Beyond the Great South Wall: The Secret of the Antarctic

by Frank Savile

We knew that this meant a wait of half-an-hour at the least, and we took another pull at the spirit to fortify ourselves against the cold, which was wrapping us creepily in its embrace. Then we stamped and tramped violently round the cavern once or twice to enliven our circulations, and this brought us face to face with the stone portico at the back of the cave. We halted before it to stare at each other inquiringly.

I nodded; then together we sauntered up the steps and stood in the entrance.

The temple was square fronted, with an oval doorway; along the facade ran pillared cloisters. It was built of carefully cut and morticed stones, hewn—as we could plainly see by the gaps—from the cliff behind us. Upon the twelve great pillars of the portico were decorated pilasters, chiselled with a clean nicety in the hard stone. They gave evidence of a patient skill and an artistic conception beyond the average. Within their shadow was a pavement, whereon a mosaic of graceful lines and figures entwined themselves. Centrally opened the portal.

The light filtered dimly through the entrance, and as we stood upon the threshold the interior was black and mysterious before us. As our eyes grew more accustomed to the gloom, and the shapes of things defined themselves in the twilight, we discerned the grandeur and the horror of the place.

The interior was round—in shape something like the Roman Pantheon—and along the circling walls ran long inscriptions in the Mayan symbol, twisted in varying folds and weavings of devices. The floor was wide and thick with dust. The disturbance of our footsteps made gaps in this, showing the smooth, hard-blocked granite that paved it. It rang hollow beneath our feet, when the nails of our shooting-boots reached it through the carpet of powdery refuse.

At the far end was a towering erection, dominating the emptiness, dimly shadowing through the dusk. It was not till we approached within a yard or two of it that we knew it for a graven similitude of the great Beast. It stood in a sort of chancel of the building, looming high upon a rough majestic mass of granite. This pedestal—a boulder without any mark of hammer or chisel apparent upon it—filled one side of the sanctuary, and the image—carved from virgin rock—reached to the domed roof.

Every loathsome detail of the Thing was reproduced with a skill most marvellous. The horrid foot-webs with claws aspread were there; the long, lowering neck; the malignant head fiendishly erect; the saw-like, serrated tail; the horrible dewlap; the filthy bloatings of the carcass; the thick legs, with bunches of muscle staring harshly out of the stone fore-arms. Below were inscriptions in the familiar symbol.

Far up in the fiercely poised head were eyes that glinted evilly—eyes that licked up into themselves all the poor light of the dim vault and concentrated it into two glistening points of wickedness. They seemed to follow us with such poignancy that we shuddered.

But the greater wonder and the heavier horror lay not in this foul image, terrible though it was in its life-like imitation.

Circling round the throned idol—symbol of the loathliest worship, as I suppose, and the cruellest that the world has ever seen—was a ring of brown and shrivelled objects. They were cloaked with rotting garments, and lean with the waste of centuries. They were mummified by time, but, in the undying cold, undecayed. It was the last worship of the priests of Cay, overwhelmed in the sanctuary, defying the long-drawn death of numbing famine in the presence of their god.