Drome/Chapter 30
Chapter 30
The Moving Eyes
I jerked out my revolver; I reached over and gave Rhodes a shake that would have awakened Epimenides himself, then grabbed the electric light and flashed it upon the descending monster.
I could scarcely believe my eyes. Nothing but the empty air. The monster had vanished.
"What's the matter?" came the sudden voice of Rhodes. "What in paradise is going on now?"
I rubbed my eyes and stared upward once more.
"Look there!" said I, pointing.
"Tell me, do you see nothing there?" "There isn't anything there, Bill—now."
"But there was something there a second ago—and it didn't go away."
"What did you see?"
"I thought at first that it was a demon, phosphorescent or something. It was up there. I tell you it was up there. And it was coming down, coming down straight toward this very spot."
"Great Cæsar's spook!" exclaimed Rhodes.
"I can't understand," I told him, "where the thing went. It was there, and the next instant it wasn't."
"Turn off your light," said Rhodes quickly. "Turn it off, Bill."
"Great Zeus, what for? You'd better have your revolver ready."
"Revolver fiddlesticks! Off with it, Bill; off with the light!"
The light went off. And look! There it was again—almost directly over us. It was not descending now but was hovering, hovering, as though watching, waiting. Waiting for what? And it seemed, too, to thrust out arms or tentacula. And look! Something started to drop from it—phosphorescence (I shall call it that) dropping to the floor, where it writhed and crawled about like a mass I of serpents. Writhed and crawled and grew dimmer—faded, faded.
We sat staring at this mysterious, inexplicable phenomenon in amazement, fascination and horror.
"What on earth can it be?" I asked, my voice a whisper.
"Who," said Rhodes, "would ever have dreamed of such a thing as that?"
"I'm afraid," I told him, a shudder passing through my heart, "that our revolvers can't hurt a thing like this. It seems to be watching us. Look! Aren't those eyes—eyes staring at us, moving?"
"Eyes? Watching us? Oh, Lord, Bill!" said Rhodes.
"As for sending a bullet into it, don't," he added, "do anything so foolish."
He arose, stepped over and awoke Narkus. The monster was still hovering over the spot. The Droman bestowed upon that ghost but a cursory, careless look, then yawned sleepily.
"Yam-yump!" said Narkus, stretching himself.
Rhodes laid a hand upon the other's shoulder and pointed an interrogative finger up in the direction of the phantom. The Droman gave a careless, airy toss of the hand.
"Drome," said he, then lay down again.
It was obvious from this monosyllabic answer, to say nothing of the manner of Narkus, that there was nothing to apprehend from this mysterious apparition hovering above us. Certainly, though, there had been no remarkable clarification. Indeed, in a way, Rhodes and I were more puzzled than ever. Drome, Drome! What could be the meaning of that word? Drome!
"It seems, Bill," said Rhodes, "that we are on our way to a very strange place. As for that ghost up there, it must be a fragment, as it were, of the light of this subterranean land."
"Suppose it is—a harbinger, so to speak—then what on earth can that light be?"
"That, of course, we can not tell. It may be phosphorescent or auroral, or its origin may be one of which no man of our own world ever has even dreamed. I believe that I forgot to mention, when we were speaking of this the other day, that even human beings sometimes evolve light.[1] One thing, however, is certain: there is light somewhere in this underground world. And I believe, Bill, that we are drawing near to it now."
"I certainly hope that we are. But look at our ghost. It is moving again—thank heaven (even if it is only a mass of light) away from us!"
"Yes," said Rhodes. "But look down there. There is another one coming."
It came, and another and another. I don't know how many. On they came through the cavern, now lingering, now hovering; on they passed like some unearthly, ghostly procession. And, even though one knew that these phantoms, so dim and so misty, were perfectly innocuous, were as natural (as though there is anything that can not be natural!) as the light of the firefly, as the glow of the auroral arches and streamers—all the same, I say, the sight of that spectral company, passing, passing, was one indescribably strange and uncanny.
However, a man can get used to anything. I got used to them and ere very long was asleep once more. In the morning, not a single ghost was to be seen. Nor did we see one until near midafternoon. That ghost was all by its lonesome and so dim that it vanished when our lights drew near. But soon they were about us in all directions. One of these phantoms, large, amorphous, writhing (its light so strong that it was visible in the rays of the lamps but not of the electric ones) came crawling along the floor straight toward us. Rhodes and I, as if by instinct, moved aside; but Drorathusa and the others walked right into it. As they emerged from the spectral, phosphorescent mass, the light clung to them like wraiths of fog, to be slowly dissipated as they advanced in little streams and eddies behind them.
It was during this, afternoon, too, that Rhodes made the first discovery of life in this fearsome place—little fish, totally blind, like those in the Mammoth Cave. But, though they could not see, they could feel the light. When the rays fell upon the stream, they would drop to the bottom and seek the concealment of the shadow-places. Poor little blind things! What an existence! And yet how like them, after all, are we poor humans!
Yes, blind are we, though we have eyes; our souls shrinking from the light to wander, lost and happy, in psychic caves and labyrinths more terrible even than this cavern through which we were making our way—making our way to we knew not what.
We journeyed on until about 7
o'clock, when we reached another
depot and halted for the night.
All were much fatigued, but the Dromans
were in high spirits, and ours
rose, too. Whether we were drawing
near the end of our strange journey
was not clear; but there could be no
doubt that a great change was imminent.
To the surprize of Rhodes and myself (nothing in the place seemed to surprize Drorathusa and her companions) not a single light-wraith was anywhere to be seen. The cavern was as black as the deepest pit in Erebus.
And it was still the same when we awoke. How I would have welcomed the appearance of the faintest, loneliest ghost—as we called these apparitions of light.
We noticed that Narkus and Thumbra, and the ladies also, were at some pains to have their bows in such a position that they could be drawn from the quivers at an instant's warning. Narkus saw us watching, and, sweeping a hand toward the darkness before us, he said: "Loopmuke."
That, as we well knew, is the Droman word for ape-bat. Also, he tried to tell us about something else; but the only thing intelligible in his pantomimic explanations was that it was about a creature even more formidable than a wild loopmuke.
It was with keen anticipation on the part of Rhodes and myself that we set out that morning. For an hour or so, there was no change. Not a single light-wraith had shone in the awful blackness. Then, after passing through a particularly broken and tortuous place, be began to see them, not many, however, and all were faint. Another hour passed, and of a sudden the walls drew together, and the roof came sloping down, down and down until we had to go bent over. Narrower and narrower grew the way, crowding us at last to the water's edge and then into the very stream itself.
Drorathusa and Narkus were leading, Rhodes and I bringing up the rear. Fortunately the current was a gentle one; had it been otherwise, the place would have been simply impassable.
"I certainly," said Mil ton at last, "admire the man (maybe he was a woman) who first came through this awful place."
The next instant he made a rush forward. Delphis, the white-haired girl, had slipped out into deep water. Rhodes caught her just in time to save her from immersion and drew her back to the shallow water by the wall. Not a cry, not the faintest sound had escaped her, and now she only laughed. Beauty was not the only quality that these Droman ladies possessed to win your admiration.
For ten minutes or so, we toiled our way down that tunnel, now hugging the wall, now following the shallows out into the stream and at times to the other side. Then of a sudden there was an exclamation from Drorathusa, and the next moment we had issued from the tunnel and the stream and found ourselves in a great lofty cavern.
"Great Rameses!" I exclaimed as we stepped forth. "Look at those things."
Rhodes, I found, had already halted and was gazing' up at them—two colossi, one on either side of the mouth of the tunnel. These carven monsters (we were, of course, standing between theii' bases) were seated, and one was a male, the other a female. They had not been fashioned in situ but clearly had been brought to the spot in sections. But how had those massive pieces of rock, the smallest of which weighed tons, been raised into their places? Who can tell? It remains, and probably always will remain, one of the mysteries of that lost and mysterious land.
We were getting rather used to strange things now; but, so remarkable were these great statues, for some minutes we lingered there before them.
The Dromans had moved on. We followed, to find ourselves in a few moments before a monstrous carven human head. There was the great pedestal, and there, lying face upward before it, was the great head—that and nothing more.
"Poor fellow," said I as we walked around the caput, "where is the rest of him? And why did they leave the head lying like this?"
"I have an idea," Milton returned, "that there was no rest of him, that this head was all that was to be placed upon that pedestal."
I suppose that Rhodes was right. One wonders what happened there so long ago, why the great caput was never raised to the place which they had prepared for it. No man can tell that now. All we know is that there the great head lies, that there it has lain for untold thousands of years.
At last Milton Rhodes climbed up and stood upon the chin, in order, as he said, "to get a good view of the poor gink's phiz." And not only that, but he stood upon the poor fellow's nose—yes, balanced himself on one foot on the very tip of it!
I turned my look to the Dromans with some apprehension, for I did not know what superstitious ideas they might entertain, feared that to them this aerobatic stunt of Rhodes might be sacrilege itself. My misgivings, however, were groundless. The Dromans were delighted. They burst into merry laughter; they applauded vociferously. Even Drorathusa laughed outright.
Little wonder, forsooth, for a pretty figure Rhodes made balanced up' there on the poor fellow's olfactory protuberance. A fine posture truly for one of the world's (I mean our world's) great scientists; and I could not help wondering what certain dignified old fellows (Milton called them fossils) would have thought could they by television or some miracle have seen him there. And what would the Dromans themselves think? Well, I was glad when he came down and there was an end to that foolishness.
And I put in a prompt remonstrance.
"We," I told him, "have—or, at any rate, we ought to have—a certain dignity to uphold. For we are the representatives, as it were, of that great sunlit world above, the world of Archimedes, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Edison—not a world of Judys and Punches!"
"Aw, Bill," said Rhodes, "now quit your kidding."
What can you do with a man like that?
We soon quitted the spot. The
light-masses were all about us
now. Some came slowly gliding,
some crawling along the floor; some along the walls and the roof. Others
floated along overhead or hung motionless
in the air. The changes of
form were sometimes very rapid and
certainly as unaccountable as the
masses themselves. Occasionally we
would see a mass slowly take form in
the darkness and as slowly fade into
darkness again. Where did the light
come from, where did it go? And the
explanation of this uncanny phenomenon?
Undoubtedly some electric
manifestation, said Rhodes, analogous
perhaps to the light of the
aurora. That, I objected, really explained
nothing, and Rhodes admitted
that that was just what it did
explain—nothing.
The spirits of the Dromans rose higher as we toiled our way onward and down. They quickened their pace, and, as we swung along like soldiers marching, they suddenly broke into a song or rather a chant, the wonderful contralto voice of Drorathusa leading, the sounds coming back from the dark secret places of the cavern in echoes sweet as the voices heard in fairyland.
The light-masses were steadily increasing in number and volume. Especially was this pronounced in the great chambers. Fungoid growths were seen, coleopterous insects and at last a huge scolopendra of an aspect indescribably horrible. From this repulsive creature, the Dromans and myself drew back, but Milton Rhodes bent over it in a true scientific scrutiny and ecstasy.
"Look, Bill, look!" he cried suddenly, pointing. "The body has thirty-five somites or segments."
"Thirty-five segments?" I queried, scratching my head and wishing that the scolopendra was in Jericho. "What is there so wonderful about that?"
"Why," said he, "in the Scolo-pendridæ of our own world, the segments of the body never exceed twenty-one. And this one has thirty-five. Really, Bill, I must keep so remarkable and splendid a specimen."
"Great Gorgons and Hydras! Keep it? Don't touch the horrible thing. It may be venomous, deadly as a cobra. And, besides, you'll have plenty of time to collect specimens, and probably some of them will make this one look like the last rose of summer. Leave the hideous thing alone. Why, the Dromans will think that you are dippy. Fact is, I believe that they are beginning to think so already."
"Let 'em!" said Rhodes with true philosophic indifference. "People thought that Galileo was crazy, and Newton and Darwin; Columbus was non compos mentis,[2] Fulton was dippy and Edison was looney. Yes, at one time the great inventor bore the beautiful sobriquet of Looney Edison. Listen to me, Billy, me lad: the greatest compliment that a scientist can ever receive is to be called a sap by sapheads."
All that, I admitted, was very true and truly cogent in its place; but this was not its place, and the Dromans certainly were neither sapheads nor saps. To my relief and, indeed, to my surprize, I dissuaded him from taking the thing as a specimen, and on we went once more.
At length we left the stream, which went plunging into a more fearsome place, into which no man could ever dream of following it. Soon after that, the descent became very steep. The going, however, was good, and we went down at a rapid pace. This lasted for two or three hours, and we had descended many hundreds of feet. The slope then suddenly became gentle, and we were making our way through a perfect maze of tortuous galleries and passages, which at times opened into halls and chambers.
The light was no longer in masses but in streams—streams that crawled and shivered and shook, as though in it spirit things were immersed and were struggling to break from it. The fungal growths were everywhere now. There were mushrooms with pilei bigger than umbrellas. Shapes as grotesque as if seen through the eyes of madness. There were growths, too, that one could almost think beautiful, and masses hideous and slimy as so much octopi. A strong and most unpleasant odor filled the place. And here and there, almost everywhere in the strange fungoid growth, were things creeping, crawling—things for which I can find no name, and for some of them I am glad that I can not.
It was a weird scene, an indescribable scene, one horrible, mysterious and yet strangely wonderful too. A place gloomy and weird as any ever conceived by Dante or Doré. And through it human forms were moving, and its stillness was broken by human voices, raised in song; and moving with these human beings, these inhabitants of a world as alien as that of Venus or of Mars, were Rhodes and I, we two modern men from the great modern world above—the wonderful, the awful world of the sun.
Of a sudden an exclamation rang out—an exclamation that stilled the song on the instant, brought the party to an abrupt halt and the bow of Narkus and that of Thumbra from the quivers.
The exclamation had broken from Rhodes; he was pointing into the gloom off to our right, a tense, expectant look on his face.
I peered with straining eyes but could see nothing there. A few moments passed, and nothing was seen. I then turned to Rhodes to ask him what it was; but the words I was about to speak were never uttered. Instead, I gave something like a cry and whirled round. For a sound had come from out the fungoid growth and the darkness behind us—a sound as of a slimy thing moving, slipping.
Nothing, however, was to be seen there, and silence, utter silence had fallen upon the spot—silence suddenly broken by another exclamation from Rhodes.
"Great heaven!" I cried as I whirled back to the direction in which he was pointing. "They are all around us!"
"Look, Bill—look at that!"
I saw nothing for a second or two. And then, off in the darkness beyond the reach of our lights, it was as though, in one spot, the darkness itself was moving—yes, the darkness itself.
"See that, Bill?"
I saw it. And the next instant I saw two great eyes, eyes that were watching us—and moving.
- ↑ "A very decided luminosity has been observed to proceed from dissecting-room subjects, the light thus evolved being sufficient to render the forms of the bodies, as well as those of muscles and other dissected parts (which are peculiarly bright), almost as distinct as in the daylight. . . Three cases are recorded by Sir H. Marsh, in which an evolution of light took place from the living body. . . The light in each case is described as playing around the face, but not as directly proceeding from the surface; and in one of these instances, which was recorded by Dr. D. Donovan, not only was the luminous appearance perceptible over the head of the patient's bed, but luminous vapors passed in streams through the apartment."—Dr. Carpenter.
- ↑ "The very children, it is said, pointed to their foreheads as he passed, being taught to regard him as a kind of madman."—Irving.