Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 11/Steve Lidyard's adventure
STEVE LIDYARD’S ADVENTURE; OR, THE MYSTERIOUS CITY.
By Edwin F. Roberts, Author of "Queen’s Musketeers,” "Claribel’s Mystery,” &c.
I give the following as I heard it from Steve’s own lips, as I and half a dozen of us sat in a garden one sunny afternoon,—a fine cedar lifting up its stately and spreading branches between us and the ardent sun above, and forming a very welcome shade. Cigars and sherry were within easy reach, and among our listeners, besides the City “fogies,” there were their matrons and one or two very pretty girls: admirable listeners these last, when they did not, with their own pleasant prattle and musical laughter, break upon the more serious progress of the conversation.
“So it’s my turn, is it?” said Steve, in reply to a challenge. “Very well, here goes.”
Steve Lidyard, I may say, par párenthèse, was a fine athletic fellow, much on the sunny side of thirty, bearded, bronzed, and bearing about him evident tokens of having seen hard work and done good service, and, as he had been “out with Garibaldi” up to the last catastrophe at Aspromonte,—as he wore a medal or two, and could sport a decoration, though only a “civilian,”—it was evident, and well known, in fact, that Steve Lidyard was one of that gallant band of Englishmen who had volunteered to fight in a cause not their own, save that “Liberty” is a watchword which rings across the world, and has therefore a significance to every Englishman’s sense to which his heart responds in an instant, and in no passive manner either. Steve Lidyard, it is seen from my exordium, is therefore a man of some mark; and I shall now proceed with his narrative, which, according to a phrase now in vogue, is “awful to relate.”
“So it is my turn, is it?” said Steve. “Well, I’ll astonish your weak nerves, if you have any, which I assume at once,—'nerves’ being quite a fashionable disease; so I’ll give you an episode of one of my adventures when ‘out with Garibaldi.’
“I pass over our entrance into Palermo,” continued Steve, after some little introductory matter, “over excursions into the wild country towards the mountains, sometimes in pursuit of the flying enemy, sometimes in small detachments being driven back and pursued in return; and as you may recollect that ‘Bombina,’ son ‘Bomba,’ had put the place under martial law, all the nameless atrocities peculiar to the soldiery of Ferdinand were committed; but all this is beside the subject of my relation, so we will pull up at once, and try back.
“I had some curiosity to see a little of the country inland, of which not much appeared to be known, and before long the opportunity was offered me. I had under me a party of a dozen men, plucky fellows every one, and crack shots into the bargain. With these I had some very ticklish business to perform.
“Some brigands, miscreant cut-throats imported from Calabria, mixed up with others of Ferdinand’s broken and half — disorganised troops, were scattered hither and thither, making now as they best could for any Sicilian port favourable to the Bourbons, where they might again unite their shattered and scattered forces; these, in broken bands, were straggling to and fro, and several companies of Garibaldians were deputed to decimate these gentry, if they objected to be taken prisoners, and so put up with the casualties of fair and open war.
"Some considerable distance from the city of Palermo there lies a region of wild and sterile mountains for the most part, the interior of which is traversed by a valley almost parallel to one much better known as the Valley of Ispica, the former being shunned by the dwellers of the region from superstitions of a most formidable character, and which, in fact, are its especial property, thus rendering its precincts unapproachable; and even those who have by hap strayed into its recesses have brought back such a catalogue of its horrors as was always calculated, from immemorial time, to curdle the very blood! Ugh!"
Steve Lidyard shuddered as he spoke, and sent a "sensational" thrill through his listeners.
"In fact, the Harz Mountains, the Black Forest, with their charcoal-burners, their Erl kings and grisly hunters, the witch-haunted 'Brocken,' the impish Blocksberg, scarcely rival in diablerie the traditions of this eldrich valley, and certainly do not outvie them."
"But, goodness gracious me, Mr. Lidyard," cried Lucy Parker, "what was there in these,—these stories, after all?"
Steve turned on the fair speaker one of those looks peculiar to him, shaking his head as in mild reproach, and affecting surprise at the interruption; to which, Lucy Parker being strong-minded, she paid little heed, and, reassured by the encouraging laughter of the rest, came to the charge once more.
"Come, don't be silly, sir; let us know at once," she exclaimed, with startling well-affected severity. Steve sighed, shook his head, still reproach fully, as though he would plainly say, "This is really too bad."
"Do you mean to speak, Mr. Lidyard, do you intend to answer my question? " demands the imperious young beauty, to which, entre nous, Steve is a slave. Steve nods assent.
"Did you ever hear of ghouls?" asks Steve, in a deep tragedy whisper.
"O!" ejaculated the ladies.
"Of vampires?" proceeds Steve, improving his opportunity.
"Gracious! Goodness!"
This time the ejaculations go as in "a horror skilfully moved."
"Of anthropophagi?" proceeds the bearded narrator.
"Of what, sir?"
This question imperiously, fiercely put, in fact.
"Of an-thro-po-pha-gi," pronouncing it slowly. Under any circumstances it is not a nice word, and perhaps the slower the better. Lucy Parker, resuming the narrative form, nodded her head at each syllable, as though she meant to master it thoroughly.
"An-thro-pop-poff—pooh! what?"
"Men who eat one another, whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, who"
"Whatever can he be talking about?" said Rosy Parker, Lucy's pretty giggling sister.
"Hadn't you better let me proceed?" put in Steve.
"Well,—hem, —yes; proceed, move on."
"With all my heart. Well, one morning with my party,—we had bivouacked for the night under the shelter of some crags,—I found myself and comrades waking up in the chill morning air; but we were soon astir and warm with motion once more, and I really admired the place of our retreat: some over hanging rocks completely sheltering us from the dews, which are very copious, and in other respects the spot was very eligible—well, we awoke"
"Famished, no doubt."
"Hungry, if you please, not famished! No, we had in our haversacks some cold fowl, bread, and so on, and each one had his flask of wine or brandy, as the case might be: in fact, we had provided for a couple of days at least; leaving it to chance to renew our supplies when necessity should urge us to forage for them.
"I must tell you that we had travelled, with our rifles, revolvers, ammunition, haver sacks, and so on, through a country which, the more we ascended, seemed to consist of nothing but huge boulders, all presenting an aspect of grim and sterile desolation inexpressibly dismal to contemplate. Vast masses of fractured rocks, a very Arabia Petrea of a region; rugged ravines, and as difficult as dangerous to clamber through and over; while below us, far away now, we could distinctly behold the fair 'greeneries' fringing the lower slopes of the mountain, or, rather, mountains; for the chain seemed to run on in endless links, —colossal, rugged, with a touch of the horribly sublime about it.
"We beheld then—what, as clearly we had not remarked on the preceding evening,—that this was the way (entrance it could scarcely be called) into the shunned valley I have just mentioned, and, looking downward now, on the opposite side found all 'beautiful exceeding' to the eye; for green and purple blended formed a mirage round the vast stems of great old trees; the rich-green leafage, the yellow oranges and citrons, the ruddy grapes, a wandering intertwining under and over growth; and oh, didn't we wish we had found that inviting pass before!"
There now occurred a slight pause, which gave the narrator the opportunity of moistening his throat with a glass of sherry. He then resumed.
"Turning the eye from the valley, as we sat, pipe in mouth,—we had halted to look about us,—I may say that a lovelier panorama than that which now greeted our eager gaze would be difficult to meet with, save alone in those golden climes which border the Mediterranean on its European side.
"The morning sun," continued Steve, rising now from a poet into a colourist, "flashing across the Ægean, tinting with myriad miraculous hues what soon became a waving sea of molten splendour, fell on a gaunt spur of rock which overlooked the mysterious valley—the Val di Dimône, forming, in the midst of this fervid glare, a wondrous association, as real as unreal, of mountain ridges and darkling gloom, enshrouded valleys,—fathomless gulfs rather, rugged grim rivers, which ran, but irregularly—east and west across the length of this half-enchanted island.
"What, in fact, did we not see within the limits of the horizon of blending gold and purple which faded between sea and air, and was crossed by pearly lines, these again tinted rosily here and there! What an enchanting prospect—so boundless, so indescribably lovely! Islands, continents, seas, bays, cities, shifting and changing everlastingly! I believe now in Turner's painting of 'Ulysses and Polyphemus,' all vague, wandering, dreamy, as it is; but here we had it in its actual reality, from the mountain peaks to the cities far below: the latter, marble-white, dotting the distance; the blue level of the calm sea beyond, over which we could see stately ships glide along, the huge steam-frigate forging ahead, the smoke coming out of her vast funnel and curling into a thin vapour as it does now from the tip of my cigar.
"The sound of a bugle waking up the sleeping echoes in the mountains put every ear on the stretch. I knew by the call," continued Steve, "that it didn't belong to our side, as, for obvious reasons, there's a difference in notation, so to speak. We were at once on the qui vive; and by Jove, I can tell you, not before it was necessary.
"All eyes were turned in one direction,—that, of course, from whence the sound came; and across the peaks of the mountain ridge,—a singular conglomeration of limestone and lava,—there appeared a dozen military caps with beards peeping beneath their fronts,—caps which we knew but too well; and presently more appeared, making in all about twenty men, including rifles,—a trifle not to be forgotten.
"They crossed the ridge, evidently having a suspicion that we were somewhere about,—crossed the ridge, as I have said,—descended into a ravine, and watching for about an hour, I began to understand that they were seeking to circumvent and trap us, intending, by the détour they took, to ascend and surprise us on the plateau we occupied.
"'Keep your fire, lads,' said I, 'while I clamber up in this direction.' I saw a pathway bearing upward, looking very much like a fissure or enormous rent. 'I will fire as a signal if they are likely to outflank us;' and, rifle in hand, I ascended, soon attaining a height where, at a turn, a perpendicular wall of rock barred farther progress.
"Nevertheless, I could look down from my 'bad eminence.' Heavens! what a hideous gorge descended sheer below into fathomless deeps, as if it were the black and cindery crater of some volcano, which, having 'shut up shop' there, had transferred its business elsewhere; but, joking apart, anything more appalling than that measureless depth, its indescribable and lonely aggregate of all that is hideous, its black, cindery, and rifled interior, exceeded in the aggregate of what is stupendously terrible, all I had ever read of.
"Well and fitly was that awful region below called the Val di Dimône.
"Stretching forward to have a fuller view of this Tartarean region, and leaning against some loose conglomerate to look into the Hades where the ancient fires had burnt out, I found the small rampart yield, and—horror of horrors!—I felt myself sliding helplessly towards the verge of this awful gulf!"
At this juncture of the narrative, and naturally so,—for during a short pause ever so many minor events may occur, such as a glass of wine, a fresh cigar, &c,—the lady listeners gave utterance to a suppressed scream, and the gentlemen turned pale, each one shifting uneasily in his seat.
"Where I was descending to," went on the young man, "or how I was stayed in my way into the depths of an abyss that would have fitted one of the dismallest books of Dante's 'Inferno,' I know not. I found myself seated on a ledge, where I was safe for the present, though a little scratched and bruised; and I had clung with instinctive tenacity to my rifle: this indispensable adjunct to my further safety, and very likely what for a time I might have to depend on for sustenance, was still in my possession.
"I now heard the faint sound of dropping shot coming from the other side of the riven shell I now occupied, and believing that my lads were hotly engaged, I sought for a way back; but, following the course of the ledge, found that it descended and wound round, in and out, in a most curious manner, until, at last losing sight of the accursed place, I found myself sole occupant of a spot, a glance round which made my heart beat; for if the other was but a simple and unpicturesque horror, this was calculated to inspire one with a more than nameless awe.
"I stood in the midst of an excavated city,—a city as old, probably, as the mythic ages themselves; and, since all I saw suggested mythic types, this must have been one that may have assisted Hesiod in his 'Genesis.'
"I stood," continued Steve,—descending a little from the ladder Lempriere had lent him,—"I stood in the midst of a street, wide, smooth, level, clean, as if newly swept; subterranean pathways, hewn streets, stretched out on either hand, and, looking upward along the solid walls—or rather, exterior of houses, palaces, I know not what they may have been—all hewn, pillared, carved, some exquisitely, others on a more colossal scale of rudeness—all having a wild fantastic sort of life-in-death in their aspect. A strip of sky clipping sharply over the extreme edge of these singular cuttings, allowed the red sun to pour his rays downward, where they lighted up this enormous 'trench'—I can call it nothing else, street as it may have been, and stupendously beautiful too,—lighted it up and filled it with a stream of meandering, but unreal and shadowy gold.
"Everything," he continued, "as I looked upward in bewilderment, took an almost Alpine altitude, and row after row, the habitations, cut, carved, hollowed from the bottom to the very top, gave indications of an enormous humanity which must have existed here at one time.
"These streets, these chambers, these weird, solemn, silent receptacles of the mighty dead, now dust,—for I began to gather into my conjecture catacombs as adjuncts of a once mighty city, a city of that far, far off infinite past, which may be in the dreamland of mythology or the earliest cradles of fable, if you like,—made me dumb with astonishment, with awe; and I was traversing those awful silent spaces where the foot of man had trod—when"
"The last time, of course," broke in Lucy saucily, as though by way of relief; "but, I beg your pardon, Steve ; it is growing interesting, so please to go on."
"A turning to which I came at last,—there always is a turning in the very longest lane, you know,—a turning indeed invited me to pass into a wide, a spacious, a noble street; pillars, pilasters, pediment, frieze—I know not what adornment it had or had not—were there, and which would have challenged admiration for their rare beauty and finish had not the towering scale been so colossal as to be absolutely crushing in its vastness.
"As I strolled on, my astonishment, my awe, hovering on the confines of terror, increased; for while I admitted the singular harmony of proportion carried out on either side, I could not but think of Polyphemus of the Titans, of some one-eyed Cyclop, some bruising Lestrigonian, who might be thrusting his huge arm forth and snatching me up as a mere mouthful, after which morsel he would scarcely deign to pick his teeth.
"The unearthly sense of life, of existence suspended, and so remaining petrified, was almost overwhelming. As I still rambled on, I came to porticoes again leading to openings where there were no doors. 'Were there ever any doors to these wondrous edifices?' I asked myself. Towering pillars outlived windows, where windows there were none. 'Were there ever any?' As I walked now almost breathlessly along, having totally forgotten my pursuers in the novelty of my position, I could not but expect to see some one or other of the old dwellers come to the doorway and salute me. Taking courge now, I entered into a dwelling that might perhaps be statelier than the rest, its chambers and stone staircases lighted up by means I cared not to account for, though the light was rather a softened gloom than a clear bright daylight such as I had left without.
"Without!—but where?
"To my surprise, to my dismay rather, I soon found that what I had taken for a dwelling was only the section of a vast catacomb, and the real ancient city, whose (once) living had peopled the grand and gloomy receptacle of the dead, must be contiguous to this spot, but which, as yet, I had not fallen upon; or, that it might have been subject to the influence of earthquake or volcanic fires, and so blended itself and become lost in the formless chaos of the surrounding mountain region.
"Retracing my steps and again passing on, the light began to stream along the floor, so to call it, ruddier, brighter, until, as I arrived at the extremity of the passage, it became a perfect blaze of sunshine. Before quitting the said broad commodious passage, I took the opportunity to turn and look back.
"Well, at the extreme end where I had entered a few minutes ago, a diminished orifice giving entrance to a circle of light showed the opening, while on either hand, to the right and to the left, were darker and gloomier passages leading farther and deeper into recesses more mysterious, and which, I promise you, I did not care to explore.
"Nothing had impeded my footsteps hitherto,—no mounds, no fallen rocks, no crumbling bit of ruin lay in my path; no evil odours had assaulted the sense. Where, then, had they placed their dead, after all?
"With my own life in peril, which might meet me at any moment for aught I knew, I could not forbear asking myself two or three curious questions, arising naturally from all that was at hand, but principally, Where did the dead of this 'dead' city repose?
"Evidently," he continued thoughtfully, "the dead I was so curious about must have been sepultured and walled-in in the living rock, for I could now distinctly trace the outlines of slabs, mural tablets, covered with inscriptions and characters of quite an unknown form, and quite beyond my comprehension.
"So, concluding my thinking, and following my way, I crossed the last granite threshold, and stood in the very heart and burst of the sunshine. But what a place, what a scene, what horror mingled with a startling sublimity, met my bewildered gaze now!
"I stood in a great square, the four sides of which, in pillar and cornice, in frieze, pediment, and every imaginable form of architectural splendour, all rose upon a scale of dimensions which quite baffled the powers of calculation; and there clomb up, hundreds of feet above me, a superb square into which the sun poured down its rays as into a well, so that for a moment I was half blinded, and indeed, half stupefied.
"But this was not all. Looking around me on every side, I certainly uttered a cry of irrepressible fear; but the fear chained my feet to the ground, and I could not move a step.
"What I could take in, in my bewildered glance, were countless enormous pillars, sixty or eighty feet high, supported by pediments equally colossal. Each pillar was a c aryatide, which, to simplify the matter, means that it was carved in the shape of a woman; and they were multiplied by scores, by hundreds, by myriads, I verily believe. But the distortion of these monstrous figures, the insufferable horror of their vast distorted countenances, the demoniac expression stamped on their varying faces—faces!—the glaring of their cold, stony, fiendish eyes, all so living, as it were, in the very force of expression—froze me. The ample tide and flow of descending hair, flying too in every direction, had, under the skill of the workman, become a petrifaction quite as wonderful; for the highest, if distorted, form of art was evident. Tt was as fantastic in design as it seemed to be revelling in a phantasy of Gorgonian horrors, and which it may be the province of a particular age and clime to introduce, but which really seems to belong to insanity alone to invent.
"This, and such as this, formed the frontage facing where I stood. The ghostly towering frontage to my right might have represented a 'Macaber' dance—a Dance of Death, but after an antique fashion far more appalling than Holbein's, and utterly destitute of his sinister humour.
"The frontage to the left consisted of one vast human face, its dimensions being only to be guessed at. It was so calm, terrible, appalling, even in its awful quietude, that I scarcely knew whether that or its magnitude overwhelmed me most.
"I could look no more, bear no more, endure nothing further. I turned and fled, regaining the streets of the catacombs, where, at least, I had no sufficiency of fresh terrors to feast upon. Hurrying on, almost deliriously, I emerged at last by a narrow way leading to a ravine, and presently stood panting in the open air, inhaling gratefully the refreshing coolness of the passing breeze. I then sat down to think—to try to think, rather; but I could not. All seemed like a dream, a nightmare; all surely must be a dream, but a dream out of which I found it impossible to awaken; and which therefore must, with all its phantasy, partake of reality.
"By degrees I began to recall certain vague mythic traditions found in wonderful old books, to the effect that in some part of the island there was a 'Palace of Monsters;' that this place, in very ancient times, was haunted and infested by a race of evil creatures, who, under the forms of women, and denominated 'Lamiæ,' 'Striges,' 'Phorkyas,' and other hard names, worked out all sorts of hideous mischiefs among men; and the colossal pile I had quitted, so gorgeous yet so hideous,—this monstrous monument hewn and carved by a might allied to the supernatural, in order to perpetuate a creed of darkness,—was ocular and demonstrative proof that fables are not so remote from fact as men are willing to suppose.
"While musing thus, I again heard gunshots ringing in a valley beyond.
"I had had quite enough of this, and was not sorry to be in motion again. Grasping my rifle, after seeing that the charges were right, I strode out by an aperture so narrow that I could scarcely discern a faint glimmer of light at the extremity, and went on, slowly feeling my way, for I knew not what awful pitfall might yawn before me till in the blessed sun shine once more. So, having taken a pull at my flask, I toiled on, and, after about an hour, found myself descending a mountain slope, not a vestige of the astounding vision I had seen being within sight: all lay behind me buried in silence and solitude, a vast and cavernous tomb, never again to be wended, perhaps, by the foot of man.
"Suddenly, however, I was brought up with a start, a cry of suppressed terror escaping my lips; for all of a moment I pulled up on the verge of a chasm some seven or eight feet wide, while it descended down, down below, as into a bottomless pit, lost in a darkness which the sun never lighted up.
"I had blindly, at sudden sight of this horrible chasm, cast my rifle across; and lo! a moment after, a mocking laugh greeted me: an olive-tinted scoundrel I had come into collision with before, and had no reason to love, stood on the opposite side, on a space somewhat lower than the one I occupied. By this he had caught up my rifle, and then put it butt down, leaning against the rock, and within reach of his hand.
"His laugh absolutely chilled me; but, besides his own rifle, he had also mine, and was doubly armed, and had a command of my life any moment he chose. I had no way of escape. Deliberately I saw him lift up his weapon, take aim at me, and I closed my eyes, feeling my knees double under me as I murmured a brief prayer.
"He fired. Why the bullet missed me, as it did, I know not; and attribute it to his having aimed at my head, which my momentary collapse removed out of his line. A moment, and I nerved myself to the worst.
"I sprang across the chasm like a panther, and found myself in his grasp, but my sword-shaped bayonet, which I had instinctively drawn, was driven through his breast, the force of the leap having given me this advantage, and we fell together on the platform."
"Ugh! how shocking! how lucky for you!" And once more every listener's heart experienced a delightfully horrible thrill.
"The impetus of my desperate leap cast us both at the moment from the extreme verge more upon the platform. I was faint with reaction, but this was speedily dissipated by feeling myself being drawn, by the last efforts of a dying determined man, to the edge of the cursed chasm. He intended no doubt that we should both go down together.
"His body was hanging over the ledge, and by an effort I managed to release myself from his relaxing grasp, and then I heard———"
Here Steve slightly changed colour.
"I heard that horrid crash which succeeds the fall of a human being from some great height,—a sound that, I venture to say, has not its equivalent in nature: it carries a horror beyond words; and I fainted. * * *
"How I got back to Palermo safe and sound needs further details; but as I am here in good trim to tell you my story, why, my service to you. Lucy, my love, a glass of wine, and if there's another cigar about, I'll thank you to hand it over."