My mind searched backward to place it. In that remoteness of time, when all material things were unimaginably far, the imagination which formed the greatest romantic poem in the English tongue could reach to inspire me. I saw the vision of Britomart, her shield lifted over her face, go forward into the certain-seeming death of flame, against which her trusted weapons were useless.
With no conscious change of resolution, I rose slowly and stepped forward, sounding my way by tapping to right and left with the axe-head, and giving that snake-like tentacle a push that sent it over the invisible edge into the depths below.
As I felt my way, I tried to look downward to watch my steps without gazing into the gulf beneath me, but when I found it impossible to do so, in a sickening terror I closed my eyes and felt forward blindly, or opened them only to gaze at the further hills, which I was so slowly approaching.
And in this way, when I was more than half across, I first saw them, and as I did so I recalled in a moment the forgotten warning that had eluded my mind before. These were they which must be avoided at all costs, even at that of waiting in the deadly cavity till night had darkened.
They were descending the cliffs with an awkward waddle, comic enough to watch from some place of security, their bodies showing dead-white against the dull grey background.
I could not tell certainly that I was their objective. They would reach the level some distance to the right of the end of the bridge I was crossing. The cliffs on that side left some margin by which they could reach the bridge-head, but if I could pass that, I saw that the cliff ran on as before, flush with the path, and with a similar expanse upon the left to that to which I had become accustomed. If, I thought, I could reach the bridge-end first, I should at least have a clear course, if I could outrun them. If I were caught here, I had no hope whatever.
It is strange how a more urgent fear may drive out one which had seemed invincible. By some optical difference the path here was very faintly visible, a thin ribbon of opal-coloured transparency, and the fact that I could fix my eyes on the point at which it reached the solid ground gave confidence. I ceased to feel my steps, and ran forward.
Doing so, I thought for a moment that my time was ample, but when they were on level ground their gait changed. They were coming with great bounds, and straight for the bridge-head, to pass which was my only hope of safety.
I saw them more clearly now. They were as white as an ant’s egg, and in shape like a squatting man. There were more than twenty coming with bounds of thirty feet, but with a distinct pause between each leap.
I was running hard now, and as I did so I shouted what I meant for a bold defiance, and the sound echoed and re-echoed up the gorge, and came back like a wail of terror from the depth below.
As I left the bridge, I saw the foremost coming on my right hand, not a hundred yards distant. In another moment I was on the path that ran on as before, the high cliff on my right, and what I had taken for a similar forest to that I had been passing hitherto, on my left hand.
I knew that it would be useless to run further. No human speed could equal those gigantic leaps. I had no mind to feel one of the loathsome brutes upon my shoulder as I ran.
Fear more than courage, desperate fear it was, which turned my feet, and swung the axe to meet them. As I did so, I was aware that the cliff-wall was open. Not an irregular cave-hollow, but another of those masoned tunnels towering high overhead. Then the foremost of my pursuers came down floppingly not two yards away.
I saw a hairless, dead-white, ape-like, frog-mouthed form, a width of jaws in a flat skull, and small malignant eyes, that had in them a malevolence different from anything I had known, or to which I can make comparison. Its hind-limbs ended in large round pads of flesh which splayed out as it hit the ground, and took the force of the impact, and appeared, with a jerking motion of the strong forelimbs against the ground, to give the impetus to the next leap.
All this I saw as I realised that for a second’s space it could not recover itself and leap again, and I swung the axe and struck. As I did it the thought crossed me that if the blade caught in the skull I should be weaponless, and I brought it round to take the side of the neck as though I felled a tree.
If they were strong brutes, they were not agile. The sharp blade cut straight through the throat some inches deep from side to side. The creature made no cry or motion, and no blood came from the wound. As I recovered the weapon, I stepped quickly back into the archway.
It was twenty feet wide or more, and disproportionately high. An upright bar of a grey metal thinly veined with red divided the entrance for six feet upwards.
There were a dozen of them by now that were close around the entrance, or that had leapt short, and were coming along with an awkward shambling motion.
I stood within, with the poised axe, desperately alert and watchful, and they squatted motionlessly around. Even the one I had cut still sat with intent gaze fixed upon me,—no, not on me, suddenly I realised, it was at that red-grey bar that divided us. And then I knew that it was not fear of me, but of it, which held them back, and that they dared not enter.
And as my own fear relaxed, I looked around, and saw that I was at the entrance of a very lofty passage which ran curving downward behind me. Step by step I went backward, still facing them, till the turn hid them from view.
There I waited. Perhaps in time they would retire, and leave me a free exit.
After hours, it seemed, I went forward again, but they were there still, only there were so many more that all the space was crowded.
I was conscious now that I was tired to the point of exhaustion, and thirsty beyond patient endurance. To stay there was not hopeful. I gathered my remaining courage, and commenced to explore my refuge further.
CHAPTER VII
CAPTURE
Very fearfully I went forward. The fact that those fierce beasts did not dare to follow was itself a warning. One thing was certain. I was in the presence here of an engineering capacity such as I had not seen previously, unless it were in the opal pavement. The passage sloped down steeply in a steady spiral. It was of ample width, and of great height. The floor was not earth or rock, but a smooth rubber-like substance that gave pleasantly underfoot. The walls were smooth and hard, coloured a light grey, having a polished surface. The ceiling was opalescent, giving a faint but sufficient light, which was reflected from the polished walls.
I went down, expecting always that the steady turning descent would bring me into some great hall or chamber, or at least into a level passage, but it did neither. I went on because I was too tired to stop, or at least because I was too tired to think of climbing upward, and to stay was hopeless.
There was no least change in the monotony of floor, or wall, or ceiling, till I felt that they must surely go on for ever, till I swayed dizzily as I descended on that continued curve, till I lost consciousness of time, and went on half-asleep, and half-believing myself to be in some nightmare of illusion. And because I was so dazed, when it came, I almost missed it.
It was a niche, or rather a cavity, in the wall, flatly paved, and having a great jar standing in it. I think the instinct of my parched frame told me it was water. The jar or basin was of the height of my shoulder, and about ten feet across. I bent my head into it and drank, and knew the joy of life as I had not imagined it to exist before.
I stopped myself sharply with the thought that it might be something different from wholesome water, in this place where all was strange, but I had drunk well by then. I looked round and saw a heap of large cakes of a dark-brown bread-like substance. There were nine of these neatly piled, and behind them was a white slab in the wall, on which there were three blue paintings, like Chinese picture-writing, one under the other, each about a foot deep, and too high on the slab for me to examine them nearly.
I shredded off a great slice from the bread with the axe, and found it good, and sat down and ate heartily.
After I had eaten, I felt so refreshed that I thought that I would rest for a few minutes only, and resume my exploration, but I must have fallen asleep, I don’t know for how long,—I had been awake already beyond the length of my accustomed day,—but I woke as from a long night’s rest, hungry and thirsty again, and I ate and drank awhile, and hesitated whether I should turn back, and hope for a clear passage, or continue down, to find I knew not what of fear or horror at the end. But the thought of those squatting forms above was not encouraging, and to go down is easier than to climb, and so at last I decided to continue downward.
For many hours I continued. Always there was the steady spiral of descent, the opal light, the high wide dove-grey walls, the steel-grey flooring, which looked so hard, but was so soft and springy to the tread. And always—I should have mentioned it before—a steady current of air came upward. I cannot say “blew” upward, it was too gentle, and too absolutely regular. It was of an exhilarating freshness, and like a cushion on which to lean forward, in a descent which might otherwise have been too steep.
So I went on, never knowing what might open before me at the next step of the turning way, but with a mind which became dulled with the monotony of the passage, so that I went on at last in a semi-conscious, dream-like condition that took no count of time,—there was a sound behind me. There was something with a heavier tread than mine that pursued me downward. With an instinct of unreasoned terror I commenced to run. And so doing, I kept ahead, but I gained little. I looked back, but the curving passage was bare. Only I heard the tread, which I could not distance.
A sense of the uselessness of flight steadied me, and I recalled my resolution to meet the unknown boldly, as the safest way.
I stopped, stepped back against the wall, and waited. Then he strode past, and was gone in a moment. He was a man of giant size, with a skin yellower than old ivory, and of a curious smoothness. He wore no clothes, but had a sack or basket hanging upon his back, and round his waist a belt with bright metal studs or clips, from which, three on each side, six of the frog-like apes that had pursued me hung by a leg, swinging and writhing, and snapping with fierce teeth against the flanks of their captor,—teeth which made less mark on the polished smoothness of the skin than if it had been the ivory to which its colour compared it.
So much I noticed as he passed. He gave no sign that he saw me.
I was still standing there when I heard him returning.
This time he picked me up, as a gardener might pick up an earwig, and dropped me over his shoulder into the basket he carried.
I fell among moss, of a coarse growth, like sea-weed, but very soft and yielding. It was of a sage-green colour, and of a very pleasant odour, which I cannot describe. A new scent is, like a new colour, beyond imagination.
I burrowed deeply into the softness of the moss, and feared and wondered. But the present comfort was very great, and I reflected that I had not been hurt, and that for such strength so to lift me meant that I had been picked up very gently.
I think I should have slept, had he not lifted the basket from his shoulders, and lowered it to the ground, closing the top, which drew in with a short thong, as he did so.
For a few moments I lay still, and then wriggled through the moss till I could see out of the opening, which was wide enough for a considerable view, though not sufficient for me to escape.
I saw that we were in a cavity, like that in which I had rested previously.
There were the same furnishings, and on the wall-tablet the giant was painting a fourth mark, below three which were there already.
He had taken off his belt, and thrown it into a corner, with the six captives still fastened to it.
He now pulled one of them off, and taking it between thumb and finger, shredded the four limbs. While he did this, the creature made no sound, but the wide jaws snapped continually.
Laying down the limbless body, he proceeded to peel and eat the limbs as one might shred off the skin of a banana. They did not bleed, the flesh being like a stiff jelly, of a bright-red colour, and veined with a gristly white substance, giving an appearance like the flesh of a pomegranate.
Hideous as these creatures were, it shocked me to see this callous tearing of one that still lived, apparently with undiminished vitality; but the eater’s face, as I now saw it, had no suggestion of savagery. Rather it was melancholy and preoccupied, and as he ate he talked continually to himself in a plaintive monotone, though with an organ volume.
I reflected that men who are otherwise humane will swallow a living oyster, of the skinning of eels, of the fish that are boiled alive in Indian kettles, and of a hundred cruelties to which custom has inured mankind, and thought I understood, however incompletely,—which, of course, I did not.
The limbs being gone, he picked up the trunk, and, twisting off the gnashing head, he threw it down and proceeded to complete his meal. Such offal as there was,—it was unlike that of any creature familiar to me,—he collected neatly, with the peeled skin, and the severed head, and opening the bag in which I lay, threw them in with me. I realised afterwards that it was for the orderly deposit of such refuse, among the aromatic moss, that he carried it with him.
Afterwards,—but not then. For as he shook and closed the bag the severed head rolled against me, and the snapping teeth ripped the leather of my left sleeve from wrist to elbow. Panic seized me at this, beyond reason, and I was more terrified of one severed head than I had been before of the whole animal. How, I thought, if we were both carried in the bag together, and it were shaken against me? Already I felt its wide mouth closing on my flesh, and biting deeper while I strove to shake it free, with no body to strike at. How if there should be five more heads tumbling about me? And how soon did they really die? Terror edging my wits, I realised that because their bodies had not the thin fluid of familiar blood, the head could only be very slowly affected by the separation. Then how long might——? I struggled up to the mouth of the bag. It was drawn too tightly for escape, though I could see through it as before.
My captor lay stretched full length. An arm moved restlessly. More than once he muttered the same words. E-lo-ne, E-lo-ne, so it sounded, with a hopeless, falling cadence, infinitely sad.
Evidently I was forgotten, if I had ever held his thought beyond a moment.
After a time he slept.
Then I struggled to kick back the moss, and gain a space to stand upright, and swing the axe, and desperately I attacked the side of the bag.
It proved unexpectedly easy, and then difficult.
The first stroke cut down a long slit with a rasping sound, and the light shone through it. The next stroke made a parallel slit, and I thought that a few more would bring my freedom. But I found that, though I could make many downward slits, I could not squeeze myself through them, and to cross-cut was a different matter. I hacked long and desperately before I contrived a ragged hole, through which I crawled to freedom.
As I escaped, my fear left me. I did not dread the sleeping giant one tenth as much as the contact of the unbodied head, with its snapping jaws, and small malignant eyes.
Deliberately, I drank and ate before I turned to take the upward way.
Of that long toil there is little that is worth a word, with so much else for telling.
Somewhat the rising current of air must have buoyed me. Coming to the higher resting-place, I slept long, and ate and drank before and after.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BIRDS
When I came again to the surface-world there was no sign of life around, but a great stillness, and the dawn was breaking in an unimagined splendour.
On my left hand, not distant, sank the ravine, black and terrible. Beyond it was the distant forest of the nameless things. But before me, to the reach of sight, the ground sloped downward, and was covered with a level-surfaced growth, so close that I could only guess its depth, but showing only a sea of leaves, not larger than a man’s hand, and of a bright green, as though varnished; and these leaves the dawn-light altered to reflected gold, so that my dazzled sight recoiled from a splendour beyond endurance.
It was as though one should look straight at the noonday sun, to find a glory not of one small-seeming orb, but of stretched leagues, and myriad facets, of an equal brilliance.
But at length, as the sun rose, the light changed and faded. A thin mist moved over the surface of the unending field of green, but was not dense enough to hide it.
The green growth came to the very edge of the opal path, and looking down I saw a tangle of sinuous macaroni-like stalks that twisted restlessly, having leaves only at the top, on the close and level surface; and as I watched, tongues like pink worms pushed upward, and licked and wavered in the air, and drew backward. As the day advanced, thousands of these pink tongues were thrust upward and withdrawn continually, giving a wavering pinkness to the glossy green. It might have had beauty to familiar eyes, but to mine it had a loathsome strangeness, so that I was reluctant to walk beside it, and for some time I sat at the cave-mouth and pondered. I was half tempted to descend once more and face what might be in the depths below. Certainly, there I had found water and something akin to human food, and evidence was in that mighty tunnel itself of such work as no brute creatures could contrive or fashion.
I reflected, was it not reasonable that there should be a less highly cultured life on a planet’s surface, subject to wind and rain and all inclemencies, than in the sheltered security of its vast interior? Was it not an amazing thing that the men of my own time, fatuously imagining communication with incredibly distant worlds, had been contentedly ignorant of their own, ten miles below the surface; had made facile and contradictory theories of its interior, none of which the few known facts supported; and because they found some increase in the temperature for a trivial distance downward, had been content to conclude, without attempt at verification, that this heat increased indefinitely. How diligently they searched the secrets of the most distant stars, while they had scarcely scratched the surface of the one on which their lives depended!
So I thought, but instinct conquered. I was a creature born to the wind and rain, and not to the hidden depths beneath me. Even though these bordering growths were but the kitchen-gardens of the intelligences below,—as indeed they might be,—in a moment I saw it, wondering that I had not seen it sooner. Great stretches of one plant in weedless soil. Even if the life around me were but as that of insects, useful or noxious, or of beasts of food for their keepers,—still here at least was the sun, and something of the stars I knew.
Here too, I had met the only creature with which I had changed thoughts, however strangely, and to whom I had made a voiceless promise. At the thought, I rose and went onward.
As I thought of it, the idea that I was in a vegetable garden of subterranean giants gained in plausibility. The memory of that unrailed invisible bridge, which to my imagination had seemed as thin and fragile as a sheet of mica, made me doubt for a moment, till I remembered that it spanned the whole space without support from beneath or above, and had not swayed when I crossed it, and that it was of a sufficient width to give breadth of foothold even to the huge bulk of my recent captor, if he were able to walk in confidence across it.
With this thought came a wonder of what different world might be upon the higher level of the cliff-top, which now seemed to me as no more than the side of a trenched space of tillage, but I knew that my pledged way was straight onward, even could I have climbed the abrupt wall, which gave no foothold.
On my left hand, as I went on, the sea of varnished leaves still sloped downward, stretched away to a now misty horizon, and I began to compare its sameness unfavourably with that of the familiar world I knew, till I considered how little I had yet seen, in comparison with the extent of the probable land-surface which lay beyond me.
If a visitor to my own world, from some distant planet, were set down for a few days on the Antarctic continent, how different would be his report from that of one who spent the same time wandering in the Sahara desert, or amid the steaming heat of the Amazonian forests, or the cotton-mills of Lancashire. And there were indications already that I had reached a world where life extended deeply below the surface of the land, and where the sea had its nations also.
Only the air seemed vacant, and I was soon to see that that conclusion was premature.
I had come to a place at which the cliff-wall, though still too steep to climb for the first ten or twenty yards, sloped backward considerably, so that I had a wider view of the sky above me, and looking up I saw a flock of birds of the appearance of pigeons, having a similar habit of flight, but larger, that moved above me, not flying as at ease, but darting wildly from side to side, as though in avoidance of some deadly danger.
The next moment the cause of their agitation became visible. There were a number of huge black flying shapes which pursued them. But the inexplicable thing was that the hunted birds did not fly from their enemies across the open sky which stretched away to the horizon.
Rather, as though held back by some invisible wall, they swerved and dodged backwards and forwards, while their pursuers, with huge black slower-beating wings stretched across the sky, were always heading them back, but seemed themselves to be of no mind to follow them closely.
For some time I watched the duel, while the black hunters gradually closed upon their intended victims, till they had no space left to manœuvre, and were becoming crowded overhead, yet still with no bird going over the invisible boundary within which the deadly game was played.
Then came the last act of the drama. The desperate quarry turned and tried to dart backward, through the dark line of the beaters.
Many—unless they had other enemies beyond my line of sight—must have succeeded. Many were struck by the heavy wings, so that they spun upwards, stunned or dead, and a long neck shot out to snap them as they descended.
Screams of syren-like exultation deafened the sky.
Then a cornered bird must have crossed the invisible boundary which they had avoided so desperately.
Like a stone it fell instantly. For a moment, as the glossy leaves parted, and the pink tongues dragged it in, I had the sight of a dove-like bird, of a wedgwood-blue colour, but with a very long and slender beak, curving slightly downward. In size it resembled the large pigeons, called runts, which are bred for eating in Italy.
It was the most familiar-seeming thing, except the friendly stars, that I had yet seen.
But I had no time for such thoughts now.
Its attacker, perhaps misled by the error of the bird it followed, must have got at least one of its wide-spreading wings above that fatal vacancy. Down it came also, though more slowly, turning in the air, striving with desperate flutterings to recover balance in a space between the cliff and the region of its terror, which was too narrow to give its wings full freedom.
It came down on the path quite near me; the great flapping vans making a wind against which I stood with difficulty.
Then it closed them, and gained its feet, and looked round, with a monstrous long-necked head reaching out to either side like a hen’s as it did so.
It was not black, as it had looked to be in the sunlight, but of a dull-brown colour, inclining on the head and neck to a dark yellow. It was not feathered at all, but the skin, which lay in loose folds and ridges, which it could inflate at will, and which had no doubt served to break its fall, was of a leathery texture, and the wide-spreading wings were of a similar material.
It had one eye only, but of two facets, or perhaps I should say that its eyes were contained beneath one eyelid. The eye, or facet, with which it looked, would sparkle and light up with intelligence, while the other remained dull and vacant.
When it saw me first, it had, I thought, an instant of terror, turning into a vast perplexity. For some seconds the head remained twisted in my direction.
I had learned something in the lesson of confidence, and I looked back as steadily, but with a thought that if it wished to come my way it should have all the space available to pass me in comfort.
Whether it understood my thought I could not tell, but at length it turned its head away, and from that moment showed no consciousness of my existence. No doubt its own troubles were sufficient.
It had its head lifted now, and was calling loudly, with a whistling scream, to which a call replied from the cliff-top, and looking up I saw that the edge was lined by the great birds, now perched upon it, with long necks craning over.
I began to recognise its dilemma. For some reason it was evident that the air above the plain had no power to sustain its flight. Why, I could not imagine, but the fact was clear. On the other side was the cliff-wall, and between was the width of the opal path, on which there would be less than space to have spread its wings if it tried to rise and fly along it, even if it could rise from level ground, of which it might not be capable. The cliff here receded somewhat, as I have said, and I wondered whether it would attempt to scramble up it with beak and claws, and such help as its wings could give. But the recession was not regular. There were perpendicular crags which might well have baffled it. Anyway, after much consultation with its friends above, of which one seemed to have the most to say, whether from leadership or affection, it decided to make its way backward the way I had come, where it may have considered that the width of the gorge, or the easier rocks from which those frog-faced brutes assailed me, would give it access to the space it needed.
So it turned from me with a rapid shuffling walk, while its companions moved along the cliff-top beside it with continued screams of advice, or encouragement; and it was with no reluctance that I proceeded in the opposite direction.
CHAPTER IX
THE TUNNEL OF FEAR
The nervousness of the great bird while (as it were) trespassing on the opal pavement, confirmed my impression of the prestige enjoyed by the subterranean dwellers, among the creatures of the outer surface of the world into which I had entered. Its initial terror of myself, until it had recognised me as something distinct and inferior, was sufficiently significant.
So far, I had seen only one of these dreaded beings, from whom I had escaped with an ease which might not be repeated. How often, or at what times, they were likely to appear on the surface, I could not know, but I had learnt in that first dream-like interview, that the entrances to their excavations were of special danger, and I knew that these were not numerous.
Anyway, I had no choice but to push forward. It was the more urgent because the claims of thirst and hunger were becoming unpleasantly assertive—indeed, at this time, had I crossed another of those subterranean entrances, I think I must have adventured down it at the call of this primal need, but no such opportunity came, and before the sun had reached its meridian, I saw the end of this stage of my journey.
I had learnt, in my first instructions, that the path that led down to the grey beaches was one which must be traversed with the utmost rapidity. I did not guess its length, nor could I foresee that in all the strange and dreadful adventures which were before me, there would be few indeed to exceed its horror.
I knew, from the depth of the gorge I had crossed, that I was high above the sea-level. I saw that the garden-ground (if such it were) sloped down, for many gradual miles, to an indistinct horizon. I looked continually for the break in that sea of pink and glossy green which would enable me to cross it.
When it came, I did not see at first, my eyes being drawn to the steaming tank upon my other side. For here the cliff curved backward, giving space for an artificial lake of heated water, from which a steam rose continually, such as almost hid the cliffs upon the farther sides.
I found it too hot to drink, but I filled a tin cup which my knapsack held, and waited for it to cool, till my thirst overcame me.
It had a bitter and unpleasant taste, but I was in too great a need to be cautious. While I cooled a second cup at greater leisure I looked round and discovered that I had reached the place I was seeking.
I saw, on my left, the entrance to a long straight tunnel sloping gently downward. This entrance was reached by a terraced drop in the opal roadway. The tunnel had a floor of yellow sand, which was divided by a narrow conduit down which an overflow from the heated tank ran smoothly, and very swiftly, owing to the slope at which it flowed. The sides of the tunnel were of a smooth grey material, not concave but flat, converging upwards, till they almost met at the top, but not quite, there being a slit of perhaps two inches dividing them, through which a certain amount of light entered the tunnel.
It had a sinister appearance, and as I sat for a time regarding it, I considered what I might possibly have to fear if I should endeavour to penetrate it.
The purpose of the great lake of heated water behind me appeared to be evident. It must be the source from which the great expanse of ordered growth was irrigated, and perhaps fed. The stream that came through the tunnel might be a mere overflow, which was drained off into the sea, or it might be used for the filling of subterranean pipes lower down the slope. In either case, it did not greatly concern me,—or so I thought, not foreseeing how greatly I should need its help in the coming peril.
The yellow sand on either side supplied a sufficient space on which to walk upright beneath the shelving walls.
It was dimly lit from above, and obscured by the steam which rose from the water, but I could see that it ran straight on for a long distance. Actually, it was a length of about twelve miles, as I learnt afterwards.
It appeared that, being entered, it would offer no exit until I reached the further end, however far it might be.
But there was no appearance of any possible danger, and I knew that it was the way which I had been directed to take. The only warning I had received was to traverse it as rapidly as possible, and it certainly did not appear to be an inviting avenue in which to linger.
Perhaps it was the fact that I must emerge from it on the threshold of a new experience, the nature of which I could only guess very dimly, that made me rest so long, even when I waked from the sleep I needed, before I entered the passage, but I remember that I did it with a great reluctance, and started at a pace which, though it might not be equal to the light swift running of my instructress, was sufficient to take me a long way forward in safety.
After a time, I noticed that my feet were becoming warm, and realised that the sand must be heated, though not so much so as the soil on which I had walked previously. I did not think it to be sufficiently so to constitute a serious danger, or discomfort, but I considered that it might be a different matter to a foot protected only by its own fur, and, supposing that I had found the explanation of the warning, and that it did not affect me, and being somewhat short of breath from the long spurt I had taken, I slackened to a quieter walk,—and as my right foot came down, a pink streak shot out of the sand a few inches from it, and smacked against my ankle, with a sound like a whip lash. I jumped, with a cry of horror, or at least I tried to jump, and came down on my hands, for the grip held, and I was powerless to break it. The pink worm did not twine round my foot, but lay up the side, holding on, leech-like, by power of suction. It was trying to drag the foot into the sand, but, for the moment, that was beyond its power. Wrenching desperately, I tried to get loose the axe, for which I had expected no use, and which was slung on my back, under the knapsack, for convenience as I ran. When I got it clear I realised that I could not strike hard against my own ankle, and to an attempt at cutting, my assailant showed the resilient rubber-like quality which seemed common to several of the forms of life with which I was becoming familiar. With a despairing effort I strained my foot a few inches from the ground, and drove a hard blow beneath it, at which the severed worm fell writhing on the sand.
But now there were two others round my left foot, and their united strength was too great for me to lift it to enable me to deal with them in the same way. I gave up the axe, and hacked them free with the clasp knife. Then I saw that the ground behind me, and for several yards in front, showed similar worms that had pushed up through the sand, and waved and felt around for the origin of the vibrations which had disturbed them.
No doubt they had been rising behind me all the time, but I had passed over the ground so quickly that I had always been in advance of my danger, and unaware that it threatened me.
I suppose that the roots of the plants without,—if plants they could be called,—grew under the wall of the tunnel, and lived among the sand, though the conditions did not allow of the leaves shooting up in such soil, or in the absence of the light they needed.
I noticed with some relief that the surrounding tongues could not reach me while I remained motionless, and I concluded that they must be in some way rooted, or growing from a common source, which kept them in their places securely.
I watched for perhaps half an hour without motion while the long tongues gradually quietened, and then thinking that the time would soon come when I could make a rush to pass them, I made a careless movement, which stirred them to fresh activity, and the weary waiting had to be commenced again. At last, when most of them had withdrawn, and the rest were quiescent, I made a sudden rush, and though more than one shot upward as I passed, I ran through them successfully.
For some time I ran on at my utmost speed, and exhausted myself proportionately. For another mile, perhaps, I kept to a panting trot, and I began to see the pink heads thrust up as I passed them. I looked back and saw them already high in the air a few yards behind. The sight gave me a fresh spurt, but it could not last. I could see no end to the tunnel. In fact I could see a very moderate distance only, owing to the steam in the atmosphere, and the narrow slit through which the light must enter. I had no means of estimating its length. It might be five miles. It might be fifty. Soon my pace slackened. Soon I was hacking with my knife again. Then there was the weary motionless waiting, till I could again go forward in safety.
The next time my foot was caught I fell forward, and before I could rise, a dozen of them were round me. One held me by the right wrist, pulling till the hand was sunk in the sand, despite my frenzied efforts to free it. I was carrying the clasp-knife open in this hand, but I caught it up with my left and hacked through the sand, and at last cut the pulling worm that held me. I turned to others that were straining at my sides and legs, and one by one I cut them through. Then I noticed that my right wrist was streaming with blood, and thought at first that the knife had slashed it, till I saw that a broad line across the back was mottled with punctured wounds, where the worm had sucked it.
I sat there for a long time, with neither strength nor courage to adventure farther. I thought of going back, but I felt that the distance would be beyond my strength to traverse.
The distance ahead might be less,—it seemed my one hope. (It was actually much longer, if I estimate correctly how far I had then gone.) Anyway, it would be uphill back, and that would defeat my speed, and I supposed that the creatures might be more alert after I had disturbed them. I wondered if I could tap the ground in front of me and cut them down, one by one, as they pushed upward. But I had had no food for many hours, and I was already conscious of exhaustion. Water I could have, and I drank again, after cooling it. I thought of wading in the central stream, but even could I have kept my feet in that swift smooth current I supposed that the heat would be unendurable. And then came a thought which animated me with a fresh hope. Could I leap to the other side? It seemed too broad to be possible,—and I could get no run for the jump, unless I took it at a slant, which would make it longer. I had no more than space to stand upright for about a yard from the water’s edge. I could step two paces back if I crouched.
The sand had become quiet now. I would go forward while I could, and try the leap when the need grew urgent. Was it wise to wait till I should be again too exhausted to try it? On an impulse I leapt. In the nervous fear of falling into the stream I leapt too far, and my head struck the opposite wall, though not severely.
There was no relief on this side. The jar with which I struck the ground roused my enemies with such celerity that I barely escaped them. As I ran I thought I had gained nothing, till I realised that if I were hard pressed I could always win a moment’s freedom, or a fresh start, if I jumped again.
It was not much, but it was something.
Of the rest of that passage I do not wish to write in detail. I do not wish to recall it.
It is enough that the time came when a point of light showed in the distance, and when I staggered into the daylight. Of the scene that lay before me, I was not clearly conscious. I was at the utmost point of fatigue of nerve and body. I lay down and slept till the day,—which now covered a period of more than four times that to which I was accustomed,—was sinking toward sunset.
CHAPTER X
THE AMPHIBIANS
I awakened at last to a confused memory only, recalling how I had leapt short and fallen into the steaming water, which, when it reached that place, must have cooled. Vaguely I remembered how it had swept me down, and of a half-stunned instinctive effort to regain my feet, but of how I got out, or whether I had struggled long in the water, or been able to wade down it, and so escape the danger of the sand, I could not recall with certainty. I think I must have been on the sand for the last few yards, or I should have been swept over the edge by the stream, which fell sheer five hundred feet into the sea beneath. For I was lying on a level opal path such as I had traversed previously, with this difference only, that the cultivated ground sloped upward behind me, and the cliff upon the other side sank steeply to the sea.
The sun was still hot,—more so on this lower level than on the higher ground I had left,—and it had dried me while I slept, but I was stiff with wounds and exhaustion, and faint with hunger, and I found that I could only stand with difficulty. My boots were soaked with blood, and the laces were torn away, so that I had to use some string from my little store of necessities with which to fasten them.
If I wished to reach the end of my journey alive I knew that I must do so quickly; but I looked round in vain for any path to help me.
Beneath me now was the unchanging sea, blue and smooth, with a touch of white where the ground shallowed it. Three miles out, it may be, showed the long line of rocks for which I had been told to look.
Beyond, I knew, must be the grey beaches which I was seeking.
But how could I cross the intervening water? It was a difficulty which might not have occurred to a creature no more at home on land than in the water, or perhaps less so. But I was not gilled or web-footed.
Sign of life there was none. Not even a bird was winging across the unclouded blue.
Even to descend the cliff was impossible.
I might explore the path either to right or left, and with no choice between them, for it ran straight on as far as I could see in either direction, and the cliff-wall showed no change.
And then my eyes were attracted by a dark spot, a blur,—a slowly lengthening blur, which came from the black rocks, and was gradually stretching itself toward me over the water.
My perception was quickened by past experience. Here must be another invisible bridge, by which something large and formidable was crossing toward me.
In fact, as I quickly proved, the bridge stretched out straight before the place where I was seated, and I had only to remain, and whatever was coming must inevitably encounter me.
Almost too worn for fear, and recognising the futility of evasion, I resolved to do so.
I had arrived at so low a point that only active help could aid me. If that which approached were hostile or indifferent the result would be similar. So I sat and waited.
It was not very long—for the approach came swiftly—before I was able to guess that it consisted of a long column of creatures similar to her whom I had first met. They stretched for half a furlong in mid-air, advancing at a rapid trot, and as they came nearer I recalled their mode of conversing, and tried to adjust my mind, to get, if possible, into sympathy with them.
After a time I succeeded,—at least in hearing their minds, though they did not respond. I suppose that this was because they were all thinking as one, for normally I found it impossible to establish conversation in this way, except by mutual willingness.
I found that these creatures, who had no use for articulate speech, and to whom sound was an outrage, possessed at once a finer music and a higher poetry than our clumsier arts had even reached out to imagine.
For they made the music in their minds, or recited it, if it had been composed earlier, and its notes, that rose and fell, were the very thoughts that inspired it. It was now a marching chant, and a war-song of a kind, as I heard it,—
So far I followed it, and then the unison broke, for they perceived me, and doubted.
Nothing more of their thoughts could I learn till they had reached the spot where I sat, and were filing past it. I saw that they were in all respects similar to the one with whom I had been first acquainted, except that the fur of each was trimmed or patterned in a distinctive manner, until, when the first score had passed, there came a group of five who had no such marks upon them, but were in that, and in all other respects, like the one I first met. Of these, one detached herself from the group and came toward me, while the others passed onward.
I had learnt enough of their conversing to make my mind at once blank and receptive to receive her question. I say “her,” not because these creatures showed any divergencies of form to indicate a bi-sexual species, but because the slim bodies gave me an impression of femininity, which makes “it” an inadequate pronoun. She asked,—“You bring a message? We have received it already, but I should like to hear it from you.” I replied, “It is this, ‘I could do nothing. She is in the fifth killing-pen on the left. There is no watch on the higher side, and it can be climbed with little peril. The weapons are not guarded, but the pens are. Bring all you can, except those who pass the fish forward. You must leave my body till the return, for the fault was mine.’”
She replied, her mind an open curiosity concerning me as she did so, “You have remembered well. And she tells me that you saved her body, for which we are grateful.”
I answered, “I thought I left her dead in the tunnel. Has she come here before me?”
“We hope her body may still be there. It is dead now, but it should not be damaged beyond remedy.”
My mind wondered vaguely, and her own answered. “You are a strange animal, and as ignorant as you are dirty. There are two coming which will bring you food, and which you must first eat, and then continue with us, for we could not leave you in safety, and your body, apart from its deficiencies and that its clumsy coverings are damaged, appears to be useless until food has restored it.”
Her thought was without hostility; it was kind in tone, however offensive in substance. She was clearly startled on realising the mental protest with which I received it. She went on, “You have been useful, and what we can do for you we will. But if this wild inevitable folly does not destroy us, I suppose that we must give you up to the Dwellers, for you seem to me as one that comes from the other lands, whom we are unable to harbour.”
I have tried to translate the thoughts she gave me into English words, but it is not easy, and the difficulty is particularly great where people or places are mentioned. For in the language of thought it is evident that proper names can have no place. The clumsy device of names is a necessity of articulate speech, which Adam first discovered when he attempted language. Consequently, when I write of the “Dwellers” I use the best word I can apply to the idea she gave me, which was that of a dominant race, by whom the earth—or that part of it—was held as men hold civilised lands to-day, and without whose consent no other creature can remain in security. There was a subtle implication of a shadow beyond, against which they were leagued in common, but it was too formless for me to understand it....
Had dogs continued, I wondered, through five hundred millenniums?
The two creatures which trotted at the rear of the column, and which now paused at her signal, were shaggy, web-footed, with the flapped gills with which I was already familiar, obviously amphibious, with seals’ eyes, and of the bulk of a walrus. Why should I think of dogs? But the identity of a dog is not the result of a physical pattern, or how should we call a Great Dane by the same name as a Skye Terrier?
Not for the first time or the last, I wondered less at the differences of this strange world than at its similarities to the one behind me.
Round the neck of each of these creatures hung a bag containing food, intended (as I learnt later) for their own eating. Of this she directed me to take some for my own use from the nearer one, and when I hesitated, with mingled fear and repulsion, the sea-dog thrust out an unexpected length of narrow tongue, that curled down, snake-like, into the bag, and drew out an object the size of a swan’s egg, but covered with a tough flexible skin of mottled grey, and held it toward me.
At this my guide threw me a thought of sharp impatience, and enjoined me to eat it quickly.
I took it then, and broke the skin, and found it contained a semi-liquid substance, of a slate-grey colour, which I tasted doubtfully, and then ate with eagerness, for it was sweet and of a delightful taste, and had a quality which appeased both thirst and hunger.
CHAPTER XI
THE PROBLEM
I ate quickly, for the impatience of my companion’s mind was affecting me like a physical pressure, and we then set off rapidly to overtake the troop, which had now disappeared in the tunnel, my energy being stimulated to the swift exertion, either by the force of my companion’s will, or by the strange food which I had taken.
As we ran, our minds met and contended, making little progress at first, for her curiosity was keen, and was of a kind which, being without anxiety, and regarding me only as a strange animal which had lost its way, was not easily turned, while I was acutely conscious that I had here a friendly intelligence which, if I could use the time to advantage, might give me information of vital importance, to enable me to move with safety through the unfamiliar ways to which I had committed myself.
Consequently we each strove for some moments to obtain information rather than provide it, but in the end she gave way, thinking she would gain more by humouring me, and that my questions could hardly fail to disclose much of my own identity.
I then asked her how it was that the troop, the rear of which we had now gained, was able to traverse the tunnel in safety. I recognised that the pace at which they moved must give some advantage, but I should have supposed that, though the first might pass, the roused worms would strike at those that followed. She replied that the combined will-power of the troop held them down very easily, on which I mentioned my own experience, and admitted that I had made no effort to use my will-power against them. She replied that this was natural in such an animal as I, and that I had possibly allowed anger, or even fear, to enter my mind, so descending to their own level, and rendering it easier for them to attack me.
I could not deny this, but asked why she regarded me so contemptuously. She replied that, as I was a strange creature to her, she could only judge me by the degree of intelligence which I exhibited, but that a species of any eminence could hardly be content to exist in bodies so ugly, so awkward, and so badly made. She added that many of the lowest creatures of the ocean-floor possessed bodies which were complete and sufficient without extraneous coverings.
I replied that the human body was not necessarily insufficient, but that clothing might be worn from a sense of shame, or as an ornament only.
She said that she understood the sense of shame, which she should feel very strongly herself if she were burdened with such a body, but if I regarded my clothes as ornamental, it was a point on which we must differ; and, in that case, the wearing of clothes confessed me to be an inferior, even among my own kind, as a Leader naturally would not enter into such a competition.
I was puzzled by this reply, and she instanced the fact that she, and other Leaders of her kind, did not pattern their fur, which would bring them into unseemly competition with those below them—a competition which would lead to envy if they succeeded, or ridicule if they failed to outdo their rivals.
I then asked a number of questions intended to guide me as to the conditions of the world I had entered, and it will be most convenient to give the facts,—as far as I was then able to understand them,—in the form of a direct statement rather than in that of the conversation which gained them.
I learnt that the country in which I found myself was an island continent, of about the size of Australia, but in the northern hemisphere, as the stars had told me. It was controlled by the Dwellers, who had lived below its surface for a long period of time, of the duration of which I could form no idea, nor could I obtain any information as to the depth or extent of their subterranean excavations, for the sufficient reason that no Amphibian had ever penetrated them. The island continent was surrounded on every side by a great ocean, beyond which was a world containing such inhabitants that the Dwellers had first gone underground to escape them, and then, at a later period, planted around the whole extent of the coast a girdle of strange growths, above which the air had no sustaining power, and which had protected it so effectively that for an enormous period of time they had been left in undisputed isolation.
In some remote antiquity they had entered into a treaty with the Amphibians by which it was agreed that they should be left in possession of the numerous rocky islets which surrounded a large part of the coast, on three conditions;—they were to keep certain subterranean reservoirs filled with fresh fish continually; they were to hold no intercourse with the farther world; and they were to make no attempt to penetrate inland, either above or below the surface.
Until recently, these conditions had been observed with exactness. They had, beneath the ocean, an undisputed dominion of enormous area; they did not even cross to the farther sides of the fish-tanks they filled, from which the Dwellers netted the shoals of fish which they had herded into them; they made no attempt to penetrate the protective belt which surrounded the surface area; and they entirely avoided the other continents of which the land surface of the earth consisted.
For the whole period since this treaty was made—I could only marvel at their longevity—they had been ruled by a Council of Seven, whose headquarters were beneath the black rocks which I had observed to seaward.
The Council decided all matters affecting the welfare of the community by thinking upon them until they arrived at unanimity, and these decisions were always accepted without dissent.
But there was one of the seven who had not been present when the treaty was made. She had been long absent, and was supposed to have been dead, but she had subsequently returned from the exploration of the caves of a range of submarine mountains at the farther end of the earth, in which she had met with such adventures as had detained her for a long period. Not having been a party to the treaty, she had not felt herself bound in honour, as had the other six, to observe it. Nor, being of the seven, did she feel controlled by their authority, as did the rest of the community. She was of a disposition which loved the adventures of strange ways, and, from the first, had wished to explore the interior of the forbidden continent. For a very long period she had been held back by the wishes of her companions, and by the fear that she might be the cause of disaster to them, but at last a time had come when the impulse had been irresistible, and there had been none near to restrain her. She had spent the night on the forbidden land, and had returned at dawn with a strange tale of a silent country, where all things slept, and where trees and grasses grew, such as they had never seen, or remembered only with the vagueness of a distant dream.
After this escapade they watched in doubt lest the Dwellers had been aware of it, but the days passed in safety, and at length she ventured again—and again—always returning before the dawn, until the tales she brought enabled them to visualise a land inhabited by many species of creatures, such as the Dwellers permitted to run wild, or conserved for their utilities to themselves, and of a fertility which was alluringly different from the ocean meadows in which they were accustomed to wander, but in which all creatures slept in the night-time, and even the Dwellers did not appear upon the surface of the land they owned.
After a time it appeared certain that these expeditions might be taken with impunity, providing that the night were chosen, and a return made before sunrise. But the time came when the desire to see the moving life of the daytime overcame her. She remained in hiding, she saw much, and the next time she stayed away for three days. Acting with great caution, and with the advantage of her past experience, she returned in safety and unsuspected; but in the meantime a companion, alarmed at her lengthened absence, had started out to find her. On learning this, she at once set out again, though the day was then dawning, and the open paths had to be taken at a new peril; she found her would-be rescuer herself captured, and apparently in the greatest danger, and on her return to obtain the help which was essential, had encountered me, with the result of which I knew already.
Conscious that her body was damaged beyond immediate remedy, and aware that her separate mind could not communicate with her friends unless their own should be receptive, she had entrusted me with the message which I had tardily delivered. But in the meantime, she had found it easy to establish intercourse with minds which were anxiously awaiting news of herself and her companion, and it was on the information that she had supplied that the expedition was started.
It was a deliberate breach of the treaty on which their security was founded, but with two of their number in jeopardy, and the body of one lying where the Dwellers could not fail to find it sooner or later, they had felt that they had no alternative but to attempt the enterprise.
Among the various creatures which lived upon the surface of the continent, it appeared that there were certain ferocious animals of the lowest kind, gregarious in their habits, collected in mountain strongholds, and having bodies which were like those of fish in this respect, that they decayed after a short space of years, sometimes even rotting while the unfortunate animals remained within them, and being continually replaced by young of the same species which grew up around them. They did not appear to have any life apart from these bodies, though my informant could not tell with certainty whether they actually ceased to exist when their bodies perished, or were incarnated in their descendants.
These creatures had carnivorous feasts at regular intervals, in anticipation of which they hunted the wild things of the land, and set traps for them, into one of which the unfortunate Amphibian had fallen. As one of these feast days was shortly due, she was now penned up, not merely in anticipation of death, but that her body might be destroyed beyond remedy, in which case I understood that the path of reincarnation might be both long and difficult.
The problems were, therefore, first, to remove the body which lay in the tunnel entrance to a place of safety, where it could be repaired, and its owner could resume it; and second, to rescue her companion either by force or subtlety, bringing their faculty of thinking in unison, and of combined will-power, to operate against opponents who were not expecting attack, and who relied upon their savage strength and weapons to maintain their own security, and to hold the prey that they had captured; and third, to do these things, if either were possible, without the knowledge of the Dwellers, whose means of information were only vaguely guessed, but who were known to come out on the surface in the daytime.
CHAPTER XII
THE MARCH
We were now clear of the covered way, under a sky of brilliant starshine, holding a course through the darkness that never wavered or slackened, even when the gorge was crossed by the invisible bridge.
Here it occurred to me to ask how, if the country relied upon its girdle of strange growths for its immunity from the outside world, it could afford to risk invasion up so wide an unprotected channel as the gorge supplied, but I could learn nothing beyond the suggestion that its enemies would probably be too stupid to discover the gap, (if it really were unprotected), which seemed a strange supposition when applied to a power so dreaded, and the information that this gorge was remembered as the scene of a great battle before the protective girdle had been planted, in which the Dwellers had been destroyed in hundreds, but in which one of their enemies had also perished, and the remains of its body had blocked the channel for many years afterwards.
I had thought of the Dwellers hitherto as dominating by their strength and size, as well as by their evident physical knowledge and engineering skill, in both of which my present companions appeared to take little interest, but I now had a vision as of a world in which a race of ants of superior intelligence might revolt successfully against mankind, and of a warfare in which they had been trodden down, as a man might stamp on an ant’s nest. But the truth, as I learnt later, was somewhat different.
My companion now pressed for some account of myself, and I answered many questions, finding her more ready to believe that I was the product of an earlier civilisation than I should have anticipated, but that this information made it appear the more necessary that the Dwellers should be informed of my existence, and the less probable that they would regard it with complacency.
She explained that it was known to the Dwellers that the earth had been the scene of countless civilisations, through aeons of forgotten times, all of which had successively destroyed themselves by the misuse of their own discoveries, and that their whole energy was directed to overcoming this recurrent danger, which had appeared to operate with the certainty of a fundamental law. To them I might well appear as the seed of death which nature had sent forward to frustrate a purpose which might otherwise have defeated her own intention. On the other hand, she suggested kindly, my obvious ignorance and insignificance might be my protection, as I had so evidently been born upon the earth in one of its more barbarous epochs. As to their own course regarding myself, they would do what they could, but——and her mind shut suddenly, though not before I had caught a glimpse of her difficulty.
For if they were discovered in the present enterprise, even if it did not in itself cause their destruction, they might find themselves at open war with the Dwellers, in which case there would be no purpose in surrendering me, while if the expedition returned in success and secrecy, they might wish to give me up rather than risk another cause of difference,—but how then could they secure that I should withhold my knowledge of the events which were now proceeding?
It appeared to me to be a position in which they might well decide to destroy what was, to them, nothing more than a strange and inferior animal; nor did the alternative appear more attractive in its probabilities, for if they were at war with the Dwellers, would they not retreat to the ocean-floor which was their familiar resort, and where, I supposed, their enemies would be unable to pursue them, and how could I adapt myself to such an existence?
I decided that I could only act as circumstances developed, and that, in the meantime, it was both duty and policy to give such service as I could to those who had shown me kindness.
Meanwhile, the rapid march continued. There was a moon now, the first I had seen, a thin bowl of silver in the eastern sky, more brilliant than that to which I had been used—a difference which may have arisen only from the fact that I was in a more equatorial region than that which I had left behind me.
By its light the path became visible, a faint opalescence beneath us, and, later, the black entrance to the tunnel of my first adventure.
Here we halted for the recovery of the body that I had left within it. But after some space of silence, a sense of grief and oppression invaded me, which I knew was felt by all those around me, as the news spread from mind to mind. The body was not there.
Whatever had happened to it—and that it had fallen into the hands of the Dwellers was almost certain—I understood that the inquiry must be delayed till the further object of the expedition had been accomplished, or at least attempted.
The sea-dogs, which had been brought for the purpose of conveying back the body, were now ordered to return, and the forward march continued. My guide had rejoined the other Leaders of the expedition, assigning me to the care of the rearmost of the troop, beside whom I went forward, keeping up the pace with difficulty, but afraid to fall behind, and aware from the thought which combined us that there was still much ground to be covered before the darkness lifted. When I had continued for about half-an-hour, during which some miles must have been covered at the rapid trot which was maintained without alteration upon the level surface, a knowledge of my exhaustion must have entered the mind of my neighbour, for I found a small webbed hand passed into mine, and with it a thrill of nervous energy that enabled me to continue, till we shortly turned to the left, and took a rough uphill path, on which we slackened to a walk, and were soon climbing over rough boulders, and up sharp ascents where hand and knee were needed.
For a mile, perhaps two, we continued up this arduous way, at times with a glimpse, right-hand, of a gorge of black forbidding precipices, silvered in the moonlight, but most often with sight of little beyond the immediate rocks among which we clambered.
Then we became aware that a high wall of overhanging cliff confronted us, into which those who led us had disappeared already, and, guided by my companion’s hand, I entered a narrow gulley, whether natural or artificial I cannot say, but which extended for many miles through the mountains. It was not more than five feet wide from wall to wall. A narrow line of sky showed its stars, where the gulley opened on the mountain slope some hundreds of feet above us.
We emerged at last at a great height, on an open slope, on which trees grew, but not thickly. They were tall and somewhat slender, silver-grey in the moonlight, as a poplar shows its leaves when the wind lifts them. Here we continued a long time, going forward, as I thought, not directly, but keeping always where the trees were thickest. Once, far below, we had a view of the gorge from which we climbed, narrow here, but opening out to seaward many miles away, a vision of mysterious and incredible beauty which the next step ended.
I judged now, by the moon’s height, that we must have travelled rapidly for about twenty-four hours of my accustomed reckoning, and that the night was half over. When the sea-dogs left, I had been given a store of the food they carried, and to this I had resorted more than once already. My companions appeared to be equally independent of fatigue or food, but my condition was different. I had been without sleep for a long period, and I was aware that it was only the vitality that I received from my companion’s hand, and the fear of the contempt of my new associates, that dragged me onward. These might not have availed me much longer, but now we had approached a dense wood of a different kind. I was instructed to lie flat and crawl forward under boughs too thick and low for any other method of progression. At once we were in darkness, with the great boughs close above us, and beneath us a bed of soft resilient moss, which must have been nearly a foot in depth, over which we crawled and wriggled quite easily, but which yielded to our weight unless we moved forward. It was warmer here,—the night air on the higher ground had been cold since we left the gulley,—and there was a strange and pleasant fragrance from the boughs above us, so that when an order was passed to rest, I sank into the soft moss very willingly, and had I known that it would close over and suffocate me while I slept, I think that I should scarcely have had the strength of mind to reject its embraces.