Down the Silver Ladder
For a long, long time I gazed into the abyss, lost in the wonder and
the mystery of it. Meanwhile the sun climbed over and lit the farther
rim, which still was black or dully red, because of the dark colors
of the volcanic rocks of which it is composed. The scene was so vast,
so strange, so wildly beautiful and unearthly, that it seemed almost
a dream, instead of an ominous reality. It was hard to realize that
somewhere upon the red plain, or along the shores of the Silver Lake,
or perhaps beneath the banks of mist beyond, Austen was--or had
been--alone, and in distress. I wondered, too, from what part of this
strange world had come the thing of the whistling sound and the red
light, which had taken the ponies.
It was well after noon before I ate a little lunch and took thought of
the matter of descent. I saw that a second ladder led down in a fine
line of silver until it disappeared above the crimson upland, miles
below. I climbed over the brink and started down. Descending was easier
than climbing had been, but I had infinitely farther to go. The soles
of my shoes were cut through, and my hands became red and blistered on
the rungs. Sometimes, when I was too tired to go on, I slung myself to
the ladder with a piece of rope from my pack, while I rested.
Steadily the black walls rose higher about me. The red plateau beneath,
the mountain with its crown of flaming gems, and the strange white lake
beyond, came nearer and nearer.
I was still half a mile above the scarlet plain when the shadow of the
western wall was flung fast over the valley floor, and the light purple
mists beyond the argent lake deepened their hue to a dark and ominous
purple-red.
But the Silver Lake did not darken. It seemed luminous. It gleamed with
a bright, metallic silvery luster, even when the shadow had fallen upon
it. Whenever I rested, I searched keenly the whole visible floor of the
abyss, but nowhere was any life or motion to be seen.
With a growing apprehension, I realized that I would not have time
to reach the ground before dark. I had no desire to be sticking like
a fly to the face of the cliff when the Thing that had made the red
light was moving about. Disregarding my fatigue and pain, I clambered
down as fast as I could force my wearied limbs to move. The process of
motion had become almost automatic. Hands and feet moved regularly,
rhythmically, without orders from the brain. But sometimes they fumbled
or slipped. Then I had to grasp, frenzied, at the rungs to save my life.
Night fell like a black curtain rolled quickly over the top of the
pit, but the half-moon of the Silver Lake still shone with its white
metallic light. And strange, moving shapes of red appeared in the mist
in the hollow of the crescent. The light that fell upon the rock was
faint, but still enough to help, and still I hurried--forcing hands and
feet to follow down and find the rungs. And fearfully I looked over my
shoulder at the bank of mist.
Suddenly a long pale finger of red--a delicate rosy ray--shot high
out of it. And up the vague pathway it sped, a long slender pencil of
crimson light--a narrow, sharp-tipped scarlet shape--high into the
night, and over and around in a long arching curve. Down it plunged,
and back into the mist. Presently I heard its sound--that strange
whistling sigh that rolled majestically and rose and fell, vast as the
roar of an erupting volcano. Other things sprang out of the purple
bank, slender searching needles of brilliant scarlet, sweeping over the
valley and high into the starlit sky above.
Following paths that were smooth and arched, with incredible speed,
they swept about like a swarm of strange insects, always with amazing
ease, and always shooting back into the cloud, leaving faint purple
tracks behind them. And the great rushing sounds rose and fell. Those
lights were incredible entities, intelligent--and evil.
They flew, more often than anywhere else, over the crown of lights upon
the hill--the gems still shone with a faint beautiful glow of mingled
colors. Whenever one swept near the mountain, a pale blue ray shot
toward it from the cap of jewels. And the red things fled from the ray.
More and more the flying things of crimson were drawn to the mountain
top, wheeling swiftly and ceaselessly, ever evading the feeble beams
of blue. Their persistence was inhuman--and terrible. They were like
insects wheeling about a light.
All the while I climbed down as fast as I could, driving my worn-out
limbs beyond the limit of endurance, while I prayed that the things
might not observe me. Then one passed within a half mile, with a
deep awful whistling roar, flinging ahead its dusky red pathway, and
hurtling along with a velocity that is inconceivable. I saw that it was
a great red body, a cylinder with tapering ends, with a bright green
light shining on the forward part. It did not pause, but swept on along
its comet-like path, and down behind the Silver Lake. Behind it was
left a vague purple phosphorescent track, like the path of a meteor,
that lasted several minutes.
After it was gone, I hurried on for a few minutes, breathing easier.
Then another went by, so close that a hot wind laden with the purple
mist of its track blew against my face.
I was gripped with deathly, unutterable terror. I let myself down in
the haste of desperation. Then the third one came. As it approached
it paused in its path, and drifted slowly and deliberately toward me.
The very cliff trembled with the roaring blast of its sound. The green
light in the forward end stared at me like a terrible, evil eye.
Exactly how it happened I never knew. I suppose my foot slipped, or
my bleeding hands failed to grasp a rung. I have a vague recollection
of the nightmare sensation of falling headlong, of the air whistling
briefly about my ears, of the dark earth looming up below. I think I
fell on my back, and that my head struck a rock.
* * * * *
In the Red Scrub
The next I knew it was day, and the sun was shining in my eyes. I
struggled awkwardly and painfully to my feet. My whole body was bruised
and sore, and the back of my head was caked with dried blood. My
exhausted muscles had stiffened during the night, and to stand upon
my cut and blistered feet was torturing. But I had something to be
thankful for--that I had been within a few feet of the ground when I
fell; and that the red thing had departed and left me lying there,
perhaps thinking me dead.
I leaned against the base of the metal ladder and looked about, I had
fallen into a thicket of low red bushes. All about grew low thick
brush, covering the slightly rolling plain. The plants were scarcely
knee-high, bearing narrow, feathered leaves of red. The delicate,
fern-like sprays of crimson rippled in the breeze like waves on a sea
of blood. The leaves had a peculiar bright and greasy appearance and
a strange pungent odor. The shrubs bore innumerable tiny snow-white
flowers that gleamed like stars against the deep red background.
I think that the red vegetation had evolved from a species of _cycad_.
Undoubtedly the greater crater had been isolated from the outer world
when the great tree-ferns were reigning throughout the earth. And,
as I was presently to find, the order of evolution in the deep warm
pit had been vastly different from that which had produced man as its
highest form of life. Presently I was to meet far stranger and more
amazing things than the red bush. I am inclined to believe that the
extraordinary color may have been due to the quality of the atmosphere,
perhaps to the high pressure, or to the purple vapors that ever rose
from the region beyond the Silver Lake.
Nowhere did I see any living thing, nor did I hear any sound of life.
In fact one of the strange things of the place was the complete absence
of the lower forms of life, and even of the smaller insects. The
silence hung oppressively. It grew intolerably monotonous--maddening.
Far away to the right and to the left the walls of the pit rose
straight and black to the azure infinity that arched the top. To the
left of me, five or six miles away, towered the gem-crowned hill, its
summit a blaze of ever-changing polychromatic flame. Beyond it, all
along the east, the red plateau fell away to the Silver Lake, which lay
like a curved scimitar of polished steel, with the faint bank of purple
mist shrouding the low red hills that rose inside the curve beyond. The
sun was just above the eastern peaks, shining purple through the mist.
After a time I limped slowly down the nearest of the little valleys.
As I went my roving eye caught the bright glitter of brass on the
ground at my feet. Searching in the red shrubs, I picked up three
fired cartridges for a .45 calibre automatic. I held them in my hand
and gazed over the weird scene before me, lost in wonder. They were
concrete proof that Austen had passed this way, had here fought off
some danger. He must yet be somewhere in this strange crater. But where
was I to find "_Melvar, maiden of the crystal city_," and what was she
to do for me?
Presently I went on. I wanted water to bathe my cuts and bruises. I was
very thirsty as well as hungry. My pack was an irksome burden, but I
did not discard it, and I carried the heavy rifle ready in my hand. I
was still feeling very weak. After a painful half mile I came to a tiny
pool in a thicket of the red scrub. I lay down and drank the cool clear
water until I was half sick. I threw away the remnants of my shoes and
bathed my feet.
* * * * *
A Curious Sight
Suddenly my attention was arrested by a crystal clashing sound. There
was a marching rhythm in it, and the clatter of weapons. I crouched
down the shrubbery and peered fearfully about. I saw a line of men,
queerly equipped soldiers, marching in single file over the nearest
knoll. They seemed to be wearing a closely fitting chain mail of
silvery metal, and they had helmets, breastplates and shields that
threw off the sunlight in scintillant flashes of red, as if made of
rubies. And their long swords flashed like diamonds. Their crystal
armor tinkled as they came, in time to their marching feet.
One, whom I took to be the leader, boomed out an order in a hearty,
mellow voice. They passed straight by, within fifty yards of me. I
saw that they were tall men, of magnificent physique, white-skinned,
with blond hair and blue eyes. On they went, in the direction of the
fire-topped mountain, until they passed out of sight in a slight
declivity, and the music died away.
It is needless to say that I was excited as by nothing that I had seen
before. A race of fair-haired men in an Australian valley. What a
sensational discovery! I supposed that they had built the metal ladder
and come down it into the valley, but from whence had they come? Or was
the Mountain of the Moon itself the cradle of humanity, the Garden of
Eden?
Then the crystal weapons of the soldiery suggested that they used
some transparent crystalline substance in lieu of metal, and that the
iridescent crown upon the mountain might be the city of the race. Was
it Austen's "crystal city?" That would suggest a high civilization,
but I saw no sign of the mechanical devices that are the outstanding
features of our own civilized achievement. Certainly the soldiers had
carried no modern weapons.
Then I thought of the footprints and the eerie laugh. I wondered what
contact Austen had had with these people. Had they been friends or
foes? I wondered if it had been the men of the crystal city who had
paid me a visit outside the cliffs. If so, the red torpedo-shapes of
the night must be aircraft, and they must have advanced the art of
aerial navigation to a very high degree.
I determined, first of all, to do some spying, and find out as much
as possible about the strange race before I revealed my presence. I
was not in a very good trim for battle, and I had taken much pains for
concealment when the men passed. But I had little doubt that my guns
were so far superior to their crystal swords that I could fight them at
any odds if they proved unfriendly.
So presently I bound my feet with bandages from my medicine kit,
attended as best I could to the wound on the back of my head, and
walked slowly on the direction of the mountain, keeping in the cover
of the valleys as much as possible. Although I could limp painfully
along, the red vegetation offered me no very serious impediment to my
progress. The low bushes crushed easily underfoot, burdening the air
with their unfamiliar, pungent odor. The country was rolling, the low
hills and level valleys all covered crimson with the scrub, gigantic
boulders scattered here and there. The Silver Lake shimmered in the
distance--a bright, white, metallic sheet.
The gem-capped mountain rose before me until I saw that the gaunt
black sides rose a full thousand feet to the crown of blazing crystal.
And as I drew nearer, I saw that indeed the gems were buildings, of a
massive, fantastic architecture. A city of crystal! Prismatic fires of
emerald-green, and ruby-red, and sapphire-blue, poured out in a mingled
flood of iridescence from its slender spires and great towers, its
central ruby dome and the circling battlements of a hundred flashing
hues.