Great walls of white basalt, veined with broad bands of glistening emerald, towered on either side, reaching up to a crystalline roof that spread forth, far as eye could reach, at an altitude scorning the limitations of human architecture. The irregularities of the outer cave, with its rough bowlders and piles of fallen débris, its dark masses of shapeless sandstone, was exchanged here for forms of marvelous symmetry, fashioned, one could but imagine, for the enjoyment of a race of beings to whom the majesty of beauty must be an ever-living reality. Seen by the explorers, in the wavering half light that filled the cave, the bold outlines of cliff and battlement were softened and blended in a vague witchery of design suggesting meanings and distances varying with the fancy of the beholder. It was a vale of enchantments, an Aladdin’s cave, from which anything might be expected with the mere rubbing of a ring—or a lamp.
As the path broadened the walls became less precipitous; on their sides objects could be distinguished that, anywhere else, would have been taken for man’s handiwork. Tiny dwellings appeared to be carved out of solid rock that jutted forth from dizzying heights, while feathery forms of dwarf trees and plants, whose leaves were of a spectral transparency, whose branches were twisted in thread-like traceries of lines and figures, found sustenance where not a foothold of earth was discernible. That such evidences of botanical life should appear in a cavern remote from the sun’s heat and light was surprising enough to all the explorers; to Leighton it savored of the miraculous. Ever since the adventure with the Black Magnet the savant, indeed, had drifted into such a state of bewilderment that he was more helpless in grasping and overcoming the difficulties confronting them than those of the party who had little of his learning or experience. Ordinarily he was accustomed to treat with contempt phenomena that to others appeared inexplicable. But here he was as a mariner adrift in midocean, in a rudderless ship, without sails or compass. Everything seemed at odds with the settled beliefs and theories of science as he knew them. Nothing was as it should be. He was thus less capable as a leader than the volatile Miranda who, although fairly well trained in the modern way of looking at things, did not trouble himself to explain the marvels that met them at every turn in their wanderings.
“They live in the walls, these people!” exclaimed the doctor, “and they have trees and plants without the sun and rain.”
That was all that need be said. The fact was a fact, delightful beyond most facts just because it was so outlandish, so opposed to all experience, and it gained nothing in interest or anything else by trying to explain it—although Miranda did, on occasion, take a hand at explaining these puzzling matters.
Entertaining as these discoveries and discussions might be, however, the feeling that they had stumbled into a region inhabited by a race of men who lived in a manner unknown to them—and who, moreover, had already given evidence of unfriendliness towards strangers—was not reassuring to Miranda or any of the rest of them. The end of their adventure grew every moment more puzzling. Since their escape from Anitoo they had not actually met any one. Perhaps this part of the cave was not inhabited after all. Perhaps Anitoo’s talk of a queen was not to be taken too seriously. The curious objects projecting from the walls far above them might not be the human dwellings that at first sight they appeared. Even the signs of an unearthly vegetation might prove a sort of mirage, or they might turn out to be mere specimens of basaltic formation—fantastic enough, certainly—wrought by the subterranean convulsions that had given birth to this cave measureless ages ago. But the air had become so strangely invigorating, the mysterious light so pervasive and even brilliant, that anything seemed possible. This atmospheric vitality, a certain bracing quality in the air, had been noted, indeed, among their first experiences in the outer cave. But, compared with this that now tingled and coursed in their veins like some conquering elixir, the air of the outer cave was chill, dead. Here life might germinate and be sustained—although there lacked, as Miranda had pointed out, “the sun and rain” to aid in these daily miracles of nature.
But it was idle to theorize, useless to harbor doubts that led nowhere. So, they wandered on, marveling at the strangeness and the magnitude of this underground world, and yielding themselves, as familiarity disarmed their fears, to the charm of it all. For there was beauty of a rare and thrilling quality in these majestic cliffs whose perfectly proportioned sides gleamed in all the variegations of color belonging to certain kinds of basalt. Displaying in structure the columnar forms peculiar to this rock, the admirable symmetry produced easily suggested the work of a human architect gifted in all the cunning of his art. And now the widening space before them disclosed unmistakable signs of the human agency they had suspected.
They stood at the verge of a precipice. Below them stretched a wide and comparatively level plain, vaulted over by a crystalline canopy supported by innumerable clusters of slender columns, and sheltering low-storied houses, or huts, collected together in the close companionship of a thriving little village. The familiar accompaniments of such a scene, supposing that it formed a part of some straggling, hospitable highway in the outer world, were there. At the doorways of the houses men and women stopped to talk; children played in the vacant spaces that served for yards and streets; even diminutive animals, that appeared in the distance to be near of kin to the patient, ubiquitous burro, jogged along under their burdens of merchandise. The villagers were evidently of the same race as Anitoo and his companions, dressed like them in white flowing togas, but lacking their indefinable charm and lordliness of bearing. Anywhere else they would have been taken for peasants, attired somewhat fantastically, engaged in the most primitive occupations. Here, remote from everything that lives under the sun, their very simplicity was cause for wonder, if not for fear.
So far the explorers had not attracted the attention of the villagers. Where the former stood they could watch the scene below without being observed themselves. But they knew that this security could not last. Either they had to go on and make themselves known, or return to Anitoo, who by this time, possibly, was at the mercy of Raoul and his party. They hesitated. The problem was a knotty one—but it was not left for them to decide. From an unexpected quarter came an interruption, startling in some respects, that solved their difficulties—temporarily at least—and seemed a promising augury that whatever dangers confronted them they might rely on backing, of a sort. A heavily veiled figure, bent with age and toiling down a precipitous path from the rocky height beneath which they were sheltered, silently approached them. At sight of this singular being, Mrs. Quayle, not yet accustomed to this land of uncomfortable surprises, started to run away. Her frantic efforts at speed restored the confidence of the others and, after she had been unceremoniously brought to order by Leighton, the little party managed to face the newcomer with some show of composure.
Leaning on a long staff, the descending figure, ignoring the others, advanced towards Una, who stood by herself beneath a low shelf of rock. Pausing within a few feet of the wondering girl, the veil was slowly lifted, revealing the seamed and wrinkled face and long flowing white hair of a woman whose great age was visible in every feature. In bygone times she would have been proclaimed a witch, although in her aspect there was nothing of the malevolence tradition attributes to witches. But there was the solemnity, the dramatic gesture of the sibyl—a being who is supposed to rank several grades higher than the witch—when, with uplifted hand, she commanded the attention of those to whom she deigned to speak. Drawn by something of benignity in her glance, and undaunted by her otherwise fantastic appearance, Una came forward to meet her—a movement that at once elicited a sign of approval.
“She is one loca, one crazy woman,” growled Miranda.