"Do not be so confident. Every individual before you has had the same opportunity, and has been warned as you have been. They could not undergo the test to which they were subjected, and you may fail. Besides, on surface earth are not men constantly confronted with the doom of the drunkard, and do they not, in the face of this reality, turn back and seek his caverns? The journey of life is not so fearful that they should become drunkards to shrink from its responsibilities. You have reached this point in safety. You have passed the sentinels without, and will soon be accosted by the band before us. Listen well now to my advice. A drunkard always seeks to gain companions, to draw others down to his own level, and you will be tried as never have you been before. Taste not their liquor by whatever form or creature presented. They have no power to harm him who has courage to resist. If they entreat you, refuse; if they threaten, refuse; if they offer inducements, refuse to drink. Let your answer be No, and have no fear. If your strength fail you, mark well my"—
Before he could complete his sentence I felt a pressure, as of a great wind, and suddenly found myself seized in an embrace irresistible, and then, helpless as a feather, was swept out into the cavern of the drunkards.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
AMONG THE DRUNKARDS.
I remember once to have stood on the edge of Niagara's great whirlpool, but not more fearful did its seething waters then seem than did the semi-human whirl into which I had now been plunged. Whether my guide had been aware of the coming move that separated us I never knew, but, as his words were interrupted, I infer that he was not altogether ready to part from my company. Be this as it may, he disappeared from sight, and, as by a concerted move, the cries of the drunkards subsided instantly. I found myself borne high in the air, perched on a huge hand that was carried by its semi-human comrades. It seemed as though the contents of that vast hall had been suddenly thrown beneath me, for, as I looked about, I saw all around a sea of human fragments, living, moving parts of men. Round and round that hall we circled as an eddy whirls in a rock-bound basin, and not less silently than does the water of an eddy. Then I perceived that the disjointed mass of humanity moved as a spiral, in unison, throbbing like a vitalized stream, bearing me submissively on its surface. Gradually the distance between myself and the center stone lessened, and then I found that, as if carried in the groove of a gigantic living spiral, I was being swept towards the stone platform in the center of the room. There was method in the movements of the drunkards, although I could not analyze the intricacies of their complex reel.
Finally I was borne to the center stone, and by a sudden toss of the hand, in the palm of which I was seated, I was thrown upon the raised platform. Then in unison the troop swung around the stone, and I found myself gazing on a mass of vitalized fragments of humanity. Quickly a figure sprung upon the platform, and in him I discerned a seemingly perfect man. He came to my side and grasped my hand as if he were a friend.
"Do not fear," he said; "obey our request, and you will not be harmed."
"What do you desire?" I asked.
He pointed to the center of the stone, and I saw thereon many gigantic, inverted fungus bowls. The gills of some had been crushed to a pulp, and had saturated themselves with liquid which, perhaps by a species of fermentation, had undergone a structural change; others were as yet intact; others still contained men intently cutting the gills into fragments and breaking the fruit preparatory to further manipulation.
"You are to drink with us," he replied.