"Forth from the dark recesses of the cave
The serpent came
With searching eye, and lifted jaw and tongue,
Quivering and hissing as a heavy shower
Upon the summer woods."
Scene: The quarter-deck of the barque. Officers at the table. Men
crowded with eager faces, respectfully listening to their captain's
story.
The preparations for the torture were finished ere the village sunk to
slumber that night. Tied hand and foot, my grandfather and Tom lay
beneath a tree. They could not sleep, and they cared not to talk; all
hope had fled, and the gloom and terror of death were in their hearts.
"The night was clear and beautiful, and the stars never looked brighter
or more impressive, but cold and heartless, as indeed seemed everything.
Sometimes a dog would come round and snuff at them, then start back in
alarm, and sit for long minutes and howl. When the dogs were silent
there were wild, unearthly shrieks heard in the distant woods, doubtless
the voices of birds and beasts of prey.
"Towards morning both prisoners fell into an uneasy doze, and were
awakened at last by the joyful shouts of a band of Indians from a
neighbouring village, who had come to share in the festival in which Tom
and my grandfather were to play so prominent a part." Skipper James
paused a minute here to relight his pipe.
"Ah, mates!" he continued, "I've often wondered what my grandfather's
feelings and poor Tom Turner's must have been when they were dragged
out, and tied to trees on the torture ground, with the female
executioners all ready, and pining to see the white men's blood, the
knives sharpened, the torture irons heated to redness, and that awful
circle of upturned faces, in which they must have looked in vain for one
pitying glance.
"`Good-bye, John,' cried Tom.
"`Good-bye, Tom,' cried my grandfather, as two vicious-looking squaws
approached him, one carrying a knife, the other a white-hot iron rod.
"`Hold!' cried an old white-haired chief, stalking into the circle.
"Every one looked impatiently towards him.
"Why, they asked, should even a chief of chiefs attempt to spoil the
sport?
"But this was none other than Red Bull himself, one whose word had been
law for years.
"He quickly gathered around him a dozen of the head warriors of the
tribe.
"`Your father would speak,' said Red Bull, when they had seated
themselves around him, and close to the stakes or trees to which the
prisoners were tied. `Your father would speak. To torture a white man
is no pleasure. The white man screams like a squaw. Then he faints,
soon he dies. Then gone for ever is the sport, for he feels no more.
Send them rather beneath the earth to the silent spirit. The great
river rolls through our valley. Soon it disappears. Every year our
young men are drawn beneath. Send the white men to seek them in the
caves of darkness. If they come not back the great serpent has devoured
them.'
"The awful truth was soon revealed more plainly to the prisoners. They
were to be placed in separate canoes, and sent adrift upon the river
that flowed through this romantic valley, and which a few miles nearer
the mountains entered a yawning cave, and was never seen again.
"Such a fate would have been enough to make the bravest hearts that ever
beat stand still with fear. The torture itself seemed pleasure in
comparison to it.
"But the old chief's speech was hailed with shouts of acclamation, while
those fiendish squaws brandishing their knives danced in a yelling
circle around the prisoners.
"A certain amount of liberty was now granted them, but they were so well
guarded that thoughts of escape never entered their minds. They were
even fed on milk and fruit, though they couldn't have had much heart to
eat.
"Next morning all preparations for this terrible voyage were completed.
There were three canoes in all--one for grand-dad, one for Tom, and one
loaded with meat and grain as provisions. The three canoes were lashed
together, and both prisoners were supplied with paddles.
"They had been told the story of the great serpent the evening before,
in order to add, if possible, to the torture of their terror.
"The tradition about this frightful snake was, my grandfather said,
common among a great many tribes, so you know there must have been some
little truth in it. Whether it ever left its subterranean abode in
summer or not no one was able to say; but when frost was hard and
winter's snow lay thick on the ground, it used to emerge at night from
the black waters and caves of such rivers as that which flowed through
this lovely fertile valley, and which suddenly disappeared. It used to
emerge, I say, and travel far inward in search of prey, killing and
swallowing whole buffaloes and even grizzly bears, which latter it would
follow to their dens, and devour them there. The trail it always left
behind it told the beholder its size. It was as if a wide-beamed boat
had been dragged along, with here and there at each side the imprint of
gigantic claws.
"One white man is said to have seen the monster on a bright moonlight
night, and its appearance was dreadful to behold. It was hurrying back
towards the river at its point of disappearance, with something in its
jaws; it was snorting, and the breath from its nostrils rose like
steam-clouds on the clear night air, its eyes glanced like green stars
in a frosty sky. Arrived at the river, it sprang in, going out of sight
at once with a booming plash.
"Amidst the yells and shouts of the savages the canoes were started, the
Indians following down the banks on both sides, brandishing knives and
tomahawks. Just before its disappearance, the river narrows
considerably, and goes swirling through a gorge with great rapidity.
"My grandfather says that at this point Tom Turner started singing `Rule
Britannia!' and that his manly young voice could be heard high over the
shouts of the savages. But grand-dad's heart was too full to join him.
"He cast one wild, despairing glance around him at the rocks with their
wild flowers, at the greenery of the hanging trees, the blue sky, the
fleecy cloudlets, at the great sun itself; then everything was blotted
out of sight in a moment, the canoes were swallowed up in the inky
darkness.
"There were a few minutes of silence deep as death itself, for my
grand-dad and Tom both were praying.
"`Tom,' cried grandfather at last.
"`John,' said Tom.
"And their voices sounded ringing-hollow, awful.
"`Speak low, Tom.'
"`Yes,' whispered Tom, `but the suspense is terrible.'
"`Where are we hurrying to? How I wish it were all over! I think I'm
going mad, John. I believe I shall leap out of the canoe and meet my
fate.'
"`No, Tom, no; be brave, man, for my sake. A minute or two ago you were
singing.'
"`It was but to keep up my sinking heart.'
"`Well, sing again.'
"`Nay, nay; I dare not.'
"`Well, Tom, stretch your hand out here, and let me grasp it. Thanks.
This seems a little comfort, anyhow.'
"`Shall we talk, Tom?'
"`No, I feel more inclined to sleep. I feel a strange, unaccountable
drowsiness steal--steal--'
"Tom said no more. He was fast asleep.
"So was grand-dad.
"How long they slept or how far the canoes had drifted on through the
subterranean darkness they never could tell, but they awoke at last, and
found that the boats had grounded at the side.
"Tom struck a light, and lit a torch.
"Nothing around them but black wet rocks, and the black water rippling
past.
"`Tom,' said my grand-dad, `it is possible enough, you know, that this
river may run but a few more miles, then emerge into the light.'
"`Oh, wouldn't that be glorious!' cried Tom.
"`Well, let us push off again, and try to keep awake.'
"Tom extinguished the torch, and the boats were once more shoved into
the stream.
"`John,' said Tom after a time.
"`Yes, Tom.'
"`Don't you remember when we were at school reading in heathen books of
the awful river Styx, that flows nine times round the abode of the
dead.'
"`Ay, Tom, and we seem on it now. It would hardly surprise me to see a
door open in the rock, and the three-headed dog Cerberus appear, or the
fearful ferryman.'
"The boats rushed on now for hours, without ever grounding, though at
times they touched at either side; and all this time those poor
despairing souls sat hand in hand, for the silence was as saddening as
even the darkness.
"Gradually, however, a sound began to grow upon their ears, and increase
and increase momentarily. It was the roar of a cataract far ahead.
"Tom speedily lit his torch, and they paddled in towards the side, and
grounding, leapt on shore, and drew up the boats.
"If they could have been surprised at anything the warmth of the shore
would have caused them to wonder, but they felt, in a measure, already
dead, and their senses were benumbed. One sense, however, was left--
that of hunger. They extracted provisions, and, strange to say, both
ate heartily, then almost immediately sank to sleep.
"`Tom,' said grand-dad, awaking at last.
"`John,' said Tom.
"`I think, Tom, we had better end this at once. Down yonder is the
cataract. We have but to push off into the stream, and in a minute more
all will be over.'
"`Nonsense,' replied Tom. `Come, John, old man, I'm getting hopeful;
and I do think, if we can drag the boats along this gloomy shore, we may
avoid that waterfall, and launch again below it. Let us try.' So Tom
lit the torch again, and away they went, dragging the light canoes
behind them.
"It was rough work, but they succeeded at last.
"Once more the boats were launched, once more the same irrepressible
drowsiness stole over them, and they slept for what seemed to them, when
they awoke, a wondrously long time.
"Again they grounded, ate, and slept.
"And so they kept on and on and on, rushing down the mysterious
subterranean river, but they came to no more cataracts.
"On and on, for days perhaps; for aught they knew for weeks.
"The regions in which they now found themselves were oppressively hot,
but they only slept the sounder. Awakening one night, if one may so
speak of a time that was all night, they were surprised in the extreme
to find themselves in the midst of a strange glimmering light. It was a
light by which they could see each other's faces, and blue and ghastly
they looked, but a light that cast no shadow, at which they marvelled
much, till they found out that the river here had broadened out into a
kind of lake, that the rocks all round them were covered with fungi or
toadstools, all emitting a phosphorescent glimmer, and that the water
itself contained thousands of strange fishes, and that these all gave
light.
"There was but little current here, so paddles were got out, and the
boats helped onwards, though, to tell the truth, both my grand-dad and
Tom Turner were more frightened at the strange spectral light that now
glared round them, than they had been of the darkness.
"The fishes, too, looked like things uncanny, and indeed they were
wholly uncouth and quite dissimilar in shape and actions from anything
they had ever seen in the world above.
"They had reached a part of the river when it began once more to narrow
and the current to become stronger, while at the same time it began to
get darker, and the spectral-like fishes fewer. But suddenly Tom
clutched my grand-dad by the wrist with his disengaged hand, and with a
visage distorted by terror he drew his attention to something that lay
half curled up at the bottom of a deep slimy pool.
"However dark it had been they would have seen that awful creature, for
its body from stem to stern was lit up with a phosphorescent gleam. It
was in the shape of a gigantic snake, full twenty fathoms long, with two
terrible alligator-like arms and claws in front. It had green glaring
eyes, that never closed or winked. Its whole appearance was fearsome
enough, my grand-dad said, to almost turn a beholder into stone.
"Whether it was asleep or awake they could not tell, but it seemed to
glide astern as the boat swept over it, and gradually to lose shape and
disappear. In a few minutes more they were plunged once more in
Cimmerian darkness.
"For many days the boats plunged on and on over the subterranean river,
till their very life became a burden and a weariness to them, that they
would gladly have laid down for ever.
"But one time, on awaking from a deep sleep, they found that something
very strange and unusual had occurred. They were still in darkness, but
not altogether in silence; the water made a lapping sound on the rocky
river bank, and the boat was no longer in motion.
"Moreover, it was less warm around them than usual.
"Tom lit a torch, and they landed. Yes, there was the water lapping up
and receding again.
"`Can you give us more light?' said my grand-dad.
"`We may burn the centre canoe,' replied Tom, undoing it as he spoke,
while his companion held the torch on high. There are no more
provisions except enough for once and a few pounds of tallow.
"The canoe was broken up and set fire to. The flames leapt up, and lo!
in front of them was the end of the mysterious river, a black and solid
rock, beneath which no man or boat could penetrate.
"Tom looked at my grand-dad, and grand-dad looked at him.
"`Lost! Imprisoned! The end has come!'
"These were the words they uttered.
"`Let us eat our last meal, then,' said Tom.
"`Yes,' said my grand-dad.
"When it was finished, they lay down with their feet towards the
grateful blaze, and in a moment or two were once more sound asleep.
"When they awoke what a change! All was light and beauty. They were in
a cave with a river rolling silently at their feet away out and joining
the blue sea. Yonder it was, and the sky, too, and white fleecy clouds,
and screaming sea-birds, and the glorious sun itself.
"They understood all now. They had come to the end of the river while
the tide was up; it was now ebb, and they were free.
"They rushed out wild with delight, and wandered away along the
sea-beach. It was weeks and weeks before they managed to attract the
notice of a passing vessel, and their adventures on shore were many and
strange, but I must not tell them now, for it is time to turn in.
"But I believe you know, and so did my grand-dad, that they had been
actually in the home of the great sea-serpent, that he dwells in
mysterious subterranean rivers like these, venturing out to sea but
seldom, and hardly ever appearing on the surface."
"Are you done?" said one sailor.
"I'm done."
"Well," said Rory O'Reilly, "it's a quare story, a very quare story,
deed and indeed. But I can't be after swallowing the big sarpint."
"I can believe the first half of the yarn," quoth Captain Blunt.
"You can, can you?" quoth Rory. "Well, sure, it's all roight after all;
you belave the _first_ half, and he belaves the second half himself;
what more can you wish? Faith, it's as roight as the rainbow."
"Well, Rory," said the skipper, laughing, "can't you tell us a story
yourself every word of which we can all believe?"
Rory scratched his head, with a comical look twinkling in his eyes and
puckering his face.
"Deed and indeed," he said, "if it be my turn, I won't be after spoiling
the fun."
Book 2--CHAPTER NINE.