The moon was rising and it was time to go ashore. Accordingly, he directed his course for a pier that extended somewhat farther than its fellows into the stream. There was just water enough to float the canoe within arm's-length of the girders—a fortunate circumstance, since Constans had not liked the idea of trusting himself upon the treacherous-looking mud-flat left uncovered by the ebbing tide. Securing the boat under shadow of the structure, he took his hunting-knife and basket of provisions and climbed easily to the floor of the pier, then picking his way across its broken planking he reached solid ground. At last he stood within Doom the Forbidden.
Now this street, which ran parallel with the river, was of unusual width, and Constans crossed it quickly, seeking for cover in some narrower and darker thoroughfare. A cross-street opened directly in front of him. He plunged into it without hesitation, for the moonlight was now in full flood and there might be sharp eyes about.
In the open spaces along the water-front grass grew thick and tall as in a meadow, but in this narrow, crooked lane the wholesomer, sun-loving plants found little encouragement to existence. In their stead, pale-colored creepers mantled the house walls, and everywhere were moss stains and the spore of the various fungoid growths. Constans's footsteps fell hollowly upon the pavement slippery with weed and the August damp, and as he walked along an unearthly radiance suddenly illuminated his path; from every cornice and eaves-end hung balls of the pale St. Elmo's fire; not a house but boasted its array of corpse-candles that flickered with a greenish flame.
A terrifying sight, but harmless. Far more dangerous, could he have known it, were the invisible but deadly gases from the century-old corruption that rose to meet him and were unconsciously inhaled. Then, as the fumes mounted to his brain, sober reason was ousted from her throne and imagination rioted unchecked, peopling the void with horrors and ineffectual phantoms. From the sashless windows grotesque faces stared down upon him, scowling malignantly, while others, with still more hideous smile, invited him to enter and become one of their dreadful company. Insane laughter re-echoed in his ears, and the music of lutes, irresistible in its languor-compelling potency. Already had Constans stopped twice to listen, and upon each occasion he had been obliged to exercise all his failing strength of body and mind to resume his forward march. If he halted again it would be forever; of that he felt perfectly assured, but neither the imminence nor the character of the peril in which he stood seemed sufficient to arouse him from his lethargy. Yet he kept on, walking with the shuffling stride of a mechanical doll; now he wavered and hesitated, as though the propelling spring had wellnigh run down. The night reek, hot and damp, hung like a poisoned veil upon his mouth and lips; he could not breathe; he gasped and threw up one arm as does a swimmer who looks his last upon a pitiless sun and sky.
The wind had risen with the moon; it had been growing in strength, and now a strong gust rattled among the chimney-pots. One fell with a crash, and a tiny fragment of brick struck Constans on the check, cutting the skin. The shock and the trickle of blood brought him to with a sharp shock; he ran forward a few steps and found himself sinking. The roadway immediately in front of him had doubtless been undermined by the action of water; for the space of a dozen yards or more the pavement was but a shell concealing an abyss.
Constans had already proceeded too far for retreat; he must go on or founder where he stood. He flung himself forward, the oblong blocks of granite, with which the street was paved, grinding together underneath his feet as the mass yielded to the downward pressure. He was sucked in to his knees, but instinctively he kept the upper part of his body extended horizontally, his out-stretched hand seeking for some chance holdfast. Then, as he was beginning to despair, he found it, a section of small diameter lead piping that had been uncovered by the breaking away of the surrounding earth. It bent under his clutch but did not give way. With one last effort he pulled himself clear, gained the firm ground beyond, and lay there trembling.
When afterwards he came to reason soberly over the adventure, the conclusion seemed obvious that the pitfall had been a consequent upon the breaking out of one of the ancient springs, so that the water, in endeavoring to find an outlet, had finally undermined the whole roadway. The chasm, as he looked back upon it, extended dear across the street. Its depth was only conjectural, but the mass presented the treacherous appearance of quaking sand, and Constans shuddered as he gazed. Yet he had escaped; the peril was past; let him forget what was behind and press forward.
Half a block farther on and he found himself in a cul-de-sac. The street was filled from house-wall to house-wall with an immense mass of broken stone, brick, and other débris. The cause was not far to seek.
Immediately upon the left rose one of the fabulously high buildings for which the ancient city had been famous. It could not compare in magnitude with the tremendous structures that he could discern still farther ahead, but its dozen and a half of stories loomed up imposingly when contrasted with the moderate sized houses adjoining it. Constans looked up in wonder at its towering façade, then started back with an exclamation of alarm.
It appeared that the foundations of the structure had in some way become weakened, for the whole building had settled and was leaning over at a terrifying divergence from the perpendicular. Being constructed of iron truss-work similar to that of a bridge, the essential framework still held together, but the outside walls, mere shells of stone and brick, had cracked and given way under the strain, falling piece-meal into the street below. Even as he looked, a stone dropped from a window pediment and crashed into splinters on the pavement a few yards beyond where he stood. The angle of inclination seemed to grow larger as he gazed at it; the enormous mass poised itself above him, monstrous, informed, threatening to strike.