Lost in the Purple Forest
We walked off east through the level green meadows, beneath the
scattered trees that were bright with purple blooms. For my own part,
I was much more interested in the vegetation than in any game we might
come upon. In fact, I would not have been greatly disappointed if our
hunt had been in vain.
The leaves of what I have called grass were really so wide and thick
that it was hardly grass at all. The higher stems of it bore myriads of
tiny, bright-red flowers. The great trees were, in shape and foliage,
somewhat like the oak, though the rich profusion of the purple flowers
almost concealed the leaves. They bore small fruits, in appearance a
little like the date, which, as we were later to learn, were edible.
But, in all the time I was in that strange world, I found no single
plant that was exactly like any I had known above.
Indeed that was a strange hunt, under a flaming scarlet sky, nine miles
beneath the ocean, through forests of the purple trees that burdened
the air with their unfamiliar fragrance, in search of we knew not what
in the way of game.
We tramped steadily eastward over the green meadows for perhaps half an
hour, rewarded with the sight of no living thing. The Omnimobile had
long been out of sight. We crossed a low greasy ridge and made our way
out across another broad smooth valley.
At last, as we looked from a screen of brush at the edge of a little
meadow, we saw an odd-looking creature gazing unalarmed a hundred yards
away. It was somewhat larger than a hog, with gray, hairless skin and
long white tusks or horns. It had an oddly heavy, barrel-like body.
It must have winded us, for it threw up its head with a peculiar
squeal, tossing its great tusks. Sam and I both fired. We have never
agreed which of us hit it, but it slumped over on the green vegetation.
We hurried up to it. It was quite dead. It had great claws, and
somewhat resembled a sloth, although it was exactly like nothing that I
had ever seen.
Sam took out his knife and skilfully removed half of the skin, wrapping
up a piece of meat in it. The beast had thick rolls of fat along the
back, but the flesh beneath looked so nice and tender that he took some
of it to try for steak.
"We'll try some of it broiled when we get back," he anticipated,
smacking his lips.
"Let's hurry on," I said. "We've been gone longer than I intended,
already. What if Xenora wakes up and we're not there?"
"Let's see," Sam said doubtfully. "The wind was from the south, wasn't
it?"
I looked around in sudden panic. I was almost sure that I knew the way
back to the machine--almost!
The strange world about us was suddenly very alien and cruel. The
plains were lonely and flat and dead. The trees were suddenly wild and
mysterious, as if they concealed strange monsters. There was a ghastly,
unearthly menace in the red gleam of the sky.
In all directions the country looked much the same. There was no
definite landmark. We stood there for a time, scanning the unfamiliar
panorama, in the beginning of panic. There were half a dozen groups of
trees, any of which might have been the one from which we fired. It
occurred to me that it would be very inconvenient if one of the flying
plants came along, and I began to think of other things that might
happen. I came to a tardy realization of our helplessness and utter
ignorance of the dangers that might surround us.
The purple trees and the scarlet sky seemed to leer at us, to gather
closer, to laugh in fiendish joy at the unnamable doom they might have
in store for us. Unconsciously I drew my pistol, and my muscles were
involuntarily tensed, so that I started when Sam spoke.
"Of course we can see the wall of cliffs in the north. That will give
us the general direction. If we can get up on that hill, we might be
able to see the machine."
He pointed toward a round, bare, green hilltop that rose several
hundred feet toward the red sky. It was perhaps a mile away, in the
direction of the hazy blue cliffs. He slung the piece of meat over
his shoulder and we set out over the open field. It was very hot, and
the perspiration was dripping from us. I had hardly noticed the damp,
hot wind before, but now it felt like a blast from a furnace. The
intense scarlet radiation of the flaming sky dried up our energy. The
steady beam of heat brought over us a growing languor, a depressed and
spiritless weariness.
The whole weird region was very still. The only sounds were the soft
sighing of the wind in the trees, and the thrashing and rustling of our
feet in the rank grass. The tiny scarlet flowers danced before the wind
almost like little insects, and a few brilliant petals blew sometimes
from one of the sparsely scattered trees.
"Phew!" Sam whistled, stopping to mop his brow with the huge red
bandanna he had tied around his neck. "This is beginning to feel like
the Sahara! I'm glad I didn't happen to be a native of the place! You
bet the machine will look good, when we find it!"
"If we find it," I could not refrain from saying.
In five minutes more we were far up the side of the little hill. The
side of the eminence was bare of the great flowering trees, so the
strange forest lay about us southward for many miles. Eagerly we looked
in the direction that should have been southwest, for the Omnimobile.
A vast stretch of the rolling plateau lay before our eyes, low
verdant hills, and vast green meadows, scattered with the brilliant
purple trees, singly and in groves. Far away, all across the southern
horizon, stretched the black sea on which we had landed, glancing with
the crimson light of the sky. But nowhere, in all that vast strange
expanse, did we catch a glimpse of the machine.
"It must be just in a low place," Sam said hopefully. "Or, I think I
remember now that there was a little grove just north of it. We will
see it in a minute, if we climb higher up."
"I hope so," I said, raising my binoculars for a better look.
"And we have compasses and instruments to guide ourselves around the
world, if we'd just thought to bring them!"
"It's no use!" I said. "Let's go on to the top."