CHAPTER XII.—Dramatic Discoveries.
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.
Christopher looked about for the pole, and saw it bobbing on end as it struggled against submergence in the down-thrust behind the fall. It was twenty fatal feet away. The ferocity of elemental self-preservation seized on the man and transformed him. This was not the attitude of patient, gentle Christopher, the humble, serving Christopher, but that of a bayed animal. My hands were tied by the necessity of Beelo’s care.
The spectacle that had unmanned Christopher was in a profound recess reaching indeterminately out of the cavern and behind the waterfall. It had not been visible until we rounded the fall and went scurrying behind it in the eddy. Apparently far back,—I cannot guess how far,—ran a broad, high, fantastically irregular tunnel ending in a pit of boiling lava, at an unknown depth below the level of the tunnel, which itself was slightly above the surface of the pool. Deep rumblings issued from it, as from a heavy ebullition, punctured with smothered detonations. Rising from it were thin, cloud-like masses of vapor, like the pale mauve haze of distant mountains. In its rolling it thickened concealingly here and opened revealingly there, with constantly shifting effects.
The dominant color was a deep, transparent crimson of a tint such as may be seen in the cooling iron of a foundry or in the great crater of Kilauea; but following the detonations came leaping flames of bluish purple. It was the red shining through the water that had made the cataract a fall of liquid crimson when seen from the front.
This, then, was the funnel of a volcano, with a lateral vent. Was it one of Pluto’s cooling forges? Was its present activity transient? Was this the beginning of a seismic convulsion that might blow the valley rampart into the sea?
I cannot say when those questions arose. The urgency of an immediate threat demanded all attention. Beelo was in an ecstasy of terror, and Christopher was desperately casting about with all his reassembled wits. In the tumult of noises our voices were useless. We had been flung out of the larger eddy into a smaller one swirling between the back of the fall and the tunnel-mouth. It had a swifter and more dizzying whirl. Soon it seemed that we were still, except for the ceaseless rolling of our craft, and that the roaring fall and the grumbling, blazing tunnel were swinging round us. With the rest passed the bobbing pole, a live, insane thing, nodding this way and that, approaching the downpour gingerly, diving under a sharp water-blow, and leaping up with malicious sprightliness a few feet back. At any moment it might be caught sidewise and crushed.
There was another danger. The centrifugal force of our swing in the eddy was carrying us out to the periphery of the swirl. On one side were the rocks at the mouth of the tunnel; opposite was the waterfall, the slightest blow from which (since it fell from a height of at least a hundred feet) would mean the end. Our swinging was taking us nearer to both those dangers.
Something roused within, overcoming my pity for Beelo. I shook him and slapped his cheek. Astonishment and anger blazed in his eyes, and then with a mighty indignation he crawled away and sat glaring at me. At another time the comical picture would have amused me, for the boy behaved just as a proud kitten under similar treatment. Having secured the desired result with Beelo, I worked to the edge of the raft, and prepared to make a leap for the pole. I was waiting till the raft should swing round and bring me nearer. Before that happened, two soft arms were flung round me from behind, a cheek pressed mine, and I was borne down backward. Two small, firm hands held my wrists down. For the moment I was helpless.
Of course, Christopher knew that our nearer approach to danger brought us closer to hope, which lay in the pole. He was biding the moment, and it came. He crouched on the raft, and a long arm shot out. Beelo’s nerves were quivering till Christopher rose; then they stilled, and he released me.
Christopher had learned from experience, and it was a surer hand now that gripped the pole and sent the raft spinning out of the eddy. To keep it somewhat trimmed against Christopher’s movements had been a small part of my task hitherto, so thoughtful of everything had he been; but now that he saw Beelo and me better used to the situation, he quietly gave us something of that to do, thus securing more freedom of movement.
He found the egress of the stream from the pool, and pushed out. Slowly we crept through the gloomy, misty light, which paled as we went. Christopher must have felt a dread that oppressed me—the danger of recurrent explosions—for he worked with less extreme caution than before, and our progress was better. After a time the light was too dim for me to see Beelo sitting in his sullen pout; and when darkness again fell, he crept up beside me and stole out a hand for mine. The noises had nearly ceased, and Beelo no longer feared the weird echoes.
“I’m glad it’s past,” he sighed, nestling against me. “Aren’t you, Choseph?”
“Joseph.”
He hugged my arm and softly laughed.
“Yes, I’m glad,” I answered.
It seemed many hours since we had entered the passage, and I hoped we should emerge in the morning of the day following that of our start.
New conditions began to arise. Above the cataract the stream had been slow, with few approaches to rapids. Those had been the worst danger-points. Now we discovered that the current was swifter and the rapids more numerous and turbulent. The celerity of Christopher’s movements increased. He no longer tried to spare us the water dripping from his pole as he repeatedly shifted it and groped for bearings. This made me more apprehensive. I wondered whether, even with better facilities, we could return to the valley through this passage, and how the two hundred and fifty colonists could manage to come safely through.
Presently I felt in the water a turgidity where the current was slow, and heard a hoarse, growling rumble quite different from the sounds that we had left behind. Beelo tightened his clutch and breathlessly said:
“It has come!”
“What has, lad?”
“Hush!”
Except for an unusual slapping of the water against the rocks, the commotion had passed. I wondered if the storm had broken in the valley and the torrent was coming; but this did not look like it.
“It has gone, Beelo. What was it?”
“No, it hasn’t. Hold tight. Sit hard, Christopher!”
“Beelo,” I impatiently demanded, “you must tell me what——”
The speech was stopped by a groaning crunch that tossed the stream, splashed the water high on the rocks, and filled the passage with a sound like that of crushing glass. Beelo was again in terror.
“Be quiet, lad. There’s nothing——-”
“Don’t talk!” he desperately commanded. “The third one will come. That’s the worst. Wait!”
The seconds dragged through an awful silence. Beelo’s breath struggled spasmodically through the repression under which he tried to hold it.
The third shock came, and then, though I had never felt one before, I knew what it was. The whole world seemed to heave and writhe and jolt and grind, all with a fearful noise. The earthquake, grim brother of the boiling cauldron we had left, had us in its jaws, and its power was manifest in the ease with which it crushed and ground the rocks about us. Fragments of these began to splash in the water and rattle on the raft. Just in front, a huge block plunged into the stream and dashed us with water.
Beelo flung himself upon me; I again bent over him to shield him.
Another heavy stone struck the raft in the narrow space between Christopher and us, and tore through it into the water, sending up a geyser through the hole.
A stiffening wave of terror overswept Beelo. He sprang to his knees and tightly embraced my neck in both arms.
“We are going to die!” he feebly cried, and pressed his lips to mine, sinking inert into my arms. My fingers anxiously sought his pulse. It was fluttering.
“Christopher!” I called in alarm,—not realizing that the earthquake had passed and that a dim light made visible the rocks in a turn ahead,—“Christopher! Something has happened to Beelo!”
“Yes, sir,” came with the steady old calm.
“Stop! We must do something for him.”
“We are going out, sir.”
We swung the curve, and the blessed daylight smiled ahead. The raft slid out of the passage in placid water, which here, as at the other end, was deeply embowered. The glorious day, though overcast, was brilliant to our eyes as it sifted through and rested sweetly on the water. As Beelo was unconscious, Christopher observed extraordinary care in proceeding, and as soon as possible secured the raft in the sheltered reach.
I was looking down into Beelo’s face. His head had fallen back, and although his eyes were closed, his lips were open. It came over me with a pang that a richness and a maturity which I had not before noticed in his face, rested there now.
“How long has it taken us to come through?” I asked Christopher.
“‘Mos’ four hours, sir.”
I was surprised. It had seemed much longer.
He came to lift Beelo out, but I myself bore him ashore and laid him on the ground, and knelt over him. Christopher was standing near, studying him, but showing no anxiety.
“It is only fainting, isn’t it, Christopher?” I asked.
“That’s all, sir.”
To give him air, I began to open his blouse.
“I wouldn’t, sir,” interposed Christopher.
“Why?” I asked, looking up in surprise.
He only regarded me in silence. At first I thought that Christopher’s singular penetration had discovered that Beelo was lighter of color than a full-blooded native and was delicately warning me not to invade the carefully guarded secret. I recalled the story that I had told Beelo, and my suspicions as to the purity of his native blood. And what harm could come if I did learn?
Then the truth came upon me with the overwhelming force of long cumulation. His conduct in the tunnel, his sweetness and gentleness, the strange conclusion of the scene with Annabel when they had met,—a thousand memories of things that had passed unheeded in the stress of dangers,—came as a blinding light. I do not know when Christopher learned the truth, but in his chivalry he would have seen me go blind to the grave without a word from him in betrayal of Beelo’s secret.
The shock stunned me, and my head was bowed in reverence. When I again looked into the patient face, now having for me so sweet and touching a pathos, the deep-blue eyes were looking up into mine; then they turned to Christopher, and all about. The old mischievous, bantering smile parted the perfect lips. The eyes again sought mine.
“Choseph! It’s fine to be dead!” But the voice held a different music from that of the lad whom I had loved and who was now gone forever.