Through the Crater’s Rim
[Illustration]
But even as I gazed, transfixed with horror, paralyzed by
the sight, the vine threw its last coil about the dying
man and before my eyes drew the quivering body into the
tree above. Then something approached my leg. With a wild
yell of terror I leaped aside. A second vine was writhing
and twisting over the ground towards me.
Through the Crater’s Rim
By A. Hyatt Verrill
Author of “Beyond the Pole”
In this story the author of Beyond the Pole gives us another
one of his amazing contributions to Scientifiction. Here we
find a strange race living within an extinct volcanic crater
somewhere in Central America.
When it is remembered that only a few years ago an entirely
new race was discovered by scientists in Panama, which are now
known better under the name of White Indians, it should be
understood that Mr. Verrill is not taxing your credulity by
the strange race which he pictures in this story.
We promise you a good half hour’s reading in this well-told tale.
CHAPTER I
INTO THE UNKNOWN
“I tell you it’s there,” declared Lieutenant Hazen decisively. “It may
not be a civilized city, but it’s no Indian village or native town.
It’s big—at least a thousand houses—and they’re built of stone or
something like it and not of thatch.”
“You’ve been dreaming, Hazen,” laughed Fenton. “Or else you’re just
trying to jolly us.”
“Do you think I’d hand in an official report of a dream?” retorted the
Lieutenant testily. “And it’s gospel truth I’ve been telling you.”
“Never mind Fenton,” I put in. “He’s a born pessimist and skeptic
anyhow. How much did you actually see?”
We were seated on the veranda of the Hotel Washington in Colon and the
aviator had been relating how, while making a reconnoissance flight
over the unexplored and unknown jungles of Darien, he had sighted an
isolated, flat topped mountain upon whose summit was a large city—of a
thousand houses or more—and without visible pass, road or stream
leading to it.
“It was rotten air,” Hazen explained in reply to my question. “And I
couldn’t get lower than 5,000 feet. So I can’t say what the people
were like. But I could see ’em running about first time I went over
and they were looking mightily excited. Then I flew back for a second
look and not a soul was in sight—took to cover I expect. But I’ll
swear the buildings were stone or ’dobe and not palm or thatch.”
“Why didn’t you land and get acquainted?” enquired Fenton
sarcastically.
“There was one spot that looked like a pretty fair landing,” replied
the aviator. “But the air was bad and the risk too big. How did I know
the people weren’t hostile? It was right in the Kuna Indian country
and even if they were peaceable they might have smashed the plane or I
mightn’t have been able to take off. I was alone too.”
“You say you made an official report of your discovery,” I said. “What
did the Colonel think about it?”
“Snorted and said he didn’t see why in blazes I bothered reporting an
Indian village.”
“It’s mighty interesting,” I declared. “I believe you’ve actually seen
the Lost City, Hazen. Balboa heard of it. The Dons spent years hunting
for it and every Indian in Darien swears it exists.”
“Well, I never heard of it before,” said Hazen. “What’s the yarn,
anyway?”
“According to the Indian story there’s a big city on a mountain top
somewhere in Darien. They say no one has ever visited it, that it’s
guarded by evil spirits and that it was there ages before the first
Indians.”
“If they’ve never seen it how do they know it’s there?” Fenton
demanded. “In my opinion it’s all bosh. How can there be a ‘lost city’
in this bally little country and why hasn’t someone found it? Why,
there are stories of lost cities and hidden cities and such rot in
every South and Central American country. Just fairy tales—pure bunk!”
“I know there are lots of such yarns,” I admitted. “And most of them I
believe are founded on fact. Your South American Indian hasn’t enough
imagination to make a story out of whole cloth. It’s easy to
understand why and how such a place might exist for centuries and no
one find it. This ‘little country’ as you call it could hide a hundred
cities in its jungles and no one be the wiser. No civilized man has
ever yet been through the Kuna country. But I’m going. I’ll have a try
for that city of Hazen’s.”
“Well, I wish you luck,” said Fenton. “If the Kunas don’t slice off
the soles of your feet and turn you loose in the bush and if you _do_
find Hazen’s pipe dream, just bring me back a souvenir, will you?”
With this parting shot he rose and sauntered off towards the swimming
pool.
“Do you really mean to have a go at that place?” asked Hazen as Fenton
disappeared.
“I surely do,” I declared. “Can you show me the exact spot on the map
where you saw the city?”
For the next half hour we pored over the map of Panama and while—owing
to the incorrectness of the only available maps—Hazen could not be
sure of the exact location of his discovery, still he pointed out a
small area within which the strange city was located.
“You’re starting on a mighty dangerous trip,” he declared as I talked
over my plans. “Even if you get by the Kunas and find the place how
are you going to get out? The people may kill you or make you a
prisoner. If they’ve been isolated for so long I reckon they won’t let
any news of ’em leak out.”
“Of course there’s a risk,” I laughed. “That’s what makes it so
attractive. I’m not worried over the Kunas though. They’re not half as
bad as painted. I spent three weeks among them two years ago and had
no trouble. They may drive me back, but they don’t kill people
offhand. Getting out will be the trouble as you say. But I’ve first
got to get in and I’m not making plans to get out until then.”
“Lord, but I wish I were going too!” cried Hazen. “Say, I tell you
what I’m going to do. I’ll borrow that old Curtiss practice boat and
fly over there once in a while. If you’re there, just wave a white rag
for a signal. Maybe the people’ll be so darned scared if they see the
plane that they’ll not trouble you. Might make a good play of it—let
’em think you’re responsible for it you know.”
“I don’t know but that’s a mighty good scheme, Hazen,” I replied,
after a moment’s thought. “Let’s see. If I get off day after tomorrow
I should be in the Kuna country in a week. You might take your first
flight ten days from now. But if things go wrong I don’t see as you
can help me much if you can’t land.”
“We’ll worry over that when the time comes,” he said cheerfully. A few
days later I was being paddled and poled up the Cañazas River with the
last outposts of civilization many miles behind and the unknown
jungles and the forbidden country of the wild Kunas ahead.
It was with the greatest difficulty that I had been able to secure men
to accompany me, for the natives looked with the utmost dread upon the
Kuna country and only two, out of the scores I had asked, were willing
to tempt fate and risk their lives in the expedition into the unknown.
For two days now we had been within the forbidden district—the area
guarded and held by the Kunas and into which no outsider is permitted
to enter—and yet we had seen or heard no signs of Indians. But I was
too old a hand and too familiar with the ways of South American
Indians to delude myself with the idea that we had not been seen or
our presence known. I well knew that, in every likelihood, we had been
watched and our every movement known since the moment we entered the
territory. No doubt, sharp black eyes were constantly peering at us
from the jungle, while bows and blowguns were ever ready to discharge
their missiles of death at any instant. As long as we were not
molested or interfered with, however, I gave little heed to this.
Moreover, I believed, from my brief acquaintance with the Kunas of two
years previously, that they seldom killed a white man until after he
had been warned out of their country and tried to return to it.
At night we camped beside the river, making our beds upon the warm dry
sand and each day we poled the cayuca up the rapids and deeper into
the forest. At last we reached the spot where, according to my
calculations, we must strike through the jungle overland to reach the
mountain seen by Hazen. Hiding our dugout in the thick brush beside
the river we packed the few necessities to be carried with us and
started off through the forest.
If Hazen were not mistaken in his calculations, we should reach the
vicinity of the mountain in two days’ march, even though the going was
hard and we were compelled to hew a way with our machetes for miles at
a stretch.
But it’s one thing to find a mountain top when flying over the sea of
jungle and quite another to find that mountain when hidden deep in the
forest and surrounded on every side by enormous trees. I realized that
we might easily pass within a few hundred yards of the spot and never
suspect it and that we might wander for days, searching for the
mountain without finding it. It was largely a matter of luck after
all. But Hazen had described the surrounding country so minutely, that
I had high hopes of success.
By the end of the first day in the bush we had reached rough and hilly
country, which promised well, and it was with the expectation of
reaching the base of the mountain the following day that we made camp
that night. Still we had seen no Indians, no signs of their trails or
camps, which did much to calm the fears of my men and which I
accounted for on the theory that the Kunas avoided this part of the
country through superstitious fears of the lost city and its people.
At daybreak we broke camp and had tramped for perhaps three hours
when, without warning, José, who was last in line, uttered a terrified
cry. Turning quickly I was just in time to see him throw up his hands
and fall in a heap with a long arrow quivering in his back. The Kunas
were upon us.
Scarcely had the realization come to me when an arrow thudded sharply
into a tree by my side and Carlos, with a wild yell of deadly fear,
threw down his load and dashed madly away. Not an Indian could be
seen. To stand there, a target for their missiles, was suicidal, and
turning, I fled at my utmost speed after Carlos. How we managed to run
through that tangled jungle is still a mystery to me, but we made good
time, nevertheless. Fear drove us and dodging between the giant trees,
leaping fallen trunks, tripping over roots and scrambling over rocks,
we sped on.
And now, from behind, we could hear the sounds of the pursuing
Indians; their low gutteral cries, the sounds of breaking twigs and
branches; constantly they were drawing nearer. I knew that in a few
minutes they would be upon us—that at any instant a poisoned blowgun
dart or a barbed arrow might bury itself in my body; but still we
strove to escape.
Then, just as I felt that the end must be at hand —just as I had
decided to turn and sell my life dearly—the forest thinned. Before us
sunlight appeared and the next moment we dashed from the jungle into a
space free from underbrush but covered with enormous trees draped with
gnarled and twisted lianas. The land here rose sharply and, glancing
ahead between the trees, I saw the indistinct outlines of a lofty
mountain against the sky.
Toiling up the slope, breathing heavily, utterly exhausted, I kept on.
Then, as a loud shout sounded from the rear, I turned to see five
hideously painted Kunas break from the jungle. But they did not
follow. To my utter amazement they halted, gave a quick glance about,
and, with a chorus of frightened yells, turned and dashed back into
the shelter of the jungle.
But I had scant time to give heed to this. The Kunas’ cries were still
ringing in my ears when a scream from Carlos drew my attention.
Thinking him attacked by savages I rushed towards him, drawing my
revolver as I ran.
With bulging, rolling eyes, blanched face and ghastly, terror stricken
features he was struggling, fighting madly, with a writhing, coiling
gray object which I took for a gigantic snake. Already his body and
legs were bound and helpless in the coils. With his machete he was
raining blows upon the quivering awful thing which slowly, menacingly
wavered back and forth before him, striving to throw another coil
about his body.
And then, as I drew near, my senses reeled, I felt that I was in some
awful nightmare. The object, so surely, relentlessly, silently
encircling and crushing him was no serpent but a huge liana drooping
from the lofty branches of a great tree!
It seemed absolutely incredible, impossible, unbelieveable. But even
as I gazed, transfixed with horror, paralyzed by the sight, the vine
threw its last coil about the dying man and before my eyes drew the
quivering body into the trees above.
Then something touched my leg. With a wild yell of terror I leaped
aside. A second vine was writhing and twisting over the ground towards
me!
Crazed with unspeakable fear I struck at the thing with my machete. At
the blow the vine drew sharply back while from the gash a thick,
yellowish, stinking juice oozed forth. Turning, I started to rush from
the accursed spot but as I passed the first tree another liana writhed
forward in my path.
Utterly bereft of my senses, slashing madly as I ran, yelling like a
madman, I dodged from tree to tree, seeking the open spaces, evading
by a hair’s breadth the fearful, menacing, serpent-like vines, until
half-crazy, torn, panting and utterly spent I dashed forth into a
clear grassy space.
Before me, rising like a sheer wall against the sky was a huge
precipitous cliff of red rock.
Now I knew why the Kunas had not followed us beyond the jungle. They
were aware of the man-killing lianas and had left us to a worse death
than any they could inflict. I was safe from them I felt sure. But was
I any better off? Before me was an impassable mountain side. On either
hand and in the rear those awful, blood-thirsty, sinister vines and,
lurking in the jungles, were the savage Kunas with their fatal
poisoned darts and powerful bows. I was beset on every side by deadly
peril, for I was without food, I had cast aside my gun and even my
revolver in my blind, terror-crazed escape from those ghastly living
vines, and to remain where I was meant death by starvation or thirst.
But anything was better than this nightmare-like forest. At the
thought I glanced with a shudder at the trees and my blood seemed to
freeze in my veins.
The forest was approaching me! I could not believe my eyes. Now I felt
I must be mad, and fascinated; hypnotized, I gazed, striving my utmost
to clear my brain, to make common sense contradict the evidence of my
eyes. But it was no delusion. Ponderously, slowly, but steadily the
trees were gliding noiselessly up the slope! Their great gnarled roots
were creeping and undulating over the ground while the pendant vines
writhed and swayed and darted forth in all directions as if feeling
their way. And then I saw what had before escaped me. The things were
not lianas as I had thought. They were parts of the trees
themselves—huge, lithe, flexible tentacles springing from a thick,
fleshy livid-hued crown of branches armed with stupendous thorns and
which slowly opened and closed like hungry jaws above the huge trunks.
It was monstrous, uncanny, supernatural. A hundred yards and more of
open ground had stretched between me and the forest when I had flung
myself down, but now a scant fifty paces remained. In a few brief
moments the fearsome things would be upon me. But I was petrified,
incapable of moving hand or foot, too terrified and overwhelmed even
to cry out.
Nearer and nearer the ghastly things came. I could hear the pounding
of my heart. A cold sweat broke out on my body. I shivered as with
ague. Then a long, warty, tentacle darted toward me and as the
loathsome stinking thing touched my hand the spell was broken. With a
wild scream I turned and dashed blindly towards the precipice, seeking
only to delay, only to avoid for a time the certain awful death to
which I was doomed, for the cliff barred all escape and I could go no
farther.