Heart of the World

by H. Rider Haggard

“You think you love him,” she said to me suddenly, “but I tell you that you do not know what love is. If I live, I, whom you despise, will teach you, Don Ignatio.”

I took no heed of her words, for I thought them foolish.

Then, unseen by me, Maya glided away to where the mules were picketed and provided herself with flint, steel, tinder, a rope, and a small water-skin of untanned hide, which she strapped upon her shoulders. In another minute she was running across the desert like a deer. At the entrance to the cueva she paused to gather up the aloe torches which had been thrown down there, and also to look for one moment at the familiar face of night, the night that she might never see again. Then she lit a torch and crept through the narrow opening.

The place had been awful in the evening when she visited it in the company of the rest of us. Now, alone and at night, it appalled her. Great winds roared round its vast recesses, sucked thither from the hollows of the earth, and in them could be heard sounds like to those of human voices, sobbing and making moan. Maya shivered, for she thought that these were the ghosts of dead antiguos bewailing their eternal griefs in this unearthly place, but she pressed forward boldly, notwithstanding her fears, till she stood on the brink of the pit. Here she halted to strip herself so that there might be as little as possible to impede her movements in climbing the stair, and twisted her hair into a knot. Next she tied the cord about her middle, and the water-skin, to which she fastened the flint and steel, upon her shoulders. Lighting two of the largest torches she fixed them slantingwise in crevices of the rock, so that their flame shone over the mouth of the shaft, down which she threw, first, a bundle of unlit torches, and, lastly, one on fire. This torch did not go out, as she half expected that it would, for presently, looking down the pit, she saw a spark of light shining a hundred and fifty feet or more beneath her.

Now all her preparations were complete, and nothing remained to be done except to descend and search for the water. For a moment Maya hesitated, looking at the spark of fire that gleamed so far below, and at the narrow niches cut in the smooth surface of the rock. Then, feeling that if she stood longer thus, her terrors would master her, she knelt down, and, holding to the rock with her hands, she thrust her leg over the edge of the pit, feeling at its side with her foot till she found the first niche. Resting her weight on this foot, she dropped the other till she reached the second niche, which was about eighteen inches lower and ten inches to the left of the first, for these niches were cut in a zig-zag fashion, No. 1 being above No. 3, No. 2 above No. 4 and so on. Now she must face one of the most terrible risks of the descent, for it was impossible for her to reach No. 3 niche without leaving go of the edge of the pit, nor could she get a hold of No. 1 with her hand until her foot was in No. 4, so that there was no alternative except to balance herself on one leg, and, placing her palms against the smooth rock, slide them down it till her foot rested on No. 4, and her fingers in No. 1.

Clinging thus like a fly to the rock, she stepped into No. 3, and, not daring to pause, began at once to feel for No. 4. In her anxiety she dropped her leg too low, and while drawing it back almost overbalanced herself. A thrill of horrible fear struck her, causing her spine to creep, but, resting her face against the rock, by a desperate effort she retained her presence of mind, and in another second was standing in No. 4 and holding to No. 1. Thenceforward the descent was easier, since all she had to do was to shift the grip of her hands from hole to hole and remember in which line she must search with her foot for the succeeding niche. So far from hindering her, the darkness proved a boon, since it prevented her from beholding the horror of the place.

By the time that she was a third of the way down the shaft her courage returned to her, and the only fear she felt was lest some of the niches should be broken. Fortunately this was not the case, although one of them was so much worn that her toes slipped out of it and for a second or two she hung by her hands. Recovering herself, she went on from step to step till at length she stood at the bottom of the shaft.

After a minute’s pause to get her breath, Maya found one of the dry aloe stems, and lit it at the embers of the torch which she had thrown down the pit. Then she looked round her, to find herself in a large natural cavern of no great height, which sloped gently downwards further than she could see. Turning her eyes to the floor, she searched for and discovered the path that had been hollowed out by the feet of the ancients, but now was half hidden in sand and dust. It ran straight down the cave, and she followed it for fifty paces or more, holding the light in one hand, and some spare torches under her arm. Here in this cave the atmosphere was so hot and still, that she was scarcely able to breathe, though even at a distance she could hear a strange eddying wind roaring in the shaft down which she had come. Presently the cavern began to decrease in size till it narrowed into a small passage, and Maya sighed aloud, fearing lest she should be coming to the mouth of a second shaft, for she had heard me say that the water in these cuevas was sometimes found at a depth of five or six hundred feet, whereas she had not descended more than two hundred.

When she had walked another ten or fifteen paces, however, the passage took a sudden turn and her doubts were set at rest, for there in the centre of a wonderful place, such as she had never seen before, gleamed the water which she had risked her life to reach.

How large the place where she found herself might be Maya never knew, since the feeble light of her torch did not pierce far into the gloom. All that she could see was a number of white columns—without doubt stalactites, though she imagined them to have been fashioned by man—rising from the floor of the cavern to its roof, and in the midst of them a circular pit, thirty feet or more across, in which lay the water. This water, though clear as crystal, was not still, for once in every few seconds a great bubble three or four feet in diameter rose in the centre of the pool, to burst on its surface and send a ring of ripples to the rocky sides. So beautiful was this bubble and so regular its appearance that for some minutes Maya watched it; then, remembering that she had no time to spare, she set herself to get the water, only to learn that she was confronted by a new difficulty and one which but for her foresight might have proved insuperable. The rock bank of the pool was so smooth, and sloped so steeply to the water, that it was quite impossible for anyone to keep a footing on it. The ancients had overcome the trouble by means of a wooden staircase, as was evident from the places hollowed in the rock to receive the uprights, but this structure had long since rotted away. At the head of where this staircase had stood, a hole was bored in the rock, doubtless to receive a rope by which the water-bearers supported themselves while they filled their jars, and the sight of this hole gave Maya a thought. Untying the cord which she had brought with her, she made it fast through the hole, and, having fixed the torch into one of the spaces hollowed to hold the timbers of the stairway, she slid down the bank till she stood breast high in the water.