Over my shoulder I throw a hasty glance. It had already drifted out of sight.
I heard my white companion shouting, but taking no heed toiled on up the great face until a strong helping hand gripped mine, and I found myself standing beside him upon the narrow ledge forming the lips of the hideous countenance.
Next instant, glancing round, my eyes encountered a sight which hold me petrified.
A long dark aperture, about the height of myself, formed the mouth, and set therein were broad sharp teeth of rusted sword-blades, which overlapping, prevented entrance to the cavernous throat. Twenty blades were set in the jaw above and twenty below, forming an impassable barrier of razor-edged spikes. Our only means of escape being cut off by the drifting of the canoe, one fact alone remained to give us courage. From where we stood we recognised the utter impossibility of passing through, the eyes of the colossus, yet, as together we looked at the formidable teeth, we saw a human skeleton lying beneath them. The skull was beyond the row of blades, the legs towards us, proving that some means existed by which those jaws could be opened. The unfortunate man had, apparently, been impaled by the descending blades while in the act of escaping.
After brief consultation we began an active search to discover the means by which the mouth could be opened. What lay beyond in that dark cavernous throat we knew not, though we strained our eyes into the blackness, and shook the sharp steel spikes in a vain endeavour to loosen them. For a full hour we searched, discovering nothing to lead us to any solution of the problem. That freedom lay beyond we felt convinced, by reason of the light and air from above; but whatever were the means employed to raise the deadly jaw they were a secret. Time after time we examined every nook and crevice minutely, until at last, when just about to give up our search as futile, I suddenly espied, projecting from the river’s surface, a short bar of iron, with the appearance of a lever.
To reach it was imperative, therefore at imminent risk I let myself carefully over the edge of the rock, slowly lowering my body until I could grip it. Beneath my weight it slowly gave way, and next instant there was a loud gurgling as of water drawn in by a vacuum, followed immediately by a harsh metallic grating sound.
“At last!” I heard the Colonel cry in French. “It rises! Be careful how you ascend.”
Slowly, and with infinite care, I crept upward, but as I did so I heard my companion’s echoing footsteps receding into the gloomy throat of Sâ, yet just as I had gained the ledge forming the lips I heard a piercing shriek, followed by a loud splash.
I shouted, but there was no answer. My companion had stumbled into some chasm, and I was alone. The light of the hideous eyes had died out, and the spot was in almost total darkness. A dozen times I called his name, but there was no reassuring reply. Then, cautiously creeping forward upon my hands and knees, fearing the worst, I soon came to the edge of an abyss. Some stones I gathered and flung in. By the sound of the splash I knew the water must be of enormous depth. There, in that dark uncanny spot, had Colonel Flatters, the great explorer, whose intrepidity has been for years admired by the world, met his death.
A long time I spent alternately shouting and listening. He might, I reflected, have been saved by falling stunned upon some rocky ledge. But I remembered hearing the splash. No, he had undoubtedly been precipitated into the water: the inky flood had closed over him.