With the evil-smelling waters dripping from my ragged gandoura, I stood gazing around the great, natural chamber in wonderment. Was this the cavern described in the legends as the entrance to the Land of the No Return? the dwelling-place of the savage reptile that acted as janitor? My eyes were fixed upon the Cimmerian gloom beyond, for I feared to come face to face with some unknown and uncanny tenant of that chamber, where my timid footsteps echoed away into the impenetrable blackness, in which every sound became exaggerated, and every object weirdly distorted.
The sides of the cavern were apparently of rough, black granite, but in the grey light that fell across the place, the long crystals of fantastic shape glistened and shone with the brilliance of diamonds, and the floor, rough and uneven, was formed of huge boulders, that had evidently been tossed hither and thither by the violent volcanic eruption that had altered the angle of the strata outside. Little rivulets flowed over the floor, cutting deep channels in the stones, where blind and colourless crayfish of enormous size, and of unknown type, slowly crept, while, disporting themselves in the water, were strange, finny denizens of the subterranean river. On examination, I found they had no eyes, and had lost the colouration characteristic of their outer-world relatives, by reason of passing their whole time in total darkness. There were also great, grey toads, and fat, slowly-moving lizards, alike sightless and uncanny. From where I stood, the distant, roaring waters sounded like the continual, monotonous moaning of the storm-wind, and it was with failing heart that I proceeded with my explorations, for I well knew that to reach the exit high above was utterly impossible.
Without food or fresh water, I had been drawn into that great cavern by the whirlpool and entombed. Tiamo and Yakul, watching for me to rise to the surface, and finding that I had utterly disappeared, would, I knew, conclude that I had been drowned; and the dwarf, acting upon my instructions, would return to Kano, bearing the sad tidings to Azala. Alas! I could not communicate with them. In my helplessness I cried aloud unto Allah, the Most High, to show me the right path, but my wild wail only echoed through the hollow cavern, like the mocking voice of Azrael.
Under the great opening, that was overshadowed by a huge boulder, but into which blew fresh air in stormy gusts, showing that near the spot the rocks were open to the sky. I stood in full consciousness that could I but climb to that altitude I should be enabled to enter the forbidden land. Yet all thought of gaining that exit had to be abandoned. Even if I could scale the steep wall of the cavern, to reach the opening in its roof was impossible.
Here was yet another barrier between myself and the unknown.
Having carefully surveyed the cavern to right and left, I went forward at last, clambering over great, sharp stones that hurt my feet and grazed my elbows, and splashing into deep black pools, until, passing beyond the circle of light towards the portion of the strange place that remained in total darkness, my eager eyes suddenly caught sight of a portion of the black wall of the cave that had evidently been rendered flat and smooth by the hand of man, and upon it, deeply graven in the stone, but now half-obliterated by Time’s effacing finger, was a wall-picture, the extraordinary character of which held me amazed, petrified.
Over the strange, fantastic outlines my eyes travelled, deciphering the ancient scene it was intended to represent. An exclamation of amazement involuntarily escaped my parched lips, for it furnished me with the first clue to the mystery I was striving to elucidate. It told me of things of which I had never before dreamed.
Truly, I had struggled through the natural, and hitherto impassable barrier between the known world and that unknown, and was now actually on the threshold of a land of a thousand wonders.
The earnest, appealing words Azala had uttered, when requesting me to seek the truth, recurred to me, and, as I gazed upon these outlines, limned upon the rock-tablet by hands that ages ago had fallen to dust, I felt myself on the verge of a discovery even more extraordinary than any my wildest thoughts had ever framed.