. Diamonds
surely?
I was near the fire now, though far above it, and now I could see there
was a path, a broad white path, down a steep slope, it must be broad to
show so plainly, for I was still a mile or more away!
In my eagerness I forgot my fatigue, and hastened panting towards this
first blessed sign of man's handiwork that I had seen for so long.
Here it was at last; a broad white road, running straight as an arrow
away across the sands in the one direction and leading down into the
pit on the other a road paved apparently with round white stones all of
one size.
Something in their appearance struck me: a loose one lay beside the
path, and I stooped to examine it.
It was a skull a human skull, the whole road was paved with them as far
as the eye could reach, there were thousands upon thousands myriads of
them.
And as I realized what they were, fear seized me, and I turned away
from this terrible pathway.
At last I threw myself down in the black shadow of some rocks, still
trembling and agitated, and tried to compose myself to think. What
manner of men were these I had found at last, and who watched there
below by the fire: what race was this that thus made grim mockery of
their dead?
At length I overcame my fears sufficiently to return not to the path
but to the edge of the crater at some distance from it, and peering
down could see that the fire was still burning, and here, hiding as
best I could, I waited till morning. Daylight showed me no sign of life
however, though still the pale flame flickered, and I could now make
out that it burnt before a sort of building which seemed to be of white
polished stone. Till well after broad daylight I lay and watched, but
nothing stirred; and I determined that I would go down and see what
manner of fire was this that burnt day and night without tending.
The skulls did not look as ghastly in sunlight as they had done in the
pale light of the moon. I could see too that this path was ancient, and
nowhere could I find traces of its being used. As I had seen the night
before, it led straight across the desert, and in the distance in that
direction I could now see faint blue mountains. So there was an end to
this land of desolation after all, and I determined that after I had
seen what was below, I would follow that road! The slope went down
steeply and here the path was roughly stepped; as it led deeper, too,
the slope narrowed, until at the bottom the entrance to the crater lay
through a natural gateway of rock that rose high on either hand and
almost shut out the light. Through it the strange path led, and here in
the gloom the horror of this awful place again came upon me and I could
scarce bring myself to enter the narrow defile. I remember clutching my
revolver as I went forward at last: remember thinking too that it could
avail me nothing, for here was no live being to fear, here was naught
but the dead. . The utter silence and loneliness even after my months
of silence and loneliness seemed to weigh upon me like a heavy burden,
and when a bat came fluttering by me in the gloom I uttered a hoarse
cry of alarm. But the distance was but short, and soon I stood safe in
the daylight again, and on the floor of the crater. And now I could see
that the white floor I had thought was sand was also strewn with bones,
of animals principally, though men's skeletons also lay thick on every
side. Bones of the elephant principally; for among them lay huge tusks
in quantities, tusks the like of which I had never seen, except in
pictures of the giant mammoth of prehistoric ages, tusks the girth of a
man in size. Piled in all directions they lay, the whole vast floor was
indeed a stupendous charnel house. And among the white sand and bones
diamonds lay thick as pebbles on a beach.
Across this floor ran the path now a raised causeway some feet above
the level of the sand and about five hundred yards from where I stood
the fire burnt in front of a building in the shape of a pyramid. Still
no sign of life could I see and I made my way towards it. As I did so
the sun's rays broke over the edge of the cliff above, and fell full
upon the top of the pyramid, and another flame seemed to shoot from it,
and remained there flashing brilliantly.
I was close to the fire now, and saw that it was no hand-fed flame, but
a column that rose from an orifice in the rock, and burnt fiercely with
a low roaring noise, and a strong mephitic odor. Probably it was some
kind of natural gas; at any rate there was no one near it and nothing
to fear from it. The pyramid behind it was made of ivory, thousands of
tons of magnificent tusks going to make up its forty feet of height,
and up it, in steps, ran the path, for the pyramid was the culmination
of this road of dead. I climbed up and reached the apex, a platform
some twenty feet square, above which something still towered, crowned
by a flashing light.
Its brilliance dazzled me, and it was only by shading my eyes with my
palm that I could discern what the object was that bore it.
Then, directly beneath the bright glare I gradually made out a gigantic
face, glaring down upon me, a face carved with such wondrous art that,
monstrous as it was, it appeared to live, and to be endowed with such
awful malevolence that for a moment I shrank back in dismay. It was the
face of a woman, but the body that it crowned was that of a snake, and
was coiled round an ivory pillar rising from the platform. Marvelously
fashioned of bronze, the face, with bared serpent fangs, bent down as
though to strike: and set in a strangely fashioned diadem above the
brows was a gigantic diamond, as large as a man's head, and of such
blinding luster that it was impossible to look closely at it as well
try to gaze full at the midday sun.
It was an idol, undoubtedly; a Moloch waiting for a sacrifice; and as
my fascinated eyes at length left the face of terror, and passed down
the coiled body and ivory pillar, I saw that the sacrifice was already
there. For at the base lay a dead man, and his blood was scarcely dry
upon the altar.
He was fast bound with hide thongs to stanchions cut in the rock a man
almost as white as myself, with long, straight black hair, and clothed
in clean white flowing robes. His face was horribly disfigured, seared
and burnt as though by red-hot irons, and his features quite
indistinguishable. Apparently, then, he had been tortured, before being
stabbed to the heart by the strangely fashioned knife of bronze that
lay beside him.
It is beyond me to describe the terror with which the sight of this
dead and mutilated victim inspired me. I had seen no human being for so
long: dead Inyati's face had been the last that I had gazed upon; then,
after long I had seen the skeleton in the pool the road of skulls and
now at last I gazed upon a human form again, it was again that of the
dead.
All around me was death, death everywhere, and I felt that unless I
escaped, and found human companionship soon, my mind would give way
beneath these horrors.
And I must quit this place of sacrifice at once, for the fiends who had
laid this victim there would probably give me but scant mercy were I
found there.
I examined the body again: it might well have been that of a South
European, so light was the skin; and now I noted that on one wrist was
a copper bracelet exactly similar to the one Inyati had given me, and
which I now wore on my own wrist. I compared them, and found them
identical, and now I noted that the rude attempt at a snake's head into
which their fastenings were fashioned, was undoubtedly an imitation of
the head of the idol above me.
This, then, doubtless was Inyati's land, and this one of the priests he
had spoken of. Mayhap he had killed one of them and taken his bracelet
before he fled for he had spoken of jealousy and of a woman I---
But of the idol, the road, the craters he had said nothing . . . maybe
he knew not himself?
True, he had feared the priests, till the "little gun" had become his
with it he would, doubtless, have faced all the priests living but I,
looking at the dead man and realizing something of the manner of his
death, was in deadly fear . . . my revolver would be but little use
against fiends who served their own priests thus!
I must fly from this place at once if indeed it were not already too
late! But gaze as I could, no sign of life showed anywhere; no sound
broke the silence except the low hissing murmur of the flame that burnt
everlasting incense to the shrine of horror before me.
And so, glancing from side to side in mortal terror, starting at the
sound of my own soft footsteps, and feeling that unseen eyes watched me
from all sides, I left the Snake and its victim, the pyramid and the
flame, and fled swiftly along the causeway, not even stooping to pick
up the diamonds that lay on all sides, intent only upon escape. I
reached the entrance, and passed through the narrow portals and
breasted the steep slope, and fearful and over-wrought, I gained the
open plain again.
Northward lay the path to the mountains: south the labyrinth of craters
I had left; westward mayhap I should find the dunes? And pitiless as
they were, I chose that path rather than follow the road of skulls
towards the country and the mercy of such fiends as these people must
be!
Soon I had left the crate far behind, and no trace of the road could be
seen when I glanced back, but I could not shake off a haunting fear
that now possessed me, that I was being watched. Eyes seemed to follow
me everywhere, each bush or rock seemed to hide a watcher, and again
and again I turned aside and searched, and looked fearfully over my
shoulder, but nothing could I see.
And so I walked till evening, seeing no trace of the human beings I
knew must be near, and at last, somewhat easier in mind, I threw myself
down to sleep.
And awakened to find myself seized and held as in a vice, to feel
thongs passed about me, and a hand passing over my forehead . . .
gently . . . gently . . . and then all consciousness faded away.