An hour in the impenetrable darkness of that suffocating stench was a
hundred years long. Unfortunately Ole had a liberal supply of matches.
Under ordinary trials these would have been a godsend. Here they proved
an exceedingly cunning gift from the devil.
The instant the terrific jarring ceased Ole lit his first match. It
was just half past eleven in the morning. Five hours before he and
Edith had been enjoying an extensive breakfast. For lunch they now had
nothing but the air, such as it was. They had given up the attempt to
eat their sandwiches after the first mouthful. The meat tasted like
carrion, and the bread had made of itself a sponge to soak up all the
noisomeness of that foul shambles.
They climbed back into the machine to await the next earthquake and the
rekindling of the gas wells. To pass the time Ole theorized and struck
matches every five minutes. The brief light showed him a set white
face, the large brown eyes with their dilated pupils almost black, and
the resolute, finely shaped mouth compressed in a firm bow. The kid, he
admitted to himself, was sticking it like a hero. He had expected her
to blubber.
"I have been wondering," she said about the fifth match, "how we are
to get out of this beastly tunnel if the darkness continues for, say
a week." She laughed ruefully. "'Beastly' is right in more ways than
one. The smell is beastly, there is a hideous den of prehistoric beasts
at the less obscene end of this filthy burrow, and a stinking mountain
of dead beasts blocking the back door. Suppose we do have to walk out,
which way shall we go? All those scavengers and hideous bird things are
behind us too."
"Whatever happens," he replied with savage conviction, "I am not going
to walk. To the living devils it is a hundred and twenty miles. What
kind of a fool would walk that far to be torn to pieces? Especially on
an empty stomach?"
"Not my kind," she admitted ruefully enough.
"And do you think I'm going to swim through those miles of muck behind
us?"
She shuddered. "I couldn't go that way even if those vile bird
creatures and the huge crawling brutes weren't there."
"No more could I. No, I shall not walk."
"Then if the wells have gone out for good we must stay here forever."
"We can fly," he asserted.
"And smash ourselves in the dark like a pair of goose eggs. I can think
of nothing stupider than two unhatched geese unless it be three."
"Well, isn't a quick smash better than slow rotting? It wouldn't be
suicide," he added to pacify his conscience, "because we should be
doing it on the chance of saving our lives."
"Yes, a quick death is better. I wonder if I shall ever see my father
again. And my garden, and the dear cats in San Francisco...."
Ole was touched. The poor kid was going to cry. He struck a match. Her
eyes had grown larger and darker, but there were no tears. After all
she was a brick.
"Listen," he said confidently. "I have a theory."
"If it's as depressing as the rest of this nightmare please keep it to
yourself."
"But it isn't. You remember how long it was between blow-offs at those
holes the other day?"
"About thirteen minutes."
"And the flames only lasted a few minutes after they caught. Now those
jets in here were going full blast for over an hour. Suppose they had
been going for a full day when we flew in."
"I'll suppose it. What then?"
"They will light up again as the others did. But not for a much longer
time."
"A week, perhaps? We shall suffocate long before we see."
"No. The same cause must be at the bottom of those flame holes and
these."
"And that cause may operate only once a month, once a year, or once a
century for all we know. The next flare may light our bones."
"For two reasons I say no. The first is practical, the second is
theory. First, those bat birds have eyes. They can see. I know that is
so from the way they glared at us. Now animals that can see don't stay
long away from the light."
"The encyclopaedia has fooled you, Ole. All that you say may be true.
But there is probably a back door to this tunnel, and those filthy
things just swoop in here to feed. When they are gorged they flap out
again to roost in their dens. They get all the fresh air and sunshine
they need for perfect health in their rookeries."
"I hadn't thought of that. Still, having eyes they must be used to
seeing their food."
"Eyes for such creatures in this stinking place are an ornament of
luxury. They have nostrils. I saw them myself--two holes on the snout
like a snake's."
"Well, listen now to my theory. You can't knock out that, any way,
because it is all pure reason."
He lit another match. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead on the
impenetrable soot. The match died.
"Why do these blowholes come and go?" he continued. "Why don't they
shoot off burning gas all the time?"
"Is it a riddle?"
"Not to me," Ole replied proudly, lavishing two matches on the
invisible stench.
"I give it up. What's the answer?"
"The moon."
She wondered if she could climb out unnoticed by the theorizer. Poor
Ole; his mind must suddenly have given way. She was sorry for him, but
sorrier for herself. A lunatic on top of her other troubles would be
too much.
"Where are you going?" Ole demanded.
The flaring match revealed a scared pair of eyes searching his. Edith
had started to climb down.
"I thought you had gone crazy," she said, climbing back just as the
match expired and burnt Ole's fingers. "But you seem no more insane
than usual. Go on with your theory."
"The moon does it all. Really it is quite simple when you get the idea.
As a practical seaman I know how the moon raises the tides--they follow
it round the earth. The moon attracts the water. Then a big heap of
water gathers in the middle of the sea, and the bulge follows the moon."
"I wish I could follow you."
"When the moon gets so far ahead that the bulge can't keep up the tide
falls. When the bulge sweeps over a place it is high tide there. Anyhow
that's something like it."
Ole proceeded to elaborate his account by an obscure reference to that
bane of all amateur theorizers, centrifugal force. With the squaring
of the circle and perpetual motion this mystical conception forms the
unholy trinity of the born paradoxer. Not one of them knows what it
means, yet by invoking its magic powers they explain everything from
germs to God. Edith, trying not to listen, felt like a quart of milk in
a cream separator. Centrifugal force was separating her mind from her
body, but which was which she could not have told. Mercifully it did
not last long, and Ole soon reached the practical application of his
moonshine.
"Now my theory is," he said more rationally, "that there is a vast
tank of oil--perhaps several--under the whole region."
"Won't Captain Anderson be pleased to hear that? I'm glad somebody will
be happy in all this mess."
"Not all oil, perhaps. I think it may be floating on salt water."
"I wish it were carbolic acid."
"Now when the moon raises a tide on all that oil it rushes through the
underground galleries of this continent and forces up all the collected
gases of twenty-four hours through the blowholes."
"And somebody is waiting to set a match to it, I suppose?"
"You mean how does it catch fire?"
For a moment the inventive Ole was badly stumped. Then his chambered
mind gave up its buried reminiscences: all gases when compressed get
hot. Keep on compressing them far enough and they get red hot--if gases
ever do behave in such a revolutionary way.
"Compression," he answered offhandedly, as if the effort had cost
him no labor. "Compression heats up the gas. When the wave passes it
presses the gas into a small volume next to the roof. That makes it
red hot. Then it escapes through the blowholes. Friction on the sides
makes it hotter still. Of course it catches fire--high up in the air,
high enough so the rush of escaping gas can't blow out the flame. It
couldn't light up, could it, before it reached the air? Then the tide
falls, air has to rush in to fill up the place left by the falling oil
and water, and the flames are sucked down."
"Tides don't rise and fall every thirteen minutes. Your theory is up
the spout."
"My theory is irrefutable. Of course tides don't happen every thirteen
minutes. But haven't you ever seen the way the water swings back and
forth, up and down, when you set it going in a long bathtub?"
"I do bathe occasionally when I'm in civilization. And you may be sure
I shall spend a month in the first real tub I see. Yes, I may even have
time to try your experiment."
"When the tide rushes into some vast underground cavern, half filling
it, big waves must be set up travelling back and forth, up and down
along the trough. Suppose the wave comes in by a long tunnel into a
vast hole, and has to squeeze out by another tunnel. In trying to
squeeze out all at once the waves will be started at the wall above the
tunnel. And all the time the hole is filling up, compressing the gas
against the roof. Now suppose it takes a wave thirteen minutes to run
the length of the underground tank. Then it will force up the gases at
a particular place once every thirteen minutes.
"As it passes the place," he went on with enthusiasm that fed upon
itself, "the air will be sucked down again. That explains our first
blowholes. Now for these. The tank under them must be much longer. The
waves therefore take a longer time to pass under. It follows that the
flame jets will burn much longer. Which was to be proved."
"You have proved also," she pointed out, "that the flame pillars will
be dead for half an eternity. We must wait at least until the next
full moon raises the gas for our torches. And by then we shall be in
Heaven--I hope."
"No, I think every tide must raise the gas enough to send up a flame.
Of course at full moon the flame will be hotter and last much longer."
"And where does your blessed salt water come from to float the oil and
gas and raise the tides?"
"Where all salt water comes from--the sea."
"These tunnels, or others like them--bigger and longer, of course--must
stretch far out under the floor of the Antarctic ocean."
He became encyclopaedic, explaining how, gradually weakening under the
pressure and seeping of ages of water, the bottom of things aqueous had
suddenly given way letting the ocean burst down to the subterranean
fires, flooding them and the innumerable tunnels. This, he said,
accounted for everything. The oily stew of prehistoric monsters which
he and the Captain had witnessed was merely the backwash, the jetsam
of the sudden deluge which had drowned out perhaps a dozen of the
interconnected paradises such as the one Edith and he had discovered.
Some day the floor of the unruined one would give way too and there
would be another grand boiling up of monsters somewhere between South
Georgia and Cape Horn. Or the accumulating gas under its rock bottom
might suddenly hurl it skyward at some tide higher than the usual one.
The origin of these vast tunnels and semitropical paradises in the
frozen continent he was as yet unable to explain. At them his theory
balked, baffled. He doubted now whether the monsters of the stew had
been so recently dead as he and Anderson imagined. Their freshness and
the still uncoagulated blood of the baby devil they had fished up could
be rationally explained on a twenty-four hour immersion in warm oil and
water.
Theorizing thus freely Ole was happy despite the ever present, all
enveloping, stinking darkness. Edith's respectful silence flattered
him. He outdid himself. Never before had he lectured to an audience
so sympathetically appreciative. During his interminable harangue he
forgot even to strike a match. When finally he did, Edith's eyes were
closed. She was fast asleep.
Although deeply chagrined Ole considerately let her sleep. Taking out
his pipe he rammed it full of twist. The coarsely cut tobacco refusing
to burn he reached into his pocket for his knife. Only when he was
about to cut up the tobacco in his palm did he remember what he had
done to the blade. In a cold sweat he closed the knife and returned it
to his pocket. A scratch, for all he knew, might be deadlier than the
fangs of a hundred cobras. Any way he would take no chance of a slip in
the dark.
Refilling his pipe he tried again to smoke. Finally he compromised at
the rate of a match to a puff. It became a continuous performance. The
tobacco in that smoke-fouled atmosphere reeking with an unspeakable
corruption lacked the rich, nutty flavor emphasized by the billboards,
yet it was some consolation. The matches, especially their heads,
tasted even better than the tobacco smoke.
The devil betrayed him just as he broached the fourth box of matches.
He became aware of a wet, dragging noise. Instantly he had a theory
that made him sick. Those filthy scavengers also had eyes. Not only the
bat birds were by nature lovers of the light. One of those huge foul
brutes, dripping corruption at every move, was wallowing toward Ole's
friendly little beacon in the universal darkness.
The noise stopped. Then a measured slopping announced that the filthy
monster had paused to lick itself. Having swabbed off its lunch, or
having performed its unseemly toilette, it sighed prodigiously and
rattled the grating armor of its horny scales. Once more there was
silence.
Presently a hideous rasping proclaimed that the obscenity was
scratching its parasites. Again it sighed heavily, profoundly. The
companionable candle of its quest was perhaps but the disordered
illusion of an overloaded stomach. A long-winded, slobbering belch
automatically begot and confirmed this hypothesis in Ole's paralyzed
brain. He struck no more matches.
Should he wake Edith? If she made any sound the monster must find them.
On the other hand if she woke suddenly when the beast had crawled
closer, as it might, she would go mad from terror and be unmanageable.
He decided to rouse her as gently as possible.
"What is it?" she said, and remembered. "Oh--"
He clapped his hand over her mouth. Again thinking him demented she
struggled violently.
"Danger," he whispered in her ear. "Be quiet."
All her muscles tensed, she instantly became still. Then she heard the
dragging shuffle of some ponderous body approaching the airplane. In a
flash she realized what was upon them.
"Your knife," she whispered.
He opened the blade. Of what use was this toy against a mailed brute
weighing over a hundred tons? Yet it was his one weapon, and instinct
compelled him to be ready for his feeble best.
The creature heard their movements. Its lurching drag, bringing with
it a leprosy of smells, quickened. It was abreast of them, on Edith's
side. Was it going past the machine? In the sooty darkness the brute
blundered forward. Its horny side rasped and rocked the plane, all but
upsetting it.
For some seconds the slow brain of the brute failed to interpret the
unusual sensations. Then it registered, and the foul monster squatted.
The plane tipped sideways. A foot higher and it must capsize.
The dull brain proving inadequate for its problem, the huge brute
resumed its wallowing progress. Presently, to judge by the sounds, it
turned at right angles to the line of the machine, slewed round on its
belly and squatted. Was its head or its tail toward them? And in which
position could it hear the better? They soon learned.
One or other of the occupants of the machine moved slightly and
something creaked. For some ten seconds the brute took no notice. Then,
the significance of the noise penetrating its ganglia, the monster
moved slightly forward, directly toward Edith's side of the plane.
"Quick!" she cried, "the knife! Light!"
A cold breath, unutterably foul, blasted her own and extinguished Ole's
half handful of matches. But the flare had shown her where to aim. With
her whole body she struck at the brute's eye. The keen eight-inch blade
cut it like jelly. Her hand plunged into the slit, burying the knife.
No injury to the slow-witted creature's eye alone could account for
the terrible sound which tore the silence of the tunnel to tatters of
screaming agony. The green paste on the blade was indeed a venom. It
had shot along the blood vessels and the optic nerve directly to the
monster's brain.
Its every nerve was in hell. In its excruciating agony it bounded
furiously about the tunnel, missing the plane by bare yards, and
thundering down from its convulsive leaps in a writhing mass of torment
that shook the very rocks.
No human being could hear those terrible screams without pity. In the
minute and a half that it lived the wretched thing suffered all the
agonies of all the hells imagined by human beings since the beginning
of the world.
With a last shivering yell of absolute pain it was dead.
"Oh my God," Edith gasped, "I did it. Hell, hell, hell!"
In a paroxysm of sobbing she beat her clenched fists against her ears.
14