CHAPTER VII - Through
the Inferno
Fortunately,
the monster miscalculated its leap. The huge legs, whirling through the air,
came within a few inches of Tommy's head, but passed over him, and the mantis
plunged into the stream. Instantly the water was alive with leaping things with
faces of such grotesque horror that Tommy sat paralyzed in his rocking shell,
unable to avert his eyes.
Things
no more than a foot or two in length, to judge from the slender, eel-like
bodies that leaped into the air, but things with catfish heads and tentacles,
and eyes waving on stalks; things with clawlike appendages to their ventral
fins, and mouths that widened to fearful size, so that the whole head seemed to
disappear above them, disclosing fangs like wolves'. Instantly the water was
churned into phosphorescent fire as they precipitated themselves upon the
struggling mantis, whose enormous form, extending halfway from shore to shore,
was covered with the river monsters, gnawing, rending, tearing.
Luckily
the struggles of the dying monster carried it downstream instead of up. In a few
moments the immediate danger was past. And suddenly Haidia awoke, sat up.
"Where
are we?" she cried. "Oh, I can see! I can see! Something has burned
away from my eyes! I know this place. A wise man of my people once came here,
and returned to tell of it. We must go on. Soon we shall be safe on the wide
river. But there is another way that leads to here. We must go on! We must go
on!"
Even
as she spoke they heard the distant rasping of the beetle-legs. And before the
shells were well in mid-current they saw the beetle horde coming round the
bend; in the front of them Bram, reclining on his shell couch, and drawn by the
eight trained beetles.
Bram
saw the fugitives, and a roar of ironic mirth broke from his lips, resounding
high above the strident rasping of the beetle-legs, and roaring over the
marshes.
"I've
got you, Dodd and Travers," he bellowed, as the trained beetles hovered
above the shell canoes. "You thought you were clever, but you're at my
mercy. Now's your last chance, Dodd. I'll save you still if you'll submit to
me, if you'll admit that there were fossil monotremes before the pleistocene
epoch. Come, it's so simple! Say it after me: 'The marsupial lion -'"
"You
go to hell!" yelled Dodd, nearly upsetting his shell as he shook his fist
at his enemy.
High
above the rasping sound came Bram's shrill whistle. Just audible to human ears,
though probably sounding like the roar of thunder to those of the beetles,
there was no need to wonder what it was.
It
was the call to slaughter.
Like
a black cloud the beetles shot forward. A serried phalanx covered the two men
and the girl, hovering a few feet overhead, the long legs dangling to within
arm's reach. And a terrible cry of fear broke from Haidia's lips.
Suddenly
Tommy remembered Bram's cigarette-lighter. He pulled it from his pocket and
ignited it.
Small
as the flame was, it was actinically much more powerful than the brighter
phosphorescence of the fungi behind them. The beetle-cloud overhead parted. The
strident sound was broken into a confused buzzing as the terrified, blinded
beetles plopped into the stream.
None
of them, fortunately, fell into either of the three shells, but the mass of
struggling monsters in the water was hardly less formidable to the safety of
the occupants than that menacing cloud overhead.
"Get
clear!" Tommy yelled to Dodd, trying to help the shell along with his
hands.
He
heard Bram's cry of baffled rage, and, looking backward, could not refrain from
a laugh of triumph. Bram's trained steeds had taken fright and overset him.
Bram had fallen into the red mud beside the stream, from which he was
struggling up, plastered from head to feet, and shaking his fists and evidently
cursing, though his words could not be heard.
"How
about your marsupial lion now, Bram?" yelled Dodd. "No monotremes
before the pleistocene! D'you get that? That's my slogan now and for ever
more!"
Bram
shrieked and raved, and seemed to be inciting the beetles to a renewed assault.
The air was still thick with them, but Tommy was waving the cigarette-lighter
in a flaming arc, which cleared the way for them.
Then
suddenly came disaster. The flame went out! Tommy closed the lighter with a
snap and opened it. In vain. In his excitement he must have spilled all the
contents, for it would not catch.
Bram
saw and yelled derision. The beetle-cloud was thickening. Tommy, now abreast of
his companions on the widening stream, saw the imminent end.
And
then once more fate intervened. For, leaping through the air out of the places
where they had lain concealed, six mantises launched themselves at their beetle
prey.
Those
awful bounds of the long-legged monsters, the scourges of the insect world,
carried them clear from one bank to the other - fortunately for the occupants
of the shells. In an instant the beetle-cloud dissolved. And it had all
happened in a few seconds. Before Dodd or Tommy had quite taken in the
situation, the mantises, each carrying a victim in its grooved legs, had
vanished like the beetles. There was no sign of Bram. The three were alone upon
the face of the stream, which went swirling upward into renewed darkness.
Tommy
saw Dodd bend toward Haidia as she lay on her shell couch. He heard the sound
of a noisy kiss. And he lay back in the hollow of his shell, with the feeling
that nothing that could happen in the future could be worse than what they had
passed through.
Days
went by, days when the sense of dawning freedom filled their hearts with hope.
Haidia told Dodd and Tommy that, according to the legends of her people, the
river ran into the world from which they had been driven by the floods, ages
before.
There
had been no further signs of Bram or the beetle horde, and Dodd and Tommy
surmised that it had been disorganized by the attack of the mantises, and that
Bram was engaged in regaining his control over it. But neither of them believed
that the respite would be a long one, and for that reason they rested ashore
only for the briefest intervals, just long enough to snatch a little sleep, and
to eat some of the shrimps that Haidia was adept at finding - or to pull some
juicy fruit surreptitiously from a tree.
Incidents
there were, nevertheless, during those days. For hours their shells were
followed by a school of the luminous river monsters, which, nevertheless, made
no attempt to attack them. And once, hearing a cry from Haidia, as she was
gathering shrimps, Dodd ran forward to see her battling furiously with a
luminous scorpion, eight feet in length, that had sprung at her from its
lurking place behind a pear shrub.
Dodd
succeeded in stunning and dispatching the monster without suffering any injury
from it, but the strain of the period was beginning to tell on all of them.
Worst of all, they seemed to have left all the luminous vegetation behind them,
and were entering a region of almost total darkness, in which Haidia had to be
their eyes.
Something
had happened to the girl's sight in the journey over the petrol spring. As a
matter of fact, the third, or nictitating membrane, which the humans of
Submundia possessed, in common with birds, had been burned away. Haidia could
see as well as ever in the dark, but she could bear more light than formerly as
well. Unobtrusively she assumed command of the party. She anticipated their
wants, dug shrimps in the darkness, and fed Tommy and Dodd with her own hands.
"God,
what a girl!" breathed Dodd to his friend. "I've always had the
reputation of being a woman-hater, Tommy, but once I get that girl to
civilization I'm going to take her to the nearest Little Church Around the
Corner in record time."
"I
wish you luck, old man, I'm sure," answered Tommy. Dodd's words did not
seem strange to him. Civilization was growing very remote to him, and Broadway
seemed like a memory of some previous incarnation.
The
river was growing narrower again, and swifter, too. On the last day, or night,
of their journey - though they did not know that it was to be their last - it
swirled so fiercely that it threatened every moment to overset their
beetle-shells. Suddenly Tommy began to feel giddy. He gripped the side of his
shell with his hand.
"Tommy,
we're going round!" shouted Dodd in front of him.
There
was no longer any doubt of it. The shells were revolving in a vortex of
rushing, foaming water.
"Haidia!"
they shouted.
The
girl's voice came back thickly across the roaring torrent. The circles grew
smaller. Tommy knew that he was being sucked nearer and nearer to the edge of
some terrific whirlpool in that inky blackness. Now he could no longer hear
Dodd's shouts, and the shell was tipping so that he could feel the water
rushing along the edge of it. But for the exercise of centrifugal force he
would have been flung from his perilous seat, for he was leaning inward at an
angle of forty-five degrees.
Then
suddenly his progress was arrested. He felt the shell being drawn to the shore.
He leaped out, and Haidia's strong hands dragged the shell out of the torrent,
while Tommy sank down, gasping.
"What's
the matter?" he heard Dodd demanding.
"There
is no more river," said Haidia calmly. "It goes into a hole in the
ground. So much I have heard from the wise men of my people. They say that it
is near such a place that they fled from the flood in years gone by."
"Then
we're near safety," shouted Tommy. "That river must emerge as a
stream somewhere in the upper world, Dodd. I wonder where the road lies."
"There
is a road here," came Haidia's calm voice. "Let us put on our shells
again, since who knows whether there may not be beetles here."
"Did
you ever see such a girl as that?" demanded Dodd ecstatically. "First
she saves our lives, and then she thinks of everything. Good lord, she'll
remember my meals, and to wind my watch for me, and – and -"
But
Haidia's voice, some distance ahead, interrupted Dodd's soliloquy, and,
hoisting the beetle-shells upon their backs, they started along the rough trail
that they could feel with their feet over the stony ground. It was still as
dark as pitch, but soon they found themselves traveling up a sunken way that
was evidently a dry watercourse. And now and again Haidia's reassuring voice
would come from in front of them.
The
road grew steeper. There could no longer be any doubt that they were ascending
toward the surface of the earth. But even the weight of the beetle-shells and
the steepness could not account for the feeling of intense weakness that took
possession of them. Time and again they stopped, panting.
"We
must be very near the surface, Dodd," said Tommy. "We've surely
passed the center of gravity. That's what makes it so difficult."
"Come
on," Haidia said in her quiet voice, stretching out her hand through the
darkness. And for very shame they had to follow her.
On
and on, hour after hour, up the steep ascent, resting only long enough to make
them realize their utter fatigue. On because Haidia was leading them, and
because in the belief that they were about to leave that awful land behind them
their desires lent new strength to their limbs continuously.
Suddenly
Haidia uttered a fearful cry. Her ears had caught what became apparent to Dodd
and Jimmy several seconds later.
Far
down in the hollow of the earth, increased by the echoes that came rumbling up,
they heard the distant, strident rasp of the beetle swarm.
Then
it was Dodd's turn to support Haidia and whisper consolation in her ears. No
thought of resting now. If they were to be overwhelmed at last by the monsters,
they meant to be overwhelmed in the upper air.
It
was growing insufferably hot. Blasts of air, as if from a furnace, began to
rush up and down past them. And the trail was growing steeper still, and
slippery as glass.
"What
is it, Jim?" Tommy panted, as Dodd, leaving Haidia for a moment, came back
to him.
"I'd
say lava," Dodd answered. "If only one could see something! I don't
know how she finds her way. My impression is that we are coming out through the
interior of an extinct volcano."
"But
where are there volcanoes in the south polar regions?" inquired Tommy.
"There
are Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, in South Victoria Land, active volcanoes
discovered by Sir James Ross in 1841, and again by Borchgrevink, in 1899. If
that's where we're coming out - well, Tommy, we're doomed, because it's the
heart of the polar continent. We might as well turn back."
"But
we won't turn back," said Tommy. "I'm damned if we do."
"We're
damned if we don't," said Dodd.
"Come
along please!" sang Haidia's voice high up the slope.
They
struggled on. And now a faint luminosity was beginning to penetrate that
infernal darkness. The rasping of the beetle-legs, too, was no longer audible.
Perhaps they had thrown Bram off their track! Perhaps in the darkness he had
not known which way they had gone after leaving the whirlpool!
That
thought encouraged them to a last effort. They pushed their flagging limbs up,
upward through an inferno of heated air. Suddenly Dodd uttered a yell and
pointed upward.
"God!"
ejaculated Tommy. Then he seized Dodd in his arms and nearly crushed him. For
high above them, a pin-point in the black void, they saw - a star!
They
were almost at the earth's surface!
One
more effort, and suddenly the ground seemed to give beneath them. They breathed
the outer air, and went sliding down a chute of sand, and stopped, half buried,
at the bottom.
CHAPTER VIII -
Recaptured
"Where
are we?" each demanded of the other, as they staggered out.
It
was a moonless night, and the air was chill, but they were certainly nowhere
near the polar regions, for there was no trace of snow to be seen anywhere. All
about them was sand, with here and there a spiny shrub standing up stiff and
erect and solitary.
When
they had disengaged themselves from the clinging sand they could see that they
were apparently in the hollow of a vast crater, that must have been half a mile
in circumference. It was low and worn down to an elevation of not more than two
or three hundred feet, and evidently the volcano that had thrown it up had been
extinct for millennia.
"Water!"
gasped Dodd.
They
looked all about them. They could see no signs of a spring anywhere, and both
were parched with thirst after their terrific climb.
"We
must find water, Haidia," said Tommy. "Why, what's the matter?"
Haidia
was pointing upward at the starry heaven, and shivering with fear.
"Eyes!" she cried. "Big beetles waiting for us up there!"
"No,
no, Haidia," Dodd explained. "Those are stars. They are worlds - places
where people live."
"Will
you take me up there?" asked Haidia.
"No,
this is our world," said Dodd. "And by and by the sun will rise,
that's a big ball of fire up there. He watches over the world and gives us
light and warmth. Don't be afraid. I'll take care of you."
"Haidia
is not afraid with Jimmydodd to take care of her," replied the girl with
dignity. "Haidia smells water - over there." She pointed across one
side of the crater.
"There
we'd better hurry," said Tommy, "because I can't hold out much longer."
The
three scrambled over the soft sand, which sucked in their feet to the ankle at
every step. It was with the greatest difficulty that they succeeded in reaching
the crater's summit, low though it was. Then Dodd uttered a cry, and pointed.
In front of them extended a long pool of water, with a scrubby growth around
the edges.
The
ground was firmer here, and they hurried toward it. Tommy was the first to
reach it. He lay down on his face and drank eagerly. He had taken in a quart
before he discovered that the water was saline.
At
the same time Dodd uttered an exclamation of disgust. Haidia, too, after
sipping a little of the fluid, had stood up, chattering excitedly in her own
language.
But
she was not chattering about the water. She was pointing toward the scrub.
"Men there!" she cried. "Men like you and Tommy,
Jimmydodd."
Tommy
and Dodd looked at each other, the water already forgotten in their excitement
at Haidia's information, which neither of them doubted.
Brave
as she was, the girl now hung back behind Dodd, letting the two men take
precedence of her. The water, saline as it was, had partly quenched their
thirst. They felt their strength reviving.
And
it was growing light. In the east the sky was already flecked with yellow pink.
They felt a thrill of intense excitement at the prospect of meeting others of
their kind.
"Where
do you think we are?" asked Tommy.
Dodd
stopped to look at a shrub that was growing near the edge of the pool. "I
don't think, I know, Tommy," he answered. "This is wattle."
"Yes?"
"We're
somewhere in the interior regions of the Australian continent - and that's not
going to help us much."
"Over
there - over there," panted Haidia. "Hold me, Jimmydodd. I can't see.
Ah, this terrible light!"
She screwed her eyelids tightly
together to shut out the pale light of dawn. The men had already discovered
that the third membrane had been burned away.
"We
must get her out of here," whispered Dodd to Tommy. "Somewhere where
it's dark, before the sun rises. Let's go back to the entrance of the
crater."
But
Haidia, her arm extended, persisted, "Over there! Over there!"
Suddenly
a spear came whirling out of a growth of wattle beside the pool. It whizzed
past Tommy's face and dropped into the sand behind. Between the trunks of the
wattles they could see the forms of a party of blackfellows, watching them
intently.
Tommy
held up his arms and moved forward with a show of confidence that he was far
from feeling. After what he had escaped in the underworld he was in no mood to
be massacred now.
But
the blacks were evidently not hostile. It was probable that the spear had not
been aimed to kill. At the sight of the two white men, and the white woman,
they came forward doubtfully, then more fearlessly, shouting in their language.
In another minute Tommy and Dodd were the center of a group of wondering
savages.
Especially
Haidia. Three or four gins, or black women, had crept out of the scrub, and
were already examining her with guttural cries, and fingering the hair garment
that she wore.
"Water!"
said Tommy, pointing to his throat, and then to the pool, with a frown of
disgust.
The
blackfellows grinned, and led the three a short distance to a place where a
large hollow had been scooped in the sandy floor of the desert. It was full of
water, perfectly sweet to the taste. The three drank gratefully.
Suddenly
the edge of the sun appeared above the horizon, gilding the sand with gold. The
sunlight fell upon the three, and Haidia uttered a terrible cry of distress.
She dropped upon the sand, her hands pressed to her eyes convulsively. Tommy
and Dodd dragged her into the thickest part of the scrub, where she lay
moaning.
They
contrived bandages from the remnants of their clothing, and these, damped with
cold water, and bound over the girl's eyes, alleviated her suffering somewhat.
Meanwhile the blackfellows had prepared a meal of roast opossum. After their
long diet of shrimps, it tasted like ambrosia to the two men.
Much
to their surprise, Haidia seemed to enjoy it too. The three squatted in the
scrub among the friendly blacks, discussing their situation.
"These
fellows will save us," said Dodd. "It may be that we're quite near
the coast, but, any way, they'll stick to us, even if only out of curiosity.
They'll take us somewhere. But as soon as we get Haidia to safety we'll have to
go back along our trail. We mustn't lose our direction. Suppose I was laughed
at when I get back, called a liar! I tell you, we've got to have something to
show, to prove my statements, before I can persuade anybody to fit out an
expedition into Submundia. Even those three beetle-shells that we dropped in
the crater won't be conclusive evidence for the type of mind that sits in the
chairs of science to-day. And, speaking of that, we must get those blacks to
carry those shells for us. I tell you, nobody will believe -"
"What's
that?" cried Tommy sharply, as a rasping sound rose above the cries of the
frightened blacks.
But
there was no need to ask. Out of the crater two enormous beetles were winging
their way toward them, two beetles larger than any that they had seen.
Fully
seven feet in length, they were circling about each other, apparently engaged
in a vicious battle.
The
fearful beaks stabbed at the flesh beneath the shells, and they alternately
stabbed and drew back, all the while approaching the party, which watched them,
petrified with terror.
It
was evident that the monsters had no conception of the presence of humans.
Blinded by the sun, only one thing could have induced them to leave the dark
depths of Submundia. That was the mating instinct. The beetles were evidently
rival leaders of some swarm, engaged in a duel to the death.
Round
and round they went in a dizzy maze, stabbing and thrusting, jaws closing on
flesh, until they dropped, close-locked in battle, not more than twenty feet
from the little party of blacks and whites, both squirming in the agonies of
death.
"I
don't think that necessarily means that the swarm is on our trail," said
Tommy, a little later, as the three stood beside the shells that they had
discarded. "Those two were strays, lost from the swarm and maddened by the
mating instinct. Still, it might be as well to wear these things for a while,
in case they do follow us."
"You're
right," answered Dodd, as he placed one of the shells around Haidia.
"We've got to get this little lady to civilization, and we've got to
protect our lives in order to give this great new knowledge to the world. If we
are attacked, you must sacrifice your life for me, Tommy, so that I can carry
back the news."
"Righto!"
answered Tommy with alacrity. "You bet I will, Jim."
The
glaring sun of mid-afternoon was shining down upon the desert, but Haidia was
no longer in pain. It was evident that she was fast becoming accustomed to the
sunlight, though she still kept her eyes screwed up tightly, and had to be
helped along by Dodd and Jimmy. In high good humor the three reached the
encampment, to find that the blacks were feasting on the dead beetles, while
the two eldest members of the party had proudly donned the shells.
It
was near sunset before they finally started. Dodd and Tommy had managed to make
it clear to them that they wished to reach civilization, but how near this was
there was, of course, no means of determining. They noted, however, that the
party started in a southerly direction.
"I
should say," said Dodd, "that we are in South Australia, probably
three or four hundred miles from the coast. We've got a long journey before us,
but these blackfellows will know how to procure food for us."
They
certainly knew how to get water, for, just as it began to grow dark, when the
three were already tormented by thirst, they stopped at what seemed a mere
hollow among the stones and boulders that strewed the face of the desert, and
scooped away the sand, leaving a hole which quickly filled with clear, cold
water of excellent taste.
After
which they made signs that they were to camp there for the night. The moon was
riding high in the sky. As it grew dark, Haidia opened her eyes, saw the
luminary, and uttered an exclamation, this time not of fear, but of wonder.
"Moon,"
said Dodd. "That's all right, girl. She watches over the night, as the sun
does over the day."
"Haidia
likes the moon better than the sun," said the girl wistfully. "But
the moon not strong enough to keep away the beetles."
"If
I was you, I'd forget about the beetles, Haidia," said Dodd. "They
won't come out of that hole in the ground. You'll never see them again."
And,
as he spoke, they heard a familiar rasping sound far in the distance.
"How
the wind blows," said Tommy, desperately resolved not to believe his ears.
"I think a storm's coming up."
But
Haidia, with a scream of fear, was clinging to Dodd, and the blacks were on
their feet, spears and boomerangs in their hands, looking northward.
Out
of that north a little black cloud was gathering. A cloud that spread
gradually, as a thunder-cloud, until it covered a good part of the sky. And
still more of the sky, and still more. All the while that faint, distant
rasping was audible, but it did not increase in volume. It was as if the
beetles had halted until the full number of the swarm had come up out of the
crater.
Then
the cloud, which by now covered half the sky, began to take geometric form. It
grew square, the ragged edges seemed to trim themselves away, streaks of light
shot through it at right angles, as if it was marshaling itself into companies.
The
doomed men and the girl stood perfectly still, staring at that phenomenon. They
knew that only a miracle could save them. They did not even speak, but Haidia
clung more tightly to Dodd's arm.
Then
suddenly the cloud spread upward and covered the face of the moon.
"Well,
this is good-by, Tommy," said Dodd, gripping his friend's hand. "God,
I wish I had a revolver, or a knife!" He looked at Haidia.
Suddenly
the rasping became a whining shriek. A score of enormous beetles, the advance
guards of the army, zoomed out of the darkness into a ray of straggling
moonlight. Shrieking, the blacks, who had watched the approaching swarm
perfectly immobile, threw away the two shells and bolted.
"Good
Lord," Dodd shouted, "did you see the color of their shells,
Tommy?" Even in that moment the scientific observer came uppermost in him.
"Those red edges? They must be young ones, Tommy. It's the new brood! No
wonder Bram stayed behind! He was waiting for them to hatch! The new brood!
We're doomed - doomed! All my work wasted!"
The
blackfellows did not get very far. A hundred yards from the place where they
started to run they dropped, their bodies hidden beneath the clustering
monsters, their screams cut short as those frightful beaks sought their
throats, and those jaws crunched through flesh and bone.
Circling
around Dodd, Tommy, and Haidia, as if puzzled by their appearance, the beetles
kept up a continuous, furious droning that sounded like the roar of Niagara
mixed with the shrieking of a thousand sirens. The moon was completely hidden,
and only a dim, nebulous light showed the repulsive monsters as they flew
within a few feet of the heads of the fugitives. The stench was overpowering.
But
suddenly a ray of white light shot through the darkness, and, with a changed
note, just perceptible to the ears of the two men, but doubtless of the
greatest significance to the beetles, the swarm fled apart to right and left,
leaving a clear lane, through which appeared - Bram, reclining on his
shell-couch above his eight trained beetle steeds!
Hovering
overhead, the eight huge monsters dropped lightly to the ground beside the
three. Bram sat up, a vicious grin upon his twisted face. In his hand he held a
large electric bulb, its sides sheathed in a roughly carved wooden frame; the
wire was attached to a battery behind him.
"Well
met, my friends!" he shouted exultantly. "I owe you more thanks than
I can express for having so providentially left the electrical equipment of
your plane undamaged after you crashed at the entrance to Submundia. I had a
hunch about it - and the hunch worked!"
He
grinned more malevolently as he looked from one man to the other.
"You've
run your race," he said. "But I'm going to have a little fun with you
before you die. I'm going to use you as an object lesson. You'll find it out in
a little while."
"Go
ahead, go ahead, Bram," Dodd grinned back at him. "Just a few million
years ago, and you were a speck of protoplasm - in that pre-pleistocene age - swimming
among the invertebrate crustaceans that characterized that epoch."
"Invertebrates
and monotremes, Dodd," said Bram, almost wistfully. "The mammals were
already existent on the earth, as you know -" Suddenly he broke off, as he
realized that Dodd was spoofing him. A yell of execration broke from his lips.
He uttered a high whistle, and instantly the whiplike lashes of a hundred
beetles whizzed through the darkness and remained poised over Dodd's head.
"Not even the marsupial lion, Bram,"
grinned Dodd, undismayed. "Go ahead, go ahead, but I'll not die with a lie
upon my lips!"
No comments:
Post a Comment