Their supply of cartridges would not last for long. Surrounded by a shrieking mob of savages, it would not be long ere sheer numbers would carry the day.
The air grew strangely oppressive as they raced on, and a strong smell of sulphur came to their nostrils. What these signs portended they did not stop to consider. “Faster!” was all the cry, and, spurred onward by the yelping cries of their pursuers—each moment getting nearer—they put forth every effort.
Suddenly a gasping cry broke from Seymour.
“A pass!”
Just ahead of them was the mouth of a gorge, and into this they plunged. Impenetrable darkness surrounded them, hedged them about as with a wall, until, of a sudden, the triangular beam from Haverly’s lantern dispelled the gloom, and made progress practicable. Every nerve, every muscle was strained to the uttermost, yet the savage cries of their murderous pursuers drew nearer moment by moment. It was a hopeless race; indeed, it could not be otherwise, pitted as they were against such runners as the wolf-men; but if it came to the worst, they could stand at bay until their ammunition gave out, and afterwards—death by their own hands, rather than fall into the power of the devilish priest.
Their throats were choked with sulphur, their tongues dry and cracked, and the heat became intense as they advanced.
Yet they still held on, until, dashing furiously round an angle in the wall of the gorge, they stopped dead, petrified by the terrific grandeur of the scene before them.
To right and left the cliffs still towered, beetling and immense; but ahead the gorge broke sheer away in a mighty chasm. And, two hundred feet below, its molten bosom heaving, and falling in giant waves, rolled a sea of liquid fire. All else the fugitives forgot; they could do nought but stare, until their eyes could look no longer upon the glaring flood.
“Stupendous!” Mervyn gasped, veiling his eyes. “Saw you ever the like before?”
The chasm appeared to be about sixty feet in width, but the cliffs prevented them judging of its length. As their eyes became more accustomed to the glare they discovered that from the rocky ground at their feet the span of a stone bridge ran out, its unfinished end hanging about one third the way across the great gulf. The dazzling glow had prevented their perceiving it before.