So near I passed to the mysterious rock, that in order to steady and save myself, I clutched at its smooth, gigantic base with both hands. But only for a second. Over the pale yellow slime with which the stone was covered my frantic fingers slipped, and falling back powerless into the eddying waters, I was again swept into the fatal, ever-narrowing circle.
The eddying current whirled me round and round with amazing swiftness for a few moments, until suddenly I reached its centre, and felt myself being sucked down by an irresistible force. An instant later I knew that the black waters had closed over me. Confused sounds roared in my ears like the thunder in Ramadan, but ere my sensibility became utterly obliterated I knew I was being carried deep down into a darkness that, even in my critical state of breathless half-consciousness, filled me with an all-consuming terror and chilled my heart.
Chapter Thirty Three.
Where Dwelt the Devourer.
In the appalling darkness that overwhelmed me, I fought, blindly beating the water with frantic hands. As I struggled to extricate myself from the power of the whirling current my arms suddenly struck against stones on either side. With desperate effort I put out my hands, and to my amazement found myself being carried onward, by a rushing flood, through what appeared to be a narrow tunnel in the face of the rock, deep below the lake’s surface. Though but half-conscious, I remember distinctly reflecting that the whirlpool had no doubt been caused by this violent outrush of water descending to feed some subterranean river, and that the chasm had probably been caused by the volcanic disturbance that had first attracted my attention. Half suffocated, and powerless against the roaring torrent, I was sucked downward, deep into the fathomless chasm.
Suddenly my fingers came in contact with a projecting ledge of rock, which I gripped with all my might, just managing to steady myself, and so arrest my further progress. Drawing breath, I was amazed to find that my head was above water, although the wild roar of the flood was deafening, and in the total darkness I could distinguish nothing. With set teeth I strained every muscle, and after several futile attempts, at length succeeded in scrambling over black, slime-covered stones beyond reach of the roaring torrent rushing down to mysterious subterranean depths. Strangely enough, the air seemed fresher than outside in the lake, for here, in the heart of the rock, there appeared to be ventilation. This discovery renewed my hopes. The aperture that admitted air would prove a means of egress from that dark, loathsome place, if only I could discover it. Though still giddy from the effects of the whirling waters, I rose slowly to my feet, and found that I could stand upright. With eager fingers outstretched before me I felt my way carefully onward over the rocks, rendered slippery by the sulphurous deposits of ages. In fear and trepidation lest I should slip and fall into some yawning fissure, I nevertheless groped on up a steady incline until suddenly my eyes caught a faint but welcome glimmer of grey light.
Towards this I stumbled on, falling once upon my hands and severely grazing them, but taking no heed of the accident in my breathless eagerness to discover some means of escape. I stood facing the mute darkness, all mystery, and gloom.
Clambering on over some rough boulders, and passing between the great rocks that had fallen so near to one another that it was with difficulty I squeezed between them, I at length found myself in an enormous cavern, from the vaulted roof of which depended gigantic stalactites, while high up, and inaccessible, was an aperture that admitted light and air, but, in front of me, all was a black, impenetrable darkness. The great place had, undoubtedly, been formed by the action of the water, but the process had involved an enormous length of time, and now the course of the subterranean stream had been diverted by some upheaval.