THE TERRORS OF THE DARK
I
From the topmost summit of that range of pointed hills which held the
caves and the cave-mouth fires of his people, Grom stared northward
with keen curiosity. To east and south and west he had explored, ever
seeking to enlarge the knowledge and strengthen the security of his
tribe. But to northward of the pointed hills lay league on league of
profound jungle--grotesque and enormous growths knitted together
impenetrably by a tangle of gigantic, flame-flowered lianas. And in
those rank, green glooms, as Grom had reason to believe, there lurked
such monsters as even he, with all his resources of fire and novel
weapons, had so far shrunk from challenging.
But beyond the expanse of jungle stretched another line of hills,
their summits not saw-toothed like his own, but low and gently
rounded, and of a smoky purple against the pure turquoise sky. These
hills Grom was thirsting to explore. They might contain caves more
roomy than those of his own hills--spacious and suitable to give
shelter to his tribe, which was now finding itself somewhat cramped.
Moreover, it had always seemed to Grom that there might be a mystery
behind those hills, and to his restless imagination a mystery was
always like a stinging goad.
In all this neighborhood the crust of earth was thin as plainly
appeared from the fringe of wavering volcanic flames which, during all
the five years since the coming of the tribe, had been dancing from
the lip of the narrow fissure across the mouth of their valley. Night
and day, now high and vehement, now low and faint, they had danced
there, guarding the valley entrance--until just one moon ago. Then had
come an earthquake, shaking the hearts of all the tribe to water. The
dancing flames had died. The fissure had closed up, and its place had
been taken by a pool of boiling pitch. And one of the caves had fallen
in, burying several members of the tribe, who had been too stupefied
with panic to flee into the open at the first alarm. For some days
after this catastrophe the tribe had camped in the open, huddled about
their great fires. Then, but with deep misgivings, they had all
crowded back into the remaining caves.
But now there was not room enough, and Bawr, the wise Chief, had taken
frequent counsel upon the matter with Grom, whom, loving him greatly
he called sometimes his Right Hand and sometimes the Eye of the
People. At last, it had been settled that Grom should lead a party
through the jungle land to those other hills, to spy out the prospect.
And Grom, like the foresighted leader that he was, had spent many
hours on the mountain-top, planning his route and studying the
luxuriant surface of the jungle outstretched below him, before
plunging into its mysterious depths.
As was his custom when on a perilous venture, Grom would have few
followers to share the peril with him. He took A-ya, not only because
of her oft-proved courage and resourcefulness, not only because he
wanted her always at his side, but, above all, because he knew he
could not leave her behind. Had he tried to leave her, she would have
disobeyed and followed him by stealth--and perhaps fallen a prey to
prowling beasts. He took also A-ya's young brother, the hot-head Mo;
and Loob, the shaggy, little sharp-faced scout, who could run like a
hare, hide like a fox, and fight like a cornered weasel. This he would
have accounted, ordinarily, a sufficient party. But the present
enterprise being one of peculiar difficulty, he decided at the last
moment to strengthen his following by the addition of a dark-faced,
perpetually-grinning giant named Hobbo, who was slow of wit, but
thewed like a bull, and a mighty fighter with the stone-headed club.
This little but greatly daring band, which Grom, one flaming sunrise,
led down into the unknown jungle, was well armed. Besides the spear
and the club, each member of the party but Hobbo (who had displayed no
aptitude for its use) carried Grom's wonderful invention--the bow.
Hobbo, however, because of his immense strength, bore the heavy
fire-basket, wherein the smoldering coals were cherished in a bed of
clay. As a food reserve, everyone carried a few strips of half-dried
meat; but their main dependence, of course, was to be upon the spoils
of their hunting and the fruits that they might gather on their
march.
The forest into whose depths Grom now led the way was in reality a
survival from a previous age, into which the forms, both vegetable and
animal, of contemporary life had been gradually infiltrating. The
soil, of incredible fertility, still poured forth those gigantic tree
grasses, and colossal, sappy ferns and psuedo-palms, which had
flourished chiefly in the carboniferous period. But here they were
mingled with the more enduring hard-wood growths of the later tropical
forests; and only these were strong enough to support the massive,
strangling coils of the cable-like lianas, which wound their way up
the huge trunks and reached out in aerial, swaying bridges from
tree-top to tree-top. On every side, high or low, the deep-green gloom
was splashed with color from the gorgeous orchids and other epiphytes,
which flowered out into grotesque or monstrous wing-petaled shapes of
vermilion and purple and orange and rose and white, eyed with velvet
black or streaked with iridescent bronze.
To men of to-day this jungle would have been impenetrable, except by
the incessant use of axe or machete. But Grom and his party were
Cave-Men, and had not yet forgotten all the instincts and capacities
of their tree-dwelling ancestors. Sometimes, where it seemed easiest,
they forced their way along the ground, or followed the trodden trail
of some great jungle beast, so long as it led in the right direction.
But here they had to be ceaselessly on the watch against surprise by
creatures whose monstrous tracks were unlike any that they had ever
seen before. Whenever possible, therefore, they preferred to journey,
after the fashion of their apish ancestors, by way of the high
branches and the liana bridges. Hampered as they were by their
weapons, their progress by this aerial way was slow. But it was
comparatively secure. And it was also comparatively cool; while down
at the ground-level the steaming heat and the stinging insects were
almost beyond endurance.
Yet before the end of that first day's journey they learned that even
in tree-tops it was necessary to be always on the watch. Once the
little hairy scout, Loob, who traveled always on the outskirts of the
party, was struck at suddenly by a huge black leopard, which lay
ambushed in the crotch of a tree. Loob, however, who was so
quick-sighted that he seemed to see things before they actually
happened, leapt to a higher branch in time to escape the deadly
paw. In the next instant he struck down furiously with his spear,
catching his assailant between the shoulder-blades and driving the
stroke home with all his strength. With a screech, the beast stiffened
out, and then, somewhat slowly, collapsed. As Loob wrenched his
weapon free, the great animal slumped limply from its branch. For a
moment or two it hung by the fore-paws, coughing and frothing at
the mouth. Then this last hold relaxed and it fell, bumping with a
curious deliberation from branch to branch. It vanished through a
floor of thick leafage, and struck the ground with a dull crash. It
must have fallen under the very jaws of an unseen waiting monster; for
there arose at once a strange, hooting roar, followed by the sound
of rending flesh and cracking bone. Loob grinned over his feat,
and Grom, glancing at A-ya, muttered quietly: "It is better to be up
here than down there." As he spoke, and they all peered downwards,
a dreadful head, with the limp body of the leopard gripped like a
rat between its long jaws and dripping yellow fang, thrust itself
up through the floor of leafage and stared at them with round eyes
as cold and black as ice.
Grom itched to shoot an arrow into one of those unwinking, devilish
eyes. But arrows were too precious to be wasted.
That night they slept profoundly on a platform which they wove of
branches in one of the tallest and most unscalable trees. They kept
watch, of course, turn and turn about; but nothing attempted to
approach them, and they cared little for the sounds of strife, the
crashings of pursuit and desperate flight, which came up to them at
intervals from the blackness far below.
On the morrow, however, as they were pursuing their aerial path along
the borders of a narrow, sluggish bayou, they were suddenly made to
realize that the tree-tops held perils more deadly than that of the
lurking leopards. They were all staring down into the water, which
swarmed with gigantic crocodiles and boiled immediately beneath them
with the turmoil of a life-and-death struggle between two of the
brutes, when harsh jabbering in the branches just across the water
made them look up.
The tree-tops opposite were full of great apes, mowing and gibbering
at them with every sign of hate. The beasts were as big and massive as
Hobbo himself, and covered thickly with long, blackish fur. Their
faces, half human, half dog-like, were hairless and of a bright but
bilious blue, with great livid red circles about the small, furious
eyes. With derisive gestures they swung themselves out upon the
overhanging branches, till it almost seemed as if they would hurl
themselves into the water in their rage against the little knot of
human beings.
The girl A-ya, overcome with loathing horror because the beasts were
so hideous a caricature of man, covered her eyes with one hand. Young
Mo, his fiery temper stung by their challenge, clapped an arrow to his
string and raised his bow to shoot. But Grom checked him sternly,
dreading to fix any thirst of vengeance in the minds of the terrible
troop.
"They can't come at us here. Let them forget about us," said he.
"Don't take any more notice of them at all."
As he led the way once more through the branches along the edge of the
bayou, the apes kept pace with them on the other side. But presently
the bayou widened, and then swept sharply off to the west. Grom kept
on straight to the north, by the route which he had planned. And the
mad gibbering died away into the hot, green silence of the tree-tops.
The adventurers now pushed on with redoubled speed, unwilling to pass
another night in the tree-tops when such dangerous antagonists were in
the neighborhood. The hills, however, were still far off when evening
came again. Not knowing that the great apes always slept at night,
Grom decided to continue the journey in order to lessen the risk of a
surprise. When the moon rose, round and huge and honey-colored, over
the sea of foliage, traveling through the tree-tops was almost as easy
as by day, while the earth below them, with its prowling and battling
monsters, was buried in inky gloom. When day broke, there were the
rounded hills startlingly close ahead, as if they had crept forward to
meet them in the night.
And now the hills looked different. Between the nearest--a long,
rolling, treeless ridge of downland--and the edge of the jungle
lay an expanse of open, grassy savannah, dotted with ponds, and
here and there a curious, solitary, naked tree-trunk, with what
looked like a bunch of grass on its top. They were like gigantic
green paint-brushes, with yellow-gray handles, stuck up at random.
Far off they saw a herd of curious beasts at pasture, and away to
the left a giant bird, as tall as the tree by which it stood, seemed
to keep watch. A little to the right, where the treeless ridge came
abruptly to an end, gleamed a considerable stretch of water. It was
toward this point, where the water washed the steep-shouldered
promontory, that Grom decided to shape his course across the plain.
By the time the sun was some three hours high they had arrived within
a couple of hundred yards of the open. Sick of the oppressive jungle,
and eager for the change to a type of country with which they were
more familiar, they were swinging on through the tree-tops at a great
pace, when that savage, snarling jabber which they so dreaded was
heard in the branches behind them. Grom instantly put A-ya in the
lead, while he himself dropped to the rear to meet this deadliest of
perils. There was no need to urge his party to haste; but it seemed to
them all as if they were standing still, so swiftly did the clamor of
the apes come upon them.
"Down to earth," ordered Grom sharply, seeing that they must be
overtaken before they could reach the open, and realizing that in the
tree-tops they could not hope to match these four-handed dwellers of
the trees.
As they dropped nimbly from branch to branch, the foremost of the apes
arrived in sight, set up a screech of triumph, and came swooping down
after them in vast, swinging leaps. In the hurry Hobbo dropped his
fire-basket, which broke as it fell and scattered the precious coals.
Grom, guarding the rear of the flight, made the mistake of keeping his
eye too much on the enemy, too little on where he was going. In a
moment or two, he found himself cut off, upon a branch from which
there was no escape without a drop of twenty feet to a most uncertain
foothold. Rather than risk it, he ran in upon his nearest assailant at
the base of the branch, thrusting at the blue-faced beast with his
spear. But his position being so insecure, his thrust lacked force and
precision. The great ape caught it deftly; and Grom, to preserve his
balance, had to let the spear be wrenched from his hand. At the same
moment another ape dropped on the branch behind him.
For just one second Grom thought his hour had come. He crouched to
steady himself, then darted forward and hurled his club straight at
his foe's protruding and shaggy paunch. Again the beast caught the
missile in its lightning clutch; but in the next instant it threw up
its long arms, without a sound, and fell backwards out of the tree.
A-ya, who had been the first to reach the ground, had drawn her bow
and shot upwards with sure aim. The shaft had caught the great ape
under the center of the jaw, far back at the throat, and pierced
straight up to the brain.
Surprised at seeing their leader fall with so little apparent reason,
the other apes halted for a moment in their onset, chattering noisily.
In that moment Grom swung himself to the ground. As he reached it both
Mo and Loob discharged their arrows. Another ape fell from his perch,
but caught himself on a lower branch and hung there writhing; while a
third, with a shaft half buried in his paunch, fled back yelling into
the tree-top. Then the adventurers snatched up their fallen weapons
from the ground and made for the open as fast as they could run. And
the apes, with a hellish uproar of barks and screams, came swarming
after them through the lower branches.
At this point, fortunately for the travelers, the jungle was already
thinning, and they had a chance to show their speed. The raging
blue-faces were speedily distanced, and the fugitives ran out
breathless upon the sunny savannah. Here, feeling themselves safe,
they halted to look back. The lower branches all along the edge of the
grass were thronged with leaping brown forms, and gnashing blue masks,
and red-rimmed, devilish eyes. But not one of the great beasts, for
all their rage, seemed willing to venture forth into the open.
"There must be something out here that they fear greatly," commented
Grom, peering warily about him. But there was nothing in sight to
suggest any danger, and he led the way onward through the rank grass
at a long, leisurely trot.
II
For the most part the grass grew hardly waist high; but here and there
were patches, perhaps an acre or so in extent, where it was more cane
than grass and rose to a height of twelve or fifteen feet. To such
patches, which might serve as lurking-places to unknown monsters, Grom
gave a wide berth. He had a vivid remembrance of that colossal head,
with the awful dead eyes, which had reared itself through the leafage
to stare up at him.
In spite of the strange and enormous trails which crossed their path
at times; in spite of occasional massive swayings and crashings in the
deep beds of cane, the adventurous party accomplished the journey
across the savannah without encountering a single foe. The mid-noon
blaze of the sun upon the windless grass, which was almost more than
they could endure, was probably keeping the monsters to their lairs;
and the only living things to be seen, besides the insects and a
high-wheeling vulture or two, were a few shy troops of a kind of small
antelope, incredibly swift of foot.
Grom drew a breath of relief as they reached the foot of the hills.
But just here it was impossible to climb them. A range of high
limestone downs, they were fringed at this point by an unbroken line
of cliff, perpendicular and at times overhanging, from forty or fifty
to perhaps a couple of hundred feet in height, and so smooth that even
these goat-footed cave-folk could not scale them. The rich plain-land
at their feet had once been a shallow, inland sea, and now its grasses
washed along their base in a gold-green, scented foam.
Turning to the right, Grom led the way close along the cliff-foot
toward the water, which glowed like brass about a mile ahead. Along
the right of their path the ground sloped off gently to a belt of that
high cane-like growth which Grom regarded with such suspicion. Before
they had gone many hundred yards his suspicion was more than
justified.
From a little way behind them there arose all at once a chorus of
explosive gruntings, mixed with a huge crashing of the canes. Glancing
over their shoulders, they saw a great rust-red animal, about the size
of a rhinoceros, which burst forth from the canes and stood staring
after them. Its hideous head was larger than that of any rhinoceros
they had ever seen, and armed with a pair of enormous conical horns,
each more than a foot in diameter at the base and tapering to a keen
point. Set side by side, at a moderate angle, upon the bridge of the
snout, they were far more terrible than the horns of any rhinoceros.
Their bearer lowered them menacingly, and charged down upon Grom's
party with a sound that was something between the grunting of a hog
and the braying of an ass. Immediately upon his massive heels a whole
herd of the red monsters surged forth from the canes, and came
charging after their leader at a ponderous gallop which seemed
literally to shake the earth.
For a moment or two Grom's party had paused, confident in their own
fleetness of foot, and wondering at that pair of amazing horns on the
monster's snout. But when the rest of the terrific herd came
thundering down upon them, they fled in all haste. To their amazement,
they found that their speed was none too great for their need. The red
monsters, in spite of their bulk, were disconcertingly swift.
As he neared the swift promontory which terminated with the range of
downs, Grom began to fear that he and his followers would have to take
refuge in the water. This water, as it chanced, was the brackish
estuary of a river which, sweeping down from the east, here made its
way to the sea through a long, slanting break in the limestone hills.
It was now near low tide, and there opened before the hard-pressed
fugitives, as they approached the shore, a strip of damp beach running
around the base of the bluff. As they left the grass and ran out upon
the beach they were astonished to find that the thundering pursuit had
stopped short. Just at the turn of the cliff they halted and stared
back wonderingly. Their pursuers, though swinging their great horns
and braying with rage, were evidently unwilling to venture so near the
waterside. They drew back, indeed, as if they feared it, and at last
went crashing away into the canes. The fugitives, glad of an
opportunity to rest their laboring lungs, squatted down with their
backs against the cliff and congratulated themselves on having got rid
of such perilous attentions. But Grom's sagacious eyes searched the
cliff face anxiously, without neglecting to watch the unruffled water.
If that water was so dreaded that even the mighty herd of their
pursuers durst not approach it, surely its smiling surface must hide
some peril of surpassing horror.
For the next few hundred yards, till it vanished around the curve, the
strip of naked beach was not more than twenty or thirty feet in width.
Not without some apprehensions, Grom decided to push forward. There
seemed nothing else to do, indeed, seeing that the cane-beds behind
them were occupied by that irresistible red herd. Somewhere ahead, he
argued, there must be a break in the cliff which would give access to
the rolling downs above, where they might travel in safety.
Disguising his growing uneasiness that he might not discourage his
followers--who were now full of elation at having reached the foot of
the hills--he led on again in haste, though there seemed to be no need
of haste. Both Hobbo and young Mo, indeed, were for staying a while
and sleeping in the shade of an overhanging rock. But A-ya, who sensed
through sympathy her lord's disquietude, and the little scout Loob,
who was always, on principle, ill at ease in any spot where there was
no tree to climb, were as eager as their chief to push ahead; and the
others would never have dared, in any case, to question Grom's
decision.
As they rounded the next bend of the cliff, however, a clamor of
excited satisfaction arose from all the party. Straight ahead, and not
fifty paces distant, there opened before them a spacious cave-mouth,
with a somewhat wider strip of beach before it. Immediately beyond the
cave the strip of beach came sharply to an end, and the tide lapped
softly against the foot of the cliff.
But just then, in the moment of their elation, a terrifying thing
happened. As if aroused by their voices, the still surface a few yards
from shore boiled up, and was lashed to foam by the strokes of a
gigantic tail.
"Run!" yelled Grom; and they all dashed forward, there being no chance
to go back. In the same instant, an appalling head--like that of a
thrice magnified and distorted crocodile, with vast, round, painted
eyes--was upthrust from the water and came rushing after them at a
pace which sent up a curving wave before it.
Quick as thought, Grom drew his bow and shot at the appalling head.
The arrow drove straight into the gaping throat, eliciting a
thunderous bellow of rage, but producing no other effect. Then Grom
sprang after his fleeing companions, and raced for his life toward the
cave mouth. The cave might be nothing more than a death-trap for them
all; but it seemed to offer the one possibility of escape.
As they dashed into the cave the awful, gaping head was close behind
them. They had a flashing glimpse, through the gloom, of high-arched
distance melting into blackness, of a strip of black water along the
right, and to the left a gentle ascent of smooth white sand, whose end
was out of sight.
Up this slope they raced, with the clashing of monstrous fangs close
behind them. But they had not gone a dozen strides when the slope
quivered, and heaved upwards shudderingly beneath them; and they all
fell forward flat upon their faces. From all but Grom there went up a
shriek so piercing that in their own ears it disguised the stupendous
rending roar which at that moment seemed to stun the air. The mighty
arch of the cave mouth had slipped and crashed down, completely
jamming the entrance, and opening up a gash of blue heaven above their
heads.
To Grom's unshaken wits, it was clear on the instant what had
happened. He staggered to his feet and looked back through a rain of
falling rock-splinters. He had a vision of their colossal pursuer, its
jaws stretched to their utmost width, the vast globes of its eyes
protruding from their armored sockets, its ponderous, bowed fore-legs
pawing the air aimlessly in the final convulsion. The falling
rock-mass had caught it on the middle of the back, crushing its mighty
frame like an eggshell.
For a second or two, Grom stood there rigid, staring, his gnarled
fingers clenched upon his weapons. Then a second earthquake tremor
beneath his feet warned him. With an unerring instinct, he sprang on
up the slope after his companions, who had fled as soon as they could
pick themselves up. And in the next moment the rock above his head,
fissured deep by the rains, slipped again. With a growling screech, as
if torn from the bowels of the mountain, it settled slowly down, and
sealed the mouth of the cave to utter blackness.
Grom stopped short, having no mind to dash out his brains against the
rock. There was stillness at last, and silence save for the faint,
humming moan of the earthquake which seemed to come from vast depths
beneath his feet. Profoundly awed, but master of his spirit, he stood
leaning upon his spear in the thick dark till the last of that strange
humming note had died away. Then, through a silence so thick it seemed
to choke him, he called aloud:
"A-ya! where are you?"
"_Grom!_" came the girl's answer, a sobbing cry of relief and joy,
from almost, as it seemed, beneath his outstretched hand.
"We are all here," came the voices of the three men.
They had fallen headlong at the second shock, as at the first; and in
the darkness they had not dared to rise again, but lay waiting for
their leader to tell them what to do. In half a dozen cautious,
groping steps he was among them, and sank down by A-ya's side,
clutching her to him to stop her trembling.
"What are we to do now?" asked the girl, after a long silence. Without
Grom, they would probably have died where they were, not daring to
stir in the darkness. But their faith in their chief kept them
cheerful even in this desperate plight.
"We must find a way out," answered Grom, with resolute confidence.
"If Hobbo had not dropped the fire!" said young Mo bitterly.
The giant groaned in self-abasement, and beat his chest with his great
fists. But Grom, who would allow no dissensions in his following,
answered sternly:
"Be silent. You might have done no better yourself."
Then for a time there was no more said, while Grom, sitting there
in the dark with the girl's face buried in his great shaggy chest,
thought out his plans. It was plain to him, from what he had seen in
that last instant of daylight, that the entrance was blocked
impregnably. Moreover, he judged that any attempt to work an
opening in that direction would be likely, for the present, to bring
more rocks down upon them. It would be better, first, to feel their
way on into the cave in the hope of finding another exit. He was
not afraid of getting lost, no matter how absolute the dark, because
he possessed that sixth sense, so long ago vanished from modern
man's equipment--the sense of direction. He knew that, as a matter of
course, he could find his way back to this starting-point whenever
he would.
"Come on!" he ordered at last, lifting A-ya and holding her hand in
his grasp. Reaching out with his spear, he kept tapping the ground
before him as he went, and occasionally the wall upon his left.
Sometimes, too, he would reach upwards to assure himself that there
was no lowering of the rocky ceiling. A spear's length to the right,
more or less, he got always a splash of water.
With their fine senses intensely alert, they were able to make fair
progress, even though unaided by their eyes. But Grom checked his
advance abruptly. He had a perception of some obstacle before him. He
reached out his spear as far as he could. It touched a soft object.
The object, whatever it was, surged violently beneath the touch. His
flesh crept, and the shaggy hair uplifted on his neck. "Back!" he
hissed, thrusting A-ya off to arm's length and bracing his spear point
before him to receive the expected attack. A pair of faintly
phosphorescent eyes, small, but so wide apart as to show that their
owner's head must have been enormous, flashed round upon them. There
was a hoarse squeal of alarm, and a heavy body went floundering off
into the water. They could hear it swimming away in hot haste.
Every one drew a long breath. Then, after a few moments, A-ya laughed
softly:
"It's good to find something at last that runs away from us instead of
after us!" said she.
A little further on the cave wall turned to the left. A few steps, and
their path came to an end. There was water ahead of them, and on both
sides. Grom's exploring spear assured them that it was deep water.
"We must swim," said he. "Leave your clubs behind." And leading the
way down into the unknown tide, he struck out straight ahead.
It was nerve-testing work swimming thus through that unseen water to
an unguessed goal; but Grom was unhesitating, and his companions
rested upon his steady will. The water was of a summer warmth, and
slightly salt, which convinced him that it had free communication with
the sunlit tides outside. Several times he came within touch of the
rocky walls of the cavern, and found that they went straight down to a
depth he could not guess. But he kept on with hope and confidence at a
leisurely pace, which, in that bland and windless flood, he knew that
every member of his party could have maintained for half a day.
Suddenly there appeared ahead of them a faint, bluish gleam upon the
water's surface. It was something elusive and unreal, and vaguely
menacing.
"Daylight!" exclaimed young Mo eagerly. But Grom said nothing. He did
not think it was daylight, and he was apprehensive of some new peril.
The strange light grew and spread. It was evident now that it rose
from the water, and also that it was advancing rapidly to meet the
astonished swimmers. After a few moments it was bright enough in its
blue pallor to show the swimmers that they were traversing a vast hall
of waters, whose roof was lost in darkness. Some fifty yards ahead of
them, and a little to the right, a low spit of rock, half awash for
the greater part of its length, ran out slantingly from the wall of
the stupendous chamber.
Toward this ledge Grom now led the way, hurling himself through the
water on his side at top speed. He could not fathom this mysterious
phosphorescence, and he wished to get his people out upon dry land
before it reached them. But fast as the adventurers swam, the ghostly
radiance spread faster. Before they got to the ledge, the light was
all about them; but it seemed to be coming from a great depth.
Nervously they all glanced down, and a low cry of horror broke from
their lips. The depths were swarming with monstrous, luminous forms, a
moon-bright, crawling, sliding field of claws and feelers, and broad,
flat backs, and dreadful, protruding eyes.
The eyes all stared straight up at them with a fixed malignancy that
froze even Grom's blood. They seemed innumerable, and all together
they came suddenly floating upwards.
Already the fugitives were dragging themselves out upon the ledge, in
frantic haste, when the diabolical swarm reached the surface. But
Hobbo, who was the slowest swimmer, was merely clutching at the rock
when the water boiled all about him in a froth of light. A pair of
huge, pincer-like claws seized him by the neck, and another pair by
one arm, plucking him back. His convulsed face stared upward for an
instant, and then, with a choked scream, he was dragged under. He
disappeared in a swirl of pale blue, frantically waving claws, and
eyes, and feelers, and black-fringed, chopping mouths.
Beside himself with rage and horror, Grom stabbed down wildly into the
whirling struggle, and his example was followed at once by Loob and
young Mo. Some of their random blows went home, and as one or another
of the gigantic crabs turned over in its death-throes, its nearest
fellows seized it, tore it to pieces, and devoured it.
But A-ya, who had taken no part in this vengeance, now snatched Grom
by the arm, shrieking wildly:
"Look! They are coming out!"
Recovering their senses, the three half-maddened men stared about
them. On every side the gigantic crabs--some with claws eight or ten
feet long, and eyes upon the ends of long waving stalks--were crawling
up upon the ledge.
The ledge, fortunately, was of some width. At its landward end it rose
into a mass of tumbled rocks perhaps twenty or thirty feet above the
water. Toward this post of vantage the adventurers fought their way,
striking and thrusting desperately with their spears as the monsters,
crowding up from the water on either side, snatched at them with their
terrible mailed claws. Over and over again one or another of the party
was seized by the foot or the leg; but his companions would beat the
long, jointed limb to fragments, or drive their spear-points deep into
the awful, drooling mouth, and set him free.
At last, bleeding from many wounds, they reached the end of the ledge
and clambered to the top. Here but three or four of the giant
crustaceans tried to follow them. These were easily speared from
above, and hurled back disabled among their ravening kin. And the
whole swarm, apparently forgetting their intended victims as soon as
they were out of reach, fell to fighting hideously among themselves
over the convulsed bodies of these wounded. The lower portion of the
ledge, and the water all about it, was a crawling mass of horror that
seemed to froth with blue light. And a confused noise of crackling,
snapping and hissing arose from it.
Every eye but Grom's was glued in fascination to the baleful scene.
But Grom now thought only of using that pervasive light to best
advantage while it should last. The wall of the cavern at this point
was so broken and fissured that it was not unscalable; and a little
way off to the right he marked, at some height above the water, what
looked like the entrance to a lateral gallery.
"Come! While the light lasts," he ordered, setting off over the rocks.
The others followed close. Now sidling along knife-like ledges, now
clinging by fingers and toes to almost imperceptible projections, they
made their way across the face of the steep, and gained the mouth of
the gallery. It was spacious, and easy to traverse, its floor sloping
upwards somewhat steeply. They plunged into it with confidence. And
the blue light of the Hall of Terrors faded out behind them.
Not many minutes later, another light, as it were a white star,
gleamed ahead of them. It grew as they went, and turned to gold. Then
a patch of turquoise sky, flecked sweetly with small fleeces of cloud,
opened before them, and in a moment more they came out upon a high,
blossoming down, blown over by a breeze that smelt of honey and salt.
Below them was a lovely, land-locked bay, with a herd of deer
pasturing among scattered trees by the shore. Away behind them
undulated the gracious line of the downs, inviting their feet.
"It is a pleasant land," said Grom, "and we will surely come back to
it. But I think we must find another way than that by which we came."