The more he beat about the bounds of that narrow infernal kingdom, the less our Cyclops seemed to like it. His rage mounted at each turn he made and found his prison-cell so narrow, and every rebuff swelled his budding choler. Therefore, seeing how hopeless it was to strive to tame him in this present mood, I waited till Cyclops was exploring at the bottom of the hall; then, plunging through the dusty turmoil, found old Faulkener. That gray inventor was reeling like a drunken man, and witless with terror.
“The key—the key!” I shouted in his ear. “To the door! We can do no good here. Let your infernal beast burn out some of his accursed spleen—then we’ll make a shift to tame him. But ’tis no good now! Hear how he thunders! And—see—he is coming back again!”
“Ah, the door, good friend, the door!” gasped Faulkener; and, clinging to my arm, hotly pursued by the monster behind—whose red-hot madness now seemed tinged with cruel purpose—we fled down the long black cavern to the iron-studded postern. There was not a second to spare: the old man plunged his trembling hands into his belt and felt all round it, then turned to me with a horrid stare in his eyes and a sickly smile upon his thin white lips—the key was gone!
I dragged that old man back just as the great engine—ramping hot—lurched down and cut a long smoking groove half a foot deep from the rocky wall whereby we had been standing, then, disappointed of us, went howling on into the blackness. And now there was nothing to do but to stay and fight it out, no exit for us, and none for our sweet bantling, and he seemed to know it! Round and round he drove us through the flickering gloom and shadows of that dismal cockpit, till the gushing sweat ran from us, and our choking breath came short and panting through our parching throats. Oh! it was a sight to see that shrieking monster, spurting steam at every joint and howling like a pack of winter wolves, come careering through the darkness at us, with every plate of his mighty harness quivering with the force within, and all his thundering vitals glowing white and spawning golden trails of molten embers as he lurched along. Down I would see him come, perhaps, hunting something in savage mood, and as I dodged behind a pillar and looked, out of the vortex of the shadows would leap old Andrew Faulkener, as a leveret leaps from the ferns under a lurcher’s nose, and, with ashy wild face, and flying wizard locks, and ragged sorrel cloak flapping in shreds behind him, the master would flash in frenzied fear across the glow that shimmered from the heart of his young Titan, and then be swallowed up again by the next friendly blackness, and I scarce dare breathe as, with a hideous parody of vindictive cunning, that great thing would swirl and swerve, and be after him again!
It was a wild, wonderful game, and the longer it went the hotter it grew. Closer, denser, and blacker grew the gloom of that place, until at length you could not see an arm’s-stretch ahead of you in the sulphurous reek—a hot, steamy pall of dismal vapor, through which glimmered redly, now and then, the ashes of the overturned furnace place, and the rosin-dripping splutter of the feeble torch which we had put into the socket by the door. Ah! that was all we had to light us as we crawled and leaped and dodged before the vengeful fury of that screaming harpy of ours—all but his own red copper glow that flamed now here, now there, on the black horizon of our den. Darker and still darker and hotter became the air, until at last—in half an hour perhaps—the torch and the furnace ashes were sickly stars, too pallid to light our merriment to any purpose, and even the glow of Faulkener’s great invention was a red-hot haze, only illumining the seething dust and smoke a yard or two about it, and everywhere else reigned black, choking, Stygian, infernal darkness.
A blank midnight void hung about the arena where we danced to that great being—sprung like a black Minerva from my master’s over-fertile brain. Yet, Jove! ’twas midnight dark, but there was no midnight stillness in it. The very air seemed palpitating to the thunderous beat of that beast’s mighty life—every hollow cavern-niche in our rocky walls bellowed into our startled ears a hideous mockery of his screeching; while the ceaseless roar of his cruel stride rattled down the ragged juts of our stony roof like dislocated thunder. And in that darkness and ear-splitting din we dodged and dipped and scuttled like two cornered rats. I have been brave—by this time I hope you know it—but what was mortal strength or valor against the strength and recklessness of that iron god? No, he had the upper hand, and screamed for blood like the devil that he was, pressing us with such fury that my very soul seemed oozing through my sweating skin. As for dignity—gods! I had none! At one moment I and Faulkener would be struggling for a narrow passage like two hoggets in a meadow gate; then I was anon crawling on hands and satin knees through pools half a foot deep with filthy furnace-water, or straddling greasy heaps of brash and ashes with the beast close behind to fire my flagging spirits, spurting flame and scalding steam, and crunching with his ponderous weight through the iron litter of the den as though it were an August stubble.
And this was not all. Being so dark, as I have said, presently that iron monster, inspirited with the soul of a Fury, found it more and more difficult to follow us, and went reeling and bellowing through the steamy blackness ever more at random. Thereon he stopped a spell and seemed to listen, and, though we could only tell his whereabouts by the great fiery nebulæ of his glowing sides, we could plainly hear his thousand steel teeth champing, and the gush of the boiling force flying within him. We held our breath, and then we heard something change in the machinery—some pin or rivet fail—and the next minute Faulkener’s baby was off again with a scream like a lost spirit and possessed of a cursed, brand-new idea. I have said the chains wherewith he had been held to the forge were fastened to great revolving bars upon his side. When he burst free he had torn these from the solid masonry and wound them up upon the spinning axles, whereto by some misguided cunning Faulkener had welded them. And now that devil was ramping round to find us in the void, and had unwound those hideous flails, and with infernal patience was beating down one wall and up the other. Oh! it was sickly to hear the screech of those steel whips sweeping unseen through the startled air, to hear them thud upon the trembling ground and cut deep furrows in it at every savage lash—now here, now there, flogging the frightened shadows and scourging the trembling rocks, and whistling overhead like a thousand winged snakes—and all for us!—while that great babe of my master’s hunted slowly round about our narrow prison, and thundered and howled and rattled like a tempest in a mountain pass, and, as though he were some great monster in a deep sea cave, shot out and drew in those humming tentacles, and tried each nook and corner, and squirted steam and fire into every crevice, and plied his cruel whips madly about in that darkness till ’twas all like Pandemonium.
Well, I will say no more, or you may think I wrap sober fact in that mantle of fancy which the gods have lent me. We had dodged and ducked at this game for many minutes when Faulkener’s mind gave way! I chanced upon him in the middle space, laughing and screaming and taking off his cloak and vest. He saw me stalk from the shadows, and, with a frightful grin and caper, shouted that he knew what was the matter—“his pretty firstling needed a bloody sacrifice, and who could provide it better than himself?” Just then the engine turned and came looming through the mist toward us, and the old enthusiast made ready to cast himself under those mighty wheels.
“Come back!” I shouted, “come back!” But Faulkener yelled: “Touch me at your peril, the sweet one must not be balked!” And made toward it.
I seized him by the arm and dragged him to one side, whereat, without further parley, like a furious wild cat, he turned, and in a twinkling had me by the throat, with those old talons of his deep buried in my gullet, and his long, lean legs twirled round mine like thongs of leather, and his mad eyes flashing, his white face lit up with maniac passion; and so we heaved and struggled, then down upon our knees, and over and over upon the floor, the old man striving all he knew to kill me; while I, for my part, heaved and wrenched—all my splendid strength cramped up in the wild grip of that sinewy old recluse—and over us, as we fought upon the earth, was glimmering in a minute the red-copper glow, the towering form, and the cruel, shrieking flails of that exulting demon we had invented!