Shame and Horror Follow Disobedience. A Violent Outbreak and Its Result. The Heads That Struck a Wall. A Frightened Face Among the Trees.
THE president said nothing, but gave a signal to Christopher, who brought up a basket containing rope-ends and strips of cloth, of native manufacture. I understood what I was next to do, and under ordinary circumstances should have thought of nothing but the doing; but now a coldness seized my heart, for I thought of Beelo, as a horrified witness.
There was a craning to see what the basket held, and then came a quick drawing of the breath and afterward a hiss as the truth dawned on those of quick perception.
Picking up a rope-end, I stood facing the crowd in silence until perfect stillness had come. Then I went to Lenardo, the first in line, and said to the guard:
“Are any of you experienced in tying a man’s hands?”
A head-shake was the response of each.
“Then observe how this is done,” I said. And to Lenardo, “Turn your back and cross your wrists behind you.”
All the blood fled his face. He glanced about with a shamed, beseeching helplessness, his eyes wide with horror and his look an appeal for protection from the outrage.
“Turn, and cross your wrists,” came my command as evenly as before.
The prisoner obeyed, his hands trembling.
“Cross your wrists.” My tone was such as a farrier might use to a horse he was shoeing.
Lenardo crossed them.
“Observe,” I repeated to the guards, as I quickly wound the cord and knotted it.
Hobart watched the proceeding narrowly, his face growing more livid, his eyes bulging farther, his breathing uneven. Once he sent a flaming glance at Mr. Vancouver, who winced under it, and sat with a sickly, shrunken look. I knew that the supreme test of discipline lay ahead, and I was warming to the situation.
“Tie the next one,” I said to two of the guards, handing them a strip. At the same time, no longer able to resist a glance at Beelo, I found in his stricken face so strange a look that it disconcerted me for a moment. It looked to be both horror and appeal. But my duty was plain.
I stood by and observed the clumsy work of the two guards in tying the second man, who, meeker than Lenardo,—although both were manly fellows,—submitted more promptly.
Hobart’s turn came next. He was looking about as a trapped beast, and he swayed and muttered. It was clear that under the approaching degradation he was letting his wits tangle.
Some women, sickened by the scene, and fearing a tragedy from Hobart, slipped away, a few softly crying, others very white. They hid in a huddle behind the storehouse, the mothers taking their children.
“One more turn. Tighter. Work faster,” I ordered the guards tying the second man.
They obeyed with nervous eagerness.
Then came Hobart’s turn. I stood before him. He knew what to do without my order, and I was silent.
“Haven’t we any friends among you people?” he bellowed, stepping back and hardening every muscle. “Are you all cowards, to let these brutes ride roughshod over you?”
“Submit, Hobart,” cut Mr. Vancouver’s voice.
I turned upon him, but said nothing, and his cadaverous face whitened still more under my stare.
“We need no assistance from you, sir,” Captain Mason coldly said.
He started; a momentary flash enlivened his sunken eyes.
“Step up here in line,” I said to Hobart.
He wavered toward submission under Mr. Vancouver’s order, but my prompt suppression of that intervention thrust upon him an angry despair. “To hell with you!” he shouted to me. “You bully! You cur! Here, fellows,” addressing his comrades in line, “don’t be whipped dogs! We are free American citizens, we are! Break away!” He stepped still farther back and edged toward the table. “Stand by me! Be men! We’ll settle this thing! Come on!” The line swayed.
“Guard, re-form the prisoners in line,” I ordered. They stepped forward.
“Fight, boys! Arm yourselves at the tables!” Hobart’s fierce words thrilled the camp.
“Lively there!” I snapped to the guards. “Seize Hobart first.”
“The tables, boys!” shouted Hobart. “Romer,” he added to a husky young man of the party, “tackle Captain Mason. I’ll attend to Tudor!”
Hobart sprang at Romer, gave him a shake, and shouted, “Get to work!” and then advanced toward me as Romer was hardening for assault.
As Hobart had rudely calculated, the moment was snatched by the other prisoners for a rush on the guard and the tables, and they broke on the bound as Hobart hurled himself upon me. But he was too precipitate, and lacked training.
It is doubtful that any in the camp except myself saw how the next thing happened. There was a muffled crack, and Hobart’s feet cleared the ground, his limbs whipped the air as though he were drowning, and he sprawled on the earth in a disorganized, quivering heap. A glance showed me that Romer had been stopped two yards from Captain Mason by a look such as he had never encountered before, and he stood staring like an imbecile.
A low cry broke from fifty feminine throats when Hobart’s body made its impact with the ground. But the entire rush had been paralyzed; it was clearly the impression that Hobart had been killed, and all were staring from him to me. The guard had responded; the prisoners were in subjugation, some by a collar-grip of the guard, others panting on the ground under urgent knees, still others standing inert.
“Hands off the prisoners. Re-form the line,” I ordered.
When this had been done, the young men sullen, sheepish, and silent, and viewing with awe the still body of Hobart on the ground, I looked round upon the circle till I found the man I wanted. My glance had included Captain Mason and found him stolid and motionless as he observed my procedure.
“Dr. Preston, come forward,” I said.
He instantly responded.
“Please examine Hobart’s jaw and neck,” I directed. “One or the other may be broken.”
As he was turning away to obey he discovered a red trickle from my right hand.
“Are you hurt?” he inquired.
“No.”
He carefully examined the heap on the ground.
“Only a contusion and a slight brain-concussion,” he announced.
“You two,” I promptly said to two of the guards, “buck and gag Hobart. Do you know how?”
They shook their heads, but under my direction accomplished what appeared to be a disagreeable task. The process consisted in tying Hobart’s hands and feet, flexing his knees, slipping his arms over them, and thrusting a stick under his knees and over his arms, thus reducing him to a helpless knot. Then they thrust a towel between his teeth and tied it at the back of his head.
“Shall I do anything to revive him, sir?” asked the doctor. It was interesting to hear the “sir” slip from his tongue.
I looked to Captain Mason for directions, but his face remained void.
“No,” I said. Then to two of the guards, “Take him to the shade over there, on the ground,” indicating a tree near by and in full view of the camp.
Meanwhile, the tying of the other prisoners had gone on rapidly and smoothly. When it was finished, I ordered the men taken to the shade and lined up behind Hobart, who lay on his side, the guards standing by. The prisoners were a very sober-looking crowd.
Then came a lull. I had regarded the subjugation of the men as merely the lighter preparatory work for some grave procedure which Captain Mason would direct after that was accomplished. At first I was doubtful of my wisdom in withholding restorative measures from Hobart, but I had done so hoping that it would have the effect both of softening Captain Mason and of impressing the other prisoners and the camp at large. Now I had to face unknown plans, but Captain Mason still remained mute. It was evident that, since quiet had come, it was from him rather than me that the camp awaited the next move; it was his crushing mastery that all felt; it was his iron hand that lay on every heart. He quietly seated himself, and without a glance at me waited, his face wearing the undisturbed calm that distinguished it always in dramatic situations.
The women in hiding peered out cautiously, and then joined those on the scene. A slight stir, accompanied with murmurs, rose in a spot where the women stood thickest, and a shrill voice came angrily.
“Yes, I will! You can’t stop me! I say it’s an outrage, and I’m going to untie that boy and take that strangling thing out of his mouth.” She was advancing, a middle-aged woman, with a determined air, and she walked straight toward Hobart, ignoring me as I stood near him. “I just want to say to you, Mr. Tudor, that it was enough to knock the senses out of him, and that it’s inhuman and brutal to keep him tied up like an animal. If the men in this camp can be bullied and scared, I’ll let you know that there’s a woman who can’t. I’m going to untie that lad, and———”
I had stepped forward and laid a kindly hand on her arm as she spoke, but she threw it off.
“Let me alone!” she cried. “If you want to strike a woman dead, you murdering bully, do it! I dare you!”
Nodding to two of the guards, I said: “Take her to her hut, and keep her there. If she makes the least noise, bind and gag her.”
“You brute! You coward!” she cried, making a dash forward.
The guards gingerly seized her, and she talked and struggled wildly. But they dragged her away, and no sound came from the hut. Captain Mason gave not the slightest attention to the incident, which greatly deepened the depression on the camp.
Hobart’s slow, heavy breathing became regular, then fluttered; his eyes opened, and rolled unseeing. Intelligence began to dawn in his face, and with it came an unconscious straining at his bonds. That hastened his recovery. A wild, clear look that roved a moment and settled malignantly on me, showed that he had come to himself. His astonished glance at his helpless state preceded an effort for speech that his gag turned to a growl, and he made a mighty tug to snap the cords. That failing, he twisted his head to see the line of prisoners standing bound. Then his gaze found Captain Mason, who was not observing him, and he savagely growled and champed his gag.
I looked furtively round for Beelo, and found him staring at me as at something strange and monstrous. It was more than I could bear, and on looking away I discovered the gathering of clouds, and then heard low thunder in the distance.
Hobart’s fury wore itself out. Humiliation took its turn. Toward the end came a humbled spirit and dumb pleading. A quickening ran through the crowd, and eager, appealing eyes were upon me from every direction; but I waited. From humility Hobart sank lower, for the pain of his cramped muscles grew worse and worse, making him writhe and groan and strain. Still the moment had not come. I knew that many a life hung on the precision of my conduct, and Captain Mason did not interfere to the slightest extent. At last, when Hobart’s dumb pleading had settled on my face and did not rove, I said to Dr. Preston:
“The gag—nothing else—may come away.”
He removed it, and Hobart panted:
“Thank you, Doctor. Take the others off, please.”
The physician looked to me, but I gave no sign. That started a movement in the crowd, and I had to quell that with a look.
“Let him take ‘em off, Mr. Tudor,” the prisoner begged.
I nodded, and he was free. He labored weakly to a sitting posture, Dr. Preston assisting. His head rolled, but he breathed deeply, and steadied himself. Dr. Preston felt his pulse.
“May he have water and a wet towel, sir?” he asked me.
I nodded. Hobart drank greedily. Dr. Preston mopped his head and face, and bound the wet towel over his forehead.
“Bring a seat for Hobart,” I said to a guard.
Hobart was lifted to it, and thus sat facing the crowd. He had a finer look than I had ever seen from him; he had passed through purgatory. He looked openly at the people, and at last his glance rested on Mr. Vancouver. It seemed to hold a deep meaning. Mr. Vancouver shrank even more than when he had seen the iron hand come down.
I went up to Captain Mason and reported that Hobart was conscious.
The captain nodded, came forward, I beside him, and looked down on the beaten man, who anxiously returned the look.
“May I say a word, Captain?” Hobart asked.
“Certainly.”
Hobart turned to me. “You are a hard man,” he said, “but square and brave. So are you, Captain Mason. I deserved what I got, and a good deal more. But I’m sorry for what I did, and I ask you to forgive me.”
There was frank admiration in Captain Mason’s face, for he was observing another strong man emerge from the first hard lesson in a discipline that the sailor had known for many a year.
“May I say something to the boys?” asked Hobart.
“Of course.”
Hobart worked round to face his fellow-conspirators. In silence he looked at one after another.
“Boys,” he said, “we made a mistake, and are beginning to pay. I don’t know what’s going to be done with us, but, whatever it is, we must bear it like men. We made an agreement when we came into this valley, and we violated it. What we did might have cost the life of every member of this colony.”
He paused, for he was weak, and a deep emotion tore him.
“Boys, if I had been Captain Mason and Mr. Tudor, and had protected and trusted the people as they have done, and they had tried to undermine me, and to benefit themselves to the harm of the others, I would have them taken to the nearest tree, and, God help me! I would have them hanged.”
Not a word of that astonishing speech missed an ear in the crowd. When Hobart had ended, his head dropped in dejection.
After a long minute of silence Captain Mason gave me a look. I went to Hobart, who raised a sad face to mine. But when he saw my smile and my extended hand, a glad surprise leaped in him, and his clasp was that of a drowning man.
I walked away. Dr. Preston next received Captain Mason’s glance, and the scene was repeated. I did not observe the hint that the president must have given; but while some of the guard came and took Hobart’s hand, others were untying the prisoners, and they also came in their turn.
There were tears in Hobart’s eyes, and his speech had fled by the time Captain Mason came up and took his hand.
“You are a man, Hobart,” said he, and without noting the effect turned to the other conspirators. “Young men,” he went on, “you are at liberty. The incident is closed.”
Without a glance at the assembled colony, he turned away and went to his hut.
I looked for Beelo, and saw his signal to follow him. A buzzing rose from the crowd. A hard, fixed look was in Mr. Vancouver’s ashen face. Annabel’s head rested in her arms on the table, and she was sobbing. From every direction I found furtive glances upon me, and wondered whether I had become a Pariah. The idea was dispelled by the friendly responses that my advances found, but I was uneasy on the score of Beelo.
Len-tala in Difficulties. The True Story of the Enterprising Young Men. Mr. Vancouver Faces the Unknown. Beelo Takes Us on a Journey.
BEELO was much excited and torn with impatience when I arrived. Despite that, he regarded me with an odd mixture of awe and fear.
“Choseph!” he exclaimed, “you are terrible and cruel! I couldn’t have believed———” His breath gave out.
“What’s the news, lad?”
The gentle solicitude in my voice steadied him, and he looked with his sunny smile.
“You are dear old Choseph, aren’t you?” he said. “Oh, everything has happened!” he flung out. “The king is terribly angry with Lentala for interfering with the arrest of the young men yesterday. I had to stay with her, and couldn’t come. I don’t know what trouble will come out of it, but the king is going to bring matters to a head at once, before we are nearly ready! Choseph! those young men ought not to have been let out of the valley. Gato is now on his way to the colony for a man, and you must go there immediately to attend to it. You must decide which man is to go.”
His news, breathlessly given, stunned me. It was essential that we both be calm.
“Tell me what happened to the young men,” asked.
“They climbed the wall, and expected to slip through. Why, Senatra men rained on them! Len-tala got there as soon as she could with her private guard, but it was too late to save them from a terrible whipping. The guard had them bound and were taking them to the palace when Lentala arrived. She’s afraid now that the king will do what he has threatened,—either lock her up or give orders that will tie her hands so that she can’t do anything.”
I hesitated. “If she is powerless, Beelo, there will be no one to protect the man who will go out with Gato.”
His distress was poignant, and he dropped to the ground in a weary little heap.
“Lentala is equal to any task, lad,” I quietly said.
He looked up brightly. “Do you believe that much in her, Choseph?”
“She’s our one hope, lad, and she’ll never falter; and she has your wise little head and your bold heart to help her.”
He came strongly to his feet. “She can do anything if you think that of her, Choseph,” he gently said. Another moment found him his eager, active self. “A great deal will depend on the man you are to send out,” he said.
“Why? What awaits him?”
The answer was an appealing look. His remarks about the earthquakes and the storms had puzzled me, and while I knew that the subject was repugnant to him, I was forced to revive it. I repeated a remark by Captain Mason that a storm was brewing. Beelo straightened.
“Captain Mason ought to know!” he cried. “The king’s wise men have told him the same thing. Choseph, Choseph! It would be horrible!”
“Why, lad? I can’t work in the dark.”
His look was appealing.
“I must know,” I said. “You are acting like a child, and this is work for men. Tell me what the storm and the earthquake have to do with us, or I’ll refuse to surrender a man to Gato, and we’ll fight.”
“Choseph!” he exclaimed, frightened; then, after a pause: “The people think the Black Face must have all the castaways, or it will shake the ground with earthquakes and maybe send a volcano to destroy everything. But if the earthquake is heavy, it terrifies the people. In that way you might escape if Lentala’s plan fails. It was a great earthquake I was hoping for.”
“The Black Face must have all the castaways?” I repeated. “How?”
“I don’t know!” he desperately cried. “Lentala doesn’t know. It has been concealed from us. But it’s something horrible! A storm is coming, but it may bring no castaways, and the king won’t wait any longer. He can’t control the people.”
“What kind of man should we send out, Beelo?”
“One who’s brave and fears nothing,” he promptly answered, studying me oddly.
“Then Rawley wouldn’t do.”
“No. Mr. Vancouver.”
I had felt it coming. Of course he deserved any risk, any fate, but——
“You are thinking of Annabel,” said Beelo.
“Yes. She is innocent. Unless Lentala can keep him away from the king and save him from harm, I won’t——”
“There, there, Choseph!” sweetly said the boy. “She’ll manage. You’ll send Mr. Vancouver?”
“Yes.”
“Good! That will make the king think you aren’t suspicious. As soon as he has gone with Gato, you and Christopher come here, and then we three will go out of the valley.”
Captain Mason’s heavy hand still lay as a hush on the camp when Gato, the giant leader of the soldiers, arrived an hour later with a band of his men. Christopher and I met him, and he informed us that he had come for the man who was to be taken out. I despatched Christopher for Captain Mason, whom I had informed of the decision to send Mr. Vancouver out. The storm had been gathering with a slowness that indicated destructive preparation. Mr. Vancouver was in his hut with Rawley and Annabel. Rawley’s haggard face peered out at intervals and sent a straining look at me such as I had seen in the faces of the condemned peering through the cell-grate for any messenger that might bear a reprieve. They were not aware of our decision that Mr. Vancouver should go.
The president, cool and serious, came with Christopher.
“Summon Mr. Vancouver,” he said.
The three came out. Mr. Vancouver, though pale, had a firm look, and it went straight to Captain Mason. Rawley was ghastly. Annabel held my attention most. Undoubtedly Mr. Vancouver had been trying to prepare her for the contingency of his leaving, and had made poor work of it.
Her glance first sought Captain Mason, and found a blank face with no eyes for her. Next she looked at me, and caught something that I was too slow in hiding. Thenceforward during the scene I knew that the ache within me for her sake was large print to her eyes. Her bearing was an accusation, a challenge for frankness, an appeal for protection.
The president said:
“Mr. Vancouver, the king has sent for one of our men. It would be my duty to go if I could be spared. Will you go?”
“Certainly,” came the prompt answer.
Annabel shrank, and then bravely stepped forth. Her voice lost its quaver as she proceeded.
“Why send my father?” she demanded. “Are there no young men here with the courage to volunteer?”
She eagerly scanned the crowd, not heeding her father’s restraining hand on her arm. Being a woman, she could never understand why not a single man made a sign, so heavy was the weight of Captain Mason’s hand.
“It is a shame!” she passionately exclaimed. “I had thought there were more manliness and gratitude in the world.” She turned upon me. “Mr. Tudor, I know you will go.”
I could not bear it. “May I tell her in confidence what I am to do?” I asked Captain Mason under my breath.
“Not now,” he answered. “Miss Vancouver,” he said aloud, “Mr. Tudor cannot go. I beg to remind you that you are interfering with the business in hand.”
Recollection of the morning’s scene, when a woman had been sent away under guard, must have been what whitened her face with fear and then flushed it with anger. The lion in her father crouched at Captain Mason, but instantly remembered.
“Daughter,” he peremptorily said, “spare us further humiliation. I am going.”
“Then, I will go with you!” she exclaimed.
The entire colony was assembled, and all were expecting another measure of authority; but Captain Mason stood in patient silence.
“Impossible, child!” said Mr. Vancouver.
“Yes, I will go!” she cried. “I have a right to go, and I will!”
Mr. Vancouver sent Captain Mason an inquiring look, and found that the blue eyes had hardened. He knew the meaning of that; he must at once eliminate his daughter.
“Child,” he coaxed, enclosing her in his arms, “it is impossible,—dangers would arise that wouldn’t come if you were absent.”
“I can’t bear it,—I can’t bear it!” she half sobbed. She struggled to free herself. Rawley came forward. “Don’t touch me!” she cried. “Isn’t there a man——”
A glance from Captain Mason sent Christopher to her side.
“It’s me, ma’am.”
Her father released her, and she turned in astonishment to Christopher. Annabel had a sense of the ludicrous, but one of tenderness also. She saw the angel behind the clown. Smiles went with her tears as she gave him her hand.
“You mustn’t go,” leaked his thin voice.
“Why?”
“They need you.” His gesture swept the camp.
She was silent while she dried her eyes.
“Yes,” she said, “but——”
“Them there savagers ud eat you.”
“But my father———”
“He ain’t nice to eat.”
Christopher had laid a daring finger on the mystery, but his words found all unheeding except Mr. Vancouver, who looked startled. The suggestion was evidently new to him.
“Very well, Christopher,” Annabel said, smiling sadly, “I’ll stay. Captain Mason,” falteringly, “I ask your pardon.” She turned to her father and embraced him. “Father, go. I’ll pray for you.” She held him off and looked long into his face. “You’ll come back, won’t you?”
“Of course. I shall see the king, and I know I can arrange everything happily for the colony.”
Captain Mason beckoned Gato. Mr. Vancouver turned his face to the darkness and marched away with the guard.
When he had gone, Annabel still gazed. Rawley watched her for a look that might permit his consoling offices, but she did not see him. Only Christopher knew what to do.
“It’s a-wanting of you, ma’am,” he said.
She started. “What, Christopher?”
“It’s mother, too.”
“Yes, yes,—I’d forgotten.” Without a glance at any of us, she went to the ailing child.
The colony began to stir. After a hurried conference with Captain Mason, Christopher and I left to keep the appointment with Beelo. We were ready for him when he came all out of breath. It made me uneasy to note that he studiedly avoided my eyes and made no reference to the scene in camp.
“There’s not a moment to lose,” he said. “Come; follow me—cautiously.” His manner betrayed a nervous haste.
“Beelo!” I said, seeing that he was too much excited.
He stood panting while he got himself in hand, but still kept his face turned from me.
“Now I’m all right,” he said.
He threaded the jungle as though every shrub and tree and turning-place were familiar, and held a course on that side of the valley which brought us under the Face.
His agility taxed me. Not so Christopher: his deftness equaled Beelo’s. We were a silent trio.
The transverse ridge was crossed, and we entered strange territory. Beelo’s eyes and ears were incessantly on watch. Now and then he would come to an abrupt halt and hold his breath, but nothing appeared. We kept to the deepest shadows, which were further blackened by the steadily thickening darkness of the sky. I feared a downpour.
Without mishap we finally reached the lower end of the valley. I had been trying to see the opening through which the stream must run, but even when we halted near the cliff, not a break appeared.
Beelo dropped to the ground. “We’ll rest,” said he.
I found the adventure exciting, but was unprepared for its effect on Christopher. His usually dull eyes had intelligent vision; his slouchiness was gone.
After a few moments’ rest Beelo rose, and led us to the stream. It was deep and slow here, and crept through a dense overhanging growth. We pushed through the tangle, and soon came to a little clearing near the bank, but screened from it. The bamboo raft which he and Christopher had made lay there.
We launched it. Christopher produced a pole from another hiding-place, boarded the raft, and knelt on the forward end. Beelo and I followed.
“Christopher,” the lad inquired, “can you see in the dark?”
“Yes,” and Christopher shoved off.
The vegetation grew denser as we slipped along, and its shadows combined with the darkness of the day to plunge us into night. Presently I realized that we must have traversed more than the distance between the launching-place and the wall.
“Where are we, Beelo?” I asked, but the sound of my voice informed me before the boy’s answer:
“Under the mountain. We are going through.”
To describe my sensations would be impertinent. Beelo’s reticence was more than silence. The only sound was the swish of Christopher’s pole as it dipped and scraped while we drifted. Beelo, sitting a little to the rear and at one side of me, crept nearer.
“Talk,” he begged, edging still closer, till our arms touched.
“Very well, lad. Shall I tell you a story?”
We must have been on the floor of a lofty cavern, for my words came back.
“Hush!” he whispered.
His hand was groping for mine. Perfect blackness encompassed us. I took his hand. A slight tremor thrilled it, and I put an arm about his shoulders, drew him close, and pressed his head down in the hollow of my neck. There was none of his refractory wildness now. Poor lad! For all the pluck that he had shown in the past, the silence and the darkness of this grew-some passage had unmanned him. It was good to hear the comfort in his sigh, the fading of the tremor, and the firm grasp of his hand.
Evidently Beelo had never made this trip before, but I wondered that at least its upper end had been left unguarded and why it was not a highway for the natives. In a whisper I asked him.
“It is guarded,” he answered; “but when a storm or an earthquake comes, the men are afraid that what is in here will come out; and, besides, they think a storm is a better guard than they. But they weren’t far away. I knew how to avoid them.”
“Yes, but——”
“Down!” came sharply from Christopher simultaneously with a dull blow.
I flattened Beelo and myself.
“Up,” said Christopher.
Had his face or head encountered a low-hanging rock? Yet he had thought of us.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“No, sir.”
“Did your head strike?”
“Arm, sir.”
Perhaps an inscrutable power had given him the sense to raise his arm and guard his head at the moment of peril. I finished my question to Beelo:
“What is in here the natives fear?”
“The voices that send your words back.”
“Surely they are familiar with the echo in the mountains.”
“Not this kind, Choseph.” He had never called me that so easily. I hugged him closer, and he nestled like a kitten.
It was indeed a startling echo. At times even our whispers seemed to multiply and flock on wings, and come rustling back.
“There’s something still worse,” added Beelo.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. They would never tell me.”
...I wondered whether he had felt the sudden leap of my heart. He must, for he snuggled closer, withdrew his hand from mine, caressed my cheek, and whispered:
“We’ll be brave.”
“Yes, lad, but if we knew only a little we should be the better prepared.”
He was silent.
“You know nothing about it?” I insisted.
“Nothing at all.”
“But natives have gone through safely, else they wouldn’t know.”
“Some did, a long time ago. That was the last.”
“Some did? Not all that started?”
“Not all. The others went mad. Don’t talk about it, dear Choseph.”
Assuredly Beelo had been driven to a desperate extremity to choose this way of escape from the valley. It showed how closely the ordinary outlets were guarded.
Plunged Into Mysterious Terrors. Christopher’s Obscure Powers at Work. A Struggle for Our Lives. Stout Hearts Fail. A Dear One Lost.
THE passage was crooked. The darkness was unqualified, and so dense that it seemed resistant and hard to breathe. It was the sort of blackness that penetrates to the heart and quenches the light there. Matches had long ago disappeared from the colony, and I had no means of making a light. Nor had Beelo provided against the blackness. All time-reckoning had been lost, but our rate was slow, and I knew that the passage must be long.
Thus far the odors had been of the sun-sweetened water crossed with those of the underground dank, and were pleasant. But presently a faint pungency invaded the cold air. I knew by the change in Beelo’s breathing that his quick sense had discovered it. It suggested things over which my memory halted. Christopher gave no sign. With unflagging watchfulness, aided by a perception far keener than mine, he kept the raft free in the stream, except for occasional bumps.
“Do you smell it, Christopher?” I asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Sir?”
“What is it?”
There was an interval before his answer, “Fire, sir.” Beelo cowered in my embrace. Since Christopher had mentioned it, I knew it was fire; I cannot say how I knew, because the odor was unlike that from any combustion I had ever known.
“Do you know what is burning?” I asked.
“Me, sir?”
“Yes.”
This silence was longer than the other; Christopher must have listened far.
“The world, sir.”
Beelo shook with a silent chuckle, and squeezed my hand; but I knew that Christopher’s words had a meaning.
“The world?” I quietly repeated.
“Yes, sir. I hear it.”
Beelo and I straightened up and set our ears on a strain.
“I hear nothing,” I said.
“I hear it, very faint,” Beelo breathlessly returned.
It made no difference with the steadiness of Christopher’s work. The odor gradually grew more pronounced, and then I recalled an iron smelter that I had seen in boyhood. Presently I too heard a distant roar as of a furnace that ground while it burned. Beelo crept close under my arm again. I could feel his quick heart-beats and shortened breathing against my side.
Creeping through these increasing sensations came the deep note of falling water. Why ask Beelo whether he had ever heard that our stream took a subterranean plunge? Christopher kept coolly at his task. The sharp striking and scraping of his tireless pole had long ago informed me that rock made our channel and shores, which were uneven and dangerous. Now and then the raft would make a sudden swing to avoid underwater rocks that Christopher’s soundings had discovered. At other times it would come to a lurching halt until the man carrying our lives in his hand had made sure of the way.
“What do you think of that water falling, Christopher?” I asked.
He waited a long time, and his slow answer chilled me:
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You’ll go slow when we come nearer?”
“Yes, sir.”
Beelo gave me a hand-pressure intended to silence my foolish tongue.
With a growing intensity in the odor, in the furnace roar, and in the rumbling of the waterfall, came stealing something new and surpassingly uncanny. It was a very dim glow, with no visible source, and without the power to make anything seen but itself. Apparently it was but the darkness in a more oppressive phase. In vain did I strain my eyes to see Christopher, Beelo, the raft, the water,—anything that light could make visible; but the glow was as impenetrable as the darkness.
Beelo was going to pieces under the weight of this encompassing awe. I knew that his weakness was born of his yielding to an extraneous reliance—Christopher and me. He put his lips to my ear and whispered:
“I’m afraid.”
“Steady, lad. You are our guide; you are responsible for us.”
“Yes, I know.” He made a pathetic effort to regain himself. “This light—don’t you feel it, Choseph?”
“I do, dear lad, but my name isn’t Choseph.”
“Yoseph!” he triumphantly said.
“Joseph,” I insisted.
“Mr. Tudor!” In a whirlwind he threw both arms round my neck, and softly laughed. The old Beelo was on guard again, except that with his recovered courage he was uncommonly gentle and affectionate. I wondered if I should ever reach the end of the boy’s phases.
From some indeterminate direction came the muffled sound of an explosion.
“Hold tight!” cried Christopher, violently lurching the raft round and jamming it sharply against high jutting rocks on the bank. “Down!” he added.
A mighty rush as of many winds came tearing up the passage far ahead. I threw Beelo face down, and flattened my body. Then came the blow, and hurled Christopher backward upon us. In a moment he had recovered himself. The impact must have strained Beelo’s ribs, but he lay still.
It was a combination of atmospheric concussion and hot gases, principally steam, that had struck us. I raised my head, gasping for breath. Beelo was inert. I lifted him. One arm feebly groped for my neck, and clung there.
“We are safe!” I cheerily said. “Where is my brave little brother?”
He only held me the closer. Indeed, speech was difficult, since the air was packed with smothering vapors. The desire to breathe was checked by an instinctive fear to inhale.
Christopher cautiously pushed out, and again we drifted free, The pole dipped and clicked and scraped.
But a change had come. The furnace roar had ceased; the waterfall grew louder. Most striking of all was the unearthly luminosity of the steam filling the tunnel. That vapor, rapidly chilling in the cold of the passage, increased in opaqueness, but glowed the more. Before long the light became radiant and faintly illuminating, and the air sweetened. I had known by Beelo’s breath on my cheek that his face was upturned to mine, and near. Thus it was that after long peering I found the light in his eyes. My arms were enclosing him.
“I see my lad!” I said in gladness.
A queer little movement of withdrawal began. I tried to hold him, but found no yielding. Gradually he slipped out of my clasp, and sat alone.
Christopher slowly took body in the haze, a ghostly Charon on the Styx. The color of the glow grew from white to rose, with an occasional effulgence of bluish purple. The surface of the earth knew no such tints in fire; these were royally plutonic. The black rocks overhead and on either hand assumed a vague, grim definition, and to my keyed fancy displayed grotesque suggestions. Blank spaces a shade darker than the grimacing, minatory rocks fell away; these I supposed to be cavernous reaches out of the passage, for from them came echoed multiples of the pole-sounds.
The temperature began to rise as the waterfall grew louder, the light more revealing, the haze weaker. We swung round a wide curve, and all at once a terrifying vision sprang forth in a blood-red light. Our stream opened into a small lake, which was violently churned by a cataract of crimson water brilliantly illuminated and plunging out of the overhead darkness into it. The roar was deafening.
Beelo, scrambling in terror to his feet, his eyes blazing with the red madness that packed the cavern, required a strong hand to subdue him. He struggled in my grasp, pointed frantically backward with implorings that we return, and fought my restraint with sheer animal desperation. Christopher’s conduct, though showing extraordinary exhilaration, betrayed no fear, but only a grimmer hold on our situation. With a rearward glance and the discovery that I was holding Beelo securely, he stood up, a gigantic red figure, and with all his might shot the raft forward into the maelstrom. The frail thing plunged in the surge, but Christopher’s eye and arm were sure. The suck of the water, curving downward where the cataract struck the pool, was cunningly avoided as he circled the rim of the lakelet, having as able work to do in avoiding the dripping rocks there as in keeping out of the breakers.
I thanked God there was light, formidable though it was; it helped me in my control of Beelo, whose struggles were becoming weaker, and enabled me to find a good grip on the raft, for there was danger of slipping off. Through all the wild lurching Christopher kept a sailor’s feet; and, although his back was toward me, I saw by his quick movements that all his shrewd forces were in the fight.
Whence came the light? It appeared to be in the cataract itself, a living flame in the heart of its greatest enemy. The water was joyously, terribly alive.
The raft described an arc of the pool, slipped out of the boiling churn, and, before Christopher was aware, caught an eddy and went swinging and lurching in behind the cataract. The man so strong in both soul and body threw up his hands in the surrender of terror, for a thing more awful than the red light and the waterfall confronted us. He dropped the pole. Its middle struck the edge of the raft, and our one weapon of defense rebounded into the water. Beelo saw the catastrophe. He clutched me frantically about the neck, nearly strangling me before I broke his hold.