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Title: The world below
Author: S. Fowler Wright
Release date: June 22, 2025 [eBook #76352]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Books for Today Ltd, 1929
Credits: Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD BELOW ***
THE WORLD BELOW
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FICTION
THE ADVENTURE OF WYNDHAM SMITH
THE ISLAND OF CAPTAIN SPARROW
LORD’S RIGHT IN LANGUEDOC
SEVEN THOUSAND IN ISRAEL
THE SCREAMING LAKE
THE SIEGE OF MALTA
THE NEWS GODS LEAD
PRELUDE IN PRAGUE
VENGEANCE OF GWA
THE HIDDEN TRIBE
ORDEAL OF BARATA
MEGIDDO’S RIDGE
BEYOND THE RIM
FOUR DAYS’ WAR
THE WITCHFINDER
ELFWIN
DELUGE
DREAM
DAVID
POWER
DAWN
VERSE
THE SONG OF SONGS AND OTHER POEMS
SCENES FROM THE MORTE D’ARTHUR
THE RIDING OF LANCELOT
THE BALLAD OF ELAINE
RESIDUE
TRANSLATION
DANTE’S DIVINE COMEDY
POLITICAL
POLICE AND PUBLIC
SHOULD WE SURRENDER COLONIES?
BIOGRAPHY
THE LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE WORLD BELOW
by
S. FOWLER WRIGHT
Author of “Deluge,” “The Island of Captain Sparrow,” etc.
BOOKS FOR TODAY LTD
50-52 OLD BROMPTON ROAD
LONDON S.W. 7
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second Impression
Copyright, 1929
Made and Printed in Great Britain by Jarrold & Sons Ltd.,
Norwich, Mcmxlix
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
BOOK I. THE AMPHIBIANS
I. OF PLACE AND TIME
II. THE EMPTY DAWN
III. DEATH?
IV. THE OPAL WAY
V. THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE
VI. THE FROG-MOUTHS
VII. CAPTURE
VIII. THE BIRDS
IX. THE TUNNEL OF FEAR
X. THE AMPHIBIANS
XI. THE PROBLEM
XII. THE MARCH
XIII. THE KILLERS
XIV. THE HALT
XV. THE PLAN OF ATTACK
XVI. THE SENTRY
XVII. THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE
XVIII. THE ARSENAL OF THE KILLERS
XIX. THE DUEL IN THE NIGHT
XX. THE BOW
XXI. THE BAT-WINGS
XXII. NIGHT IN THE ARSENAL
XXIII. THE ESCAPE
XXIV. THE FIGHT IN THE ARSENAL
XXV. THE FORBIDDEN THING
XXVI. THE TRIAL
XXVII. THE VERDICT
XXVIII. THE FATE OF THE KILLERS
BOOK II. THE WORLD BELOW
I. COUNSEL
II. THE UNKNOWN WAY
III. THE PERIL OF THE LAKE
IV. THE SILENCE IN THE WOOD
V. THE TEMPLE
VI. THE DOWNWARD PATH
VII. THE LIVING BOOK
VIII. THE TREATY
IX. THE FLAME OF LIFE
X. VISIONS
XI. WAR
XII. THE FATE OF TEMPLETON
XIII. SEPARATION
XIV. LOVE AND WAR
XV. RELEASE
XVI. RETURN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Book I
THE AMPHIBIANS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I
OF PLACE AND TIME
“Applied science,” said the Professor, “is always incredible to the
vulgar mind.”
“You know, George, they really did go--disappeared absolutely--and
there’s only one door to the room, and we sat round it. There’s no kid
about that,” young Danby added--perhaps recognising that his father
lacked somewhat in the amenities of social intercourse.
“If I go at all, I shall take an axe,” I remarked irrelevantly.
Bryant leant forward, and knocked the ashes out of his pipe.
“Templeton went like a Pirate Chief,” he said, smiling slightly.
It was the first time he had spoken.
“Look here, Bryant,” I said, “tell me what really happened, and I’ll do
my best to believe it.”
He hesitated a moment, and then answered slowly, “It’s true enough, what
they’ve told you, as far as we _can_ tell it. As to theories of time and
space, I know no more than you do. I used to think they were obvious.
I’ve heard the Professor talk two nights a week for three years, and
I’ve realised that it isn’t all quite as simple as it seemed, though I
don’t get much further. But the next room’s a fact. We lay things down
on the central slab, and the room goes dark, and we go back in two
minutes, and it gets light again, and they’re still there. And the
Professor says he’s projected them 500,000 years ahead in the interval,
and they don’t look any the worse for the journey.”
“And it must be true, because they don’t deny it,” I said flippantly.
“It sounds rather a dull game, but not very difficult.”
“Yes, I know how it sounds,” he answered, “and we thought just the same;
but it did seem to prove one thing--that it did no harm to the objects
of the experiment.
“If they went anywhere, at least they came back safely. So at last we
tried it with Harry Brett--and he didn’t. We left him there, and we went
back, and the room was empty. It’s just a bare circular room,
metal-walled, with one exit. You can see for yourself. It wouldn’t hide
a fly.
“The next day Harry’s wife came and kicked up a row, and we got
frightened, and told Templeton, and he said he didn’t believe a word of
it, but he was going to find out, and so we tried it on him too.”
“And he disappeared in the same way?”
“No, he didn’t. He came out all right, and he said, ‘It’s true enough,
but I reckon you’ve settled Brett. But what’s the use of half-an-hour?
I’m going back now. Give me a year, and I may find him.’
“The Professor told him he couldn’t repeat the experiment twice the same
night, but he could come back the next, and so he did--and that’s the
end of it so far.”
“But if he were to be gone for a year, and he went last Tuesday?”
“He wasn’t to be _gone_ for a year; he was to be _there_ for a year, and
be back in two minutes. That’s quite simple. The Professor’ll tell you.”
“But--if the Professor will excuse the remark--it wouldn’t be any good
if he did. I’ve read _The Time Machine_, and I know that space is
curved, thanks to Einstein’s enterprising investigation. I quite
understand that, if I got at the right distance from the earth (and my
eyesight were good enough), I should see our Darwinian ancestor shinning
up the tree-trunk for the fatal apple, but I don’t profess to follow
these mysteries further. When I had to learn science, I always preferred
the demonstrations. Now, if the Professor would project a pullet six
months old backward, and it returned a chicken----”
Young Danby laughed, and I saw Bryant’s eyes twinkle, but the Professor
answered me patiently.
“It is obviously impossible to project anything into the past, which is
fixed irrevocably.
“Otherwise there would be no finality, and the confusion would be
intolerable. It requires no scientific training of intellect to
understand that the ordered experience of life would become chaotic if,
for instance, upon reading of a long-past murder, I could project myself
into the past, and intervene to save the victim.
“In such event the murder would both have occurred, and been prevented:
which is absurd.
“But the future is different. It is unformed, or, at least, its facts
are in a condition of fluidity. We are all occupied in forming them. If
I kill an insect, I do not destroy it only, but its descendants also. I
also influence the lives of other insects with which they would have
mated, and which will form other alliances. From such alliances other
insects will be born which would not have existed. The present
consequences of any action, even the most momentous, are trivial,
because the present is but a moment. Its future consequences are
incalculably greater, because the future is infinite.
“Realising this, we recognise that our present actions belong to the
future almost entirely, and it becomes a less important possibility that
we may be able to project ourselves forward into some future period, and
influence its circumstances by the physical methods with which we are
familiar here.”
I don’t suppose the Professor had finished, but he paused for breath for
a second, and I took the chance he offered.
“I’m sorry I came a cropper over the pullet plan. And, anyway, there
wasn’t much sense in it. It would be too unprofitable to become popular.
But why not get the chickens, and project them forward? Nine months
ahead, say, and they come back cackling, with the first egg on the
table?--‘Professor Danby, the Magic Poulterer.’ There’s a fortune there,
anyway.”
For the first time the Professor showed distinct signs of irritation.
“You may not be a scientist,” he said, “but as a business man you must
know that you are talking nonsense. Would you send your chickens into
the future without a hen to brood them?
“Would you expect the people of some future age to rear them for your
benefit? When they discovered that they always vanished at maturity,
would they not kill them a few days earlier?--But this is idle talk.
Something of the kind you imagine may follow in the years to be, as the
penetration of the future, which is now the subject of theory and
experiment, becomes an exact science, and when it does, such minds as
yours will take it as casually as you now do the transmission of speech
and sight over the earth’s surface, in ways which your fathers would
have considered incredible. The scientists who have conquered space have
less honour in the mouths of men than Napoleon, who conquered
Europe,--and had not the brains to hold it. It is not reasonable to
suppose that those who conquer time will be more highly regarded.
“But all this is beside the point. There are two men who have vanished,
or so we tell you. We have no proof, and you are under no obligation to
believe us. We may have murdered them, though we have no evident object,
and your knowledge of our characters should enable you to discount that
possibility. If you will take the same risk, be it much or little, I
will find the sum you need, which is somewhat large, and which you tell
me is urgent.”
I said, “I do need it; and if I don’t accept at once, it’s because the
whole tale sounds too wild for believing. I should like to ask a few
questions.
“First, you say these two men have disappeared entirely. I believe what
you have told me is genuine, or at least that you believe it to be so.
But have you told me all? Is there nothing you are holding back that
might influence my decision? No?
“But you say that Templeton returned from his first adventure, and went
again the next night. Surely he told you something of his experiences?”
“No; he didn’t seem to want to talk,” Bryant answered; “he only said it
was too strange to explain, and he must go back and find out. When we
pressed him, he said he supposed we thought that, if a stranger to our
planet stood in his back-garden for half-an-hour, he would be able to
describe the whole earth in detail, from the marriage customs of Alaska
to the flora of the Zambesi. You know Templeton’s way.
“But he was anxious enough to get back, and he turned up next night with
a sack of things he thought he would find useful, and enough weapons in
his belt to stock an arsenal.”
“And he didn’t return,” I added, “so the things he took don’t seem to
have been sufficiently useful. As I said before, if I go, I shall take
an axe; for one reason, because I spend half my leisure in tree-felling,
and I know how to use it. For another, it’s a useful tool, and not only
intended for the destruction of your fellow-men. Whether I shall find
any fellow-men, I don’t know, but, if I go into a strange world, I don’t
propose to equip myself as though I intended to engage it in single
combat. It seems tactless to me.--But did he say nothing about
temperature? I don’t want to stumble into a glacial epoch, without even
a fur collar in which to face it.”
“You need have no fear of that,” said the Professor, “you will be at
least thirty-thousand years away from the nearest glacial epoch, and
Templeton didn’t seem to have suffered either from change of air or an
excessively high temperature.”
“He took plenty of clothes when he went back,” young Danby added, “but
he said it was much easier to throw off clothes you didn’t want than to
put on those you hadn’t got, and he didn’t know where he would be going,
‘it might be up, or it might be down!’--whatever that meant.”
“It doesn’t sound as though he had much confidence in the resources of
the future world,” I said doubtfully, “and there are about fifty
questions I should like to ask, but they wouldn’t make much difference,
even if you knew the answers, which you probably don’t.
“I’ve got to-morrow to make any preparations that seem worth while. I’ll
take the cheque now, Professor, if you will be so kind as to draw
it,--and I’ll give you a note to-morrow which will clear you with Clara,
if I follow Templeton’s example.”
CHAPTER II
THE EMPTY DAWN
The room which the Professor had constructed for his experiments was
circular, walled in an iron-grey metallic substance, empty, and, when
the door closed upon me, it was in absolute darkness.
Waiting there, I had a curious and disquieting consciousness, as of
absolute vacancy, such as a disembodied spirit might feel before its
next incarnation, but nothing happened, neither did the Professor return
as he promised. I knew that the two minutes were long past, but there
was no movement in the room, and no break in the darkness. Had he misled
me, I wondered, and was I the victim of some quite different
experiment,--perhaps of how much strain the human mind could endure, and
yet retain its sanity? And why was the room so much colder?--and the air
against my face was damp, as though a mist were rising.
I looked round, and saw nothing,--upward, and the three great stars of
Orion’s belt showed through the fog, and the upper part of the
constellation; and other stars were in the central heavens, but lower
down the mist hid them.
If I were indeed transported to some remote and future time, at least
the same stars were there, with little change, even of their positions
in the heavens.
It was a moment when any source of confidence was needed. I had imagined
many ways in which a strange world might appear around me, but I had
overlooked the possibility that I might arrive in the night-time. But
there I was, standing on something which felt hard and very smooth, and
afraid to move a step in the darkness.
How long I stood there I have no means of knowing. The mist increased,
and the night continued dark, and very strangely silent.
Fortunately, I had clothed myself warmly, in a suit of close-fitting
leather garments, with the fur turned inward. I had brought sandwiches
which I had calculated would be sufficient for two days, if other food
should be hard to gain, and I ate some of them, and then as the hours
passed, I grew too tired to stand, and sat down on the hard pavement
beneath me. It felt like very smooth and polished stone, and I reached
out on either hand, thinking to feel some joining which would confirm
this supposition, but could find nothing. As the hours passed, I tried
to lie and sleep, but only those who have done this for the first time
on a hard and level surface will understand my discomfort.
Yet I slept at last, and waked again, feeling both cold and hunger, and
ate and slept, and waked and ate and slept again, till I became aware
that all the food was gone, and still the night continued.
Then fear came, indeed.
Had Templeton come to this, and had he fired his foolish pistols into
the mocking stillness of a perpetual and lifeless night?
The silence was absolute.
An ordinary English night is full of joyous, furtive, or defiant sound.
A tropic night is full of life and movement, and noon is the time of
quietness.
The owl hoots even above the silence of the Arctic snow.
But here there was no faintest distant call, nor any whisper of
movement.
Yet I recalled that Templeton had been once, and returned, so once at
least he must have seen daylight. Then I realised that the darkness was
less dense, and the stars were dimmer.
Dawn approached, but how slowly!
I must have watched for hours while the sky flushed faintly, and still
the darkness was but slightly lifted.
Gradually, very gradually, the strange scene opened.
Sloping downward, and stretching as far as sight could reach toward the
coming sun, was one unbroken plain of purple-brown, on which were
growths of one kind only, compact and round, and averaging some eight
feet in height, like gigantic cabbages in shape, and of a very vivid
green.
Behind me rose a high grey cliff, so smooth and straight that I doubted
whether it were of natural formation, or the work of some directing
intelligence.
Between the cliff and the great plain there was a strip of smooth and
lucent paving, about twenty feet in breadth, on which I had rested while
the long night passed.
As the familiar sun rose slowly, a gradual gold spread over the vivid
green that sloped toward it, till the whole expanse shone with a
dazzling splendour; and as the rising light struck across the path on
which I stood, it showed a shining band of opalescence that stretched
right and left to the horizon limits, beneath the background of the
dark-grey wall.
The sky was of a deep unbroken blue, and the whole scene was one of
great though alien beauty.
I had imagined that I might find myself lost amidst the inexplicable
complexities of a civilisation different from anything of which I had
heard or known, or perhaps amidst enormous jungle growths, and beasts of
unfamiliar terrors. But here seemed only an interminable and barren
weirdness, offering neither menace to life nor any means by which to
support it.
So I thought, in a double error, as I was to learn very quickly.
The sun was by now almost completely visible, but there was no cry or
stir of life to break the silence, nor did any bird cross the blue
expanse above me.
The need to explore the new world in which I found myself was urgent.
There was no hope from inaction amid such surroundings. The cliff on one
side was a wall unclimbable. The purple soil, from which I could see
that a slight steam was rising, offered no invitation to lose myself
among the great green globes, which seemed to be its sole fertility.
There remained only the opal platform on which I stood, by which it
seemed that I might go on, to right or left, for ever.
With nothing to direct my choice, I turned southward, and strapping on
the knapsack in which I carried such things as I had brought with me,
but from which my stock of food was exhausted, and shouldering the
woodman’s axe, which was the only thing beside a heavy clasp-knife which
I carried as tool or weapon, I walked briskly forward.
CHAPTER III
DEATH?
I had gone no great distance, and the sun had yet scarcely cleared the
horizon, when I came to a high cavity in the cliff-wall.
It was of such height that an elephant would have looked a pigmy as he
passed inward, and of a shape too regular to have been formed without
the tools of some controlling mind.
The level sun shone into it, and illumed it, a very spacious tunnel, for
a considerable distance. Then it bent out of sight. I went inward a few
steps, and hesitated.
Anyone who, on a strange and lonely road, has reached a place where it
branches in two directions, without knowledge or sign to guide his
choice, will understand my feeling. Still in doubt, I walked back to the
cave-mouth, and then, down the middle of the opal way, came something
very swift and light. Someone who was neither man, nor beast, nor
monkey. Someone who ran without effort, but as in urgent and silent
fear.
She did not see me until she was level with the gap from which I watched
her, and when she did, she leapt sideways with incredible agility. The
leap took her to the very edge of the opal way, and her left foot
pressed for a second on the purple soil beyond. As it did so, with the
speed of light itself, the nearest of the bright-green globes shot open
in a score of writhing tentacles, of which one caught the slipping foot,
and dragged its victim down.
There came one scream, intense and dreadful, high and shrill, and then I
watched a lithe furred human-seeming body which struggled against the
clinging, twisting arm which dragged her in.
The tentacles were very long and thin, and of a brick-red colour. The
one which reached her first was not thicker, toward its end, than a
man’s finger, but for a moment only was there any doubt of the issue.
Then a stronger tentacle got a firm grip of its victim’s body, and as it
did so the scream came again, but shriller, louder, and more exultant,
and I realised that it was the plant that screamed, and not the prize it
had captured.
I don’t think I should have interfered but for that second scream of
triumph, but there was something in its tone so hateful, so bestial,
that an impulse of pity for its victim broke across the blank amazement
of my mind, and with the feeling, as thought that answered thought, I
knew that she was calling to me to help her.
The axe lay ready to my hand on the cave-floor, and I picked it up and
ran forward.
I brought the blade down on the nearest tentacle with such force as
would have severed a branch of a well-grown tree, but it only dented a
skin that was soft and flexible, but tough, like rubber.
As I swung the axe again, a long arm caught me round both ankles and
pulled. Had I not been so strange to it, had it better gauged my
strength and weight, or had it not been occupied with its earlier
capture, I suppose that the next minute would have ended my experience,
but as it was, the clutch only stirred me to a desperation of terror
that brought the axe down with double force, and the severed limb fell
quivering to the ground.
As it did so, the creature screamed again. It was a cry of the most
utter terror, abject and hellish beyond any possibility of words to tell
it.
And the forest answered.
It answered in a hundred voices that screamed, and clamoured, and
questioned, and replied.
I had never known before the strength which panic and loathing may give
to human muscles.
Backward writhed the frightened tentacles, their victim dropped and
forgotten, and every axe-stroke that followed gashed or severed one of
them, and where they were cut through, a wine-red semi-liquid jelly
slowly welled from the gap.
I think as the creature contracted and closed its petals I might have
stayed the blows if it had not screamed for mercy on a note which gave
me a feeling of nausea, and a lust to kill, so that I struck till the
great flesh-like leaves were gashed and shredded; till, as the cries
continued, I realised that the centre of its life was underground,
beyond my power to reach it.
Then I lowered the axe, and looked round.
Dimly I was aware that my heart was beating wildly, and that I was
breathing with difficulty.
Still the forest was screaming around me in deafening tones of fear and
hate and menace.
I looked back to the comparative safety of the cave I had left, and I
saw the one that I had saved slowly dragging herself towards it, and as
I did so I was conscious that she knew my thought, and answered.
I became aware for the first time that the soil on which I stood was
hot, and that my feet were scorching.
I threw the axe towards the cave, and went to help the one that I had
ventured to rescue, and doing this, I had a strange feeling of
repulsion, as from an alien body, and of attraction, as to a kindred
soul.
I knew that she was mortally injured, and feared that I must horribly
hurt the limp body as I picked it up.
I was startled by its lightness, and surprised that it made no sound.
As I lifted her, I was conscious again of the interchange of wordless
thought, but when I answered mechanically with a spoken word I was
rebuffed by the expression of repulsion and wonder which crossed her
eyes.
But as I laid her down in the cave-mouth, wondering what I could do to
aid her further, her thought answered mine clearly, “Do not touch my
body. It is dead.”
Then our minds met, and for some moments wrestled abortively, till I
realised that I could not understand unless my own were willing, and
blank, and receptive. Nor could she understand my thought unless it were
consciously approached to hers.
After that, we conversed in silence for some time, but very slowly. So
wide was the gulf of separation in knowledge and experience, so baffling
the mental shorthand by which agreed fact is implied without expression,
so difficult was it to avoid the continual byways of explanation which
only led to others, that it was a long time before I could receive even
a blurred outline of the urgent facts which she was striving to give me.
By this time I realised that she regarded me as something strange and
beast-like, and that any noise from my mouth would intensify this
feeling against me, and confirm the judgment. I knew also that she
recognised me as sympathetic, and in some measure intelligent, however
physically repulsive--a repulsion made more acute by the clothes I wore,
of which I was made to feel a sense of acute shame, so strongly did her
mind impress my own with a conception of their indecency.
I thought that she regarded me much as we should do a half-tamed dog,
ferocious, but amenable to kindness and reason, and of a possible
loyalty.
I knew also that she regarded her body as a broken and negligible thing,
and that her mind had concentrated on persuading me to undertake, and
enabling me to understand, an errand which the accident had interrupted,
and which was of a very urgent nature.
So I sat there at the cave-mouth, while the sun rose clear from the
hateful vivid green of the forest, that was still vocal with fear and
excitement, while I slowly took my first and very difficult lesson in
the new world I had entered.
“And now,” she thought, “if that be all, and you understand, I shall be
very glad to die. You will not touch me when I am dead? If you are a
beast that needs such food, you will find that the jelly in the
tentacles will supply you. You must wait here till the twilight.”
And then she turned over, with a movement of surprising ease in the
broken limbs, and curled up, and I knew that she had left the cave.
And I sat there thinking of all she had told me, and felt a great
loneliness, and a great fear.
CHAPTER IV
THE OPAL WAY
I sat there a long time, trying to reconstruct her tale, and to find
some possible explanation of its apparent paradoxes. Why should I stay
there till the twilight came? I had learnt that where I sat I was in the
very shadow of death. I knew that the way was long, and the message I
had undertaken was of the utmost urgency.
Some reason for delay there had been, but it was like a dream which
eludes waking thought. And how, in light or dark, could I cross the
great chasm where the pavement ended? I had asked her this, but she had
replied as though she did not understand my difficulty. The bridge was
where it was not. There was no meaning in that. Perhaps my physical
limitations were beyond her understanding. Surely, if I tried that road
by night, though I should avoid the terrors on either hand, I must fall
into the abyss beyond, and perish.
I resolved that I would go forward, at least as far as the path was
clear, and, at the worst, I knew that there were other cavities, such as
this one, in which I could take refuge with no greater danger than was
behind me here.
But again my resolve faltered. I _knew_ that there was some reason
against my going, though my thought could not recall it.
Why should I go by night?
Patiently I recalled the visions which had crossed my mind as our
thoughts encountered.
But there was nothing there to guide me. Only there were gaps I knew in
the cliff-wall, and these were associated with the idea of deadly
danger, but of what kind I could not discover. Her thought had gone
forward with the message I was to bear to her kinsfolk on the dim grey
beaches. These I saw clearly, and strange and mist-like as the vision
rose, there at least was the lapping tide of the unchanging sea. I would
go also to these creatures which were intelligent, though they were not
men. Creatures which could understand, and perhaps show friendship,
though they might think of me as the uncouth Caliban of some forgotten
age.
Why should I wait for the dark? Safety to them might be to me the
deadliest peril.
I would go now.
But first for food, and--_was there no fresh water in this accursed
place_?
The thought struck me with such fear as I had not felt till then. There
had been rain in the night, or at least a heavy mist, but now the sun
shone with increasing strength in a sky of absolute and cloudless blue.
There was a slight steam rising from the hot dark-purple powdery soil of
the forest. The cliff-side was hot to touch. There was no moisture on
the opal pavement now.
Had I to wait till the long-distant night and the cold mist returned?
Well, I might live till then, if I must, but at least it was a new
reason for exploring further.
As to food--the severed tentacles lay on the soil before me. I had been
advised to try them. Raw? I looked at them more carefully than I had yet
done. They had not bled, as severed limbs would do on the earth I knew.
But not plants.
Dare I go again across the burning soil, and would the monster dare to
renew the conflict? Every moment there had been less sign of the havoc
the axe had made. The hacked and shredded petals were growing to their
old form again, but now they lay half-open to the sun, as did the whole
of the forest.
Should I fear to approach it? And could it also read my thoughts, and
would my fear give it confidence?
If that were so, I must school myself to feel courage. Is it not always
the unknown that inspires terror, and was I not as strange to them as
they to me?
My thought stopped to watch a new thing that was happening. Very
cautiously, one of the petals moved aside, and very slowly an uninjured
tentacle crept out across the soil. Was it feeling in the hope that its
first victim still lay there? Did it hope to retrieve those broken
tentacles? No, not that; for it touched one, as it seemed by chance, and
shrank back, and trembled, and crept forward a different way.
Well, I would resolve it confidently. Axe in hand, I went forward. As I
did so, I commenced to sing a lively tune that my subconscious mind
suggested to the occasion.
But before the first line ended, it was drowned in the shrill scream of
the monster, and the creeping arm leapt back to safety.
And again the scream was taken up and re-echoed by a hundred voices,
hideous and deafening beyond description; and with no more thought of
danger I went forward into that deadly space, among creatures that could
destroy me in a moment, but that a song could terrify.
I walked quickly over the steaming soil, which was much hotter than
before, picked up a piece of tentacle, perhaps six feet in length, and
flung it on the pavement. Then I took it into the cave to examine it.
The skin was tough and flexible, with a curious fibrous growth inside
it, with hollow cells intervening. Then there was a thin membrane, and
inside this a ruby-coloured jelly-like substance, outwardly firm, but
semi-liquid towards the centre, from which a few drops fell as I turned
it.
I tasted this jelly and found it very sweet, but otherwise unlike
anything to which I can make comparison. I ate a little, hesitating, and
then decided to sling my snake-like larder over my shoulder, and have a
good meal later, if I felt no ill-effects from my first adventure.
CHAPTER V
THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE
I had now resolved to go forward while I had the use of daylight to
guide me. Yet, so pliable is the human mind, I felt already the
reluctance with which a man must take farewell of familiar things, to
face the perils of a homeless way.
I glanced again at my companion of an hour, and with a more detailed
consideration than I had previously given.
Slim and graceful still, the body curved in death.
Very close and soft was the fur that covered her, silver-grey on the
back, but changing forward into a deepening chestnut. The legs were well
and finely shaped, but below the knee of each there was a slender
snake-like appendage, ending with curving fingers, like a tiny monkey’s
hand, which could close round the opposite limb and bind them together.
The feet also were delicately shaped, but deeply slit into three webbed
toes, of which the central one was the longest. Others--one at each
side,--set far back, were curled up normally, but could open sideways
with a thumb-like claw. The feet were furred equally with the legs, the
silver-grey of the undersides lying so closely that it looked almost
like a shining skin. They showed no sign of damage from the long rough
journey that I knew they had made, nor was any road-dust upon them.
The limbs were coloured in the same way as the body,--silver-grey behind
and chestnut-brown before, and the hands were almost human, but for the
webbing which had shown between the open fingers.
The head was to me the most singular, being furred like the body, and of
a similar colouring. The eyes were of a very human quality, and I had
seen them to be alert and intelligent. Now they were covered by a heavy
lid which rose upward, and in its turn was protected by a thin film
which closed down, and was lashed like a human eyelid. The ears were set
far back, and were covered by a furry flap which could be closed at will
to shut out air or water.
The mouth was lipless, a thin slit, with no sign of teeth. The cheeks
were covered by retractile pads beneath which was a gill-like device for
water-breathing.
The tail, which could curl up beneath the body till it was practically
invisible, was forked, with two more of those tiny monkey-hands at its
extremities.
I saw, or guessed, these details and their significance imperfectly at
the time,--the more so for my pledge not to touch the abandoned
body,--but it was evident that it was adapted for land or water living
with almost equal excellence.
I recognised that the novelty of what I saw was not surprising, but
rather that there was so little structural change in the form of animal
life over so long a period of earthly time. Still there was the
vertebrate body, the limbs, the head; still a general similarity of
external and, presumably, of internal organs.
I looked at the sinuous, graceful body, and wondered what it was that
repelled me.
To an impartial intelligence it might be considered more beautiful than
even an ideal human body, and the ideal in the human race is not the
majority.
Surely, it was more so than the average of our domestic animals.
Was it the unfamiliarity only, or was it the doubt of humanity, which
repelled me?
But repulsion, from whatever cause, was countered by a very different
feeling, which made my feet slow as I left the cave, and my glance go
backward.
Then I turned resolutely to the task which I had undertaken.
The day was very still. There was no cry or motion from the great
cliff-height above me. There was no flying life that crossed the
unbroken blue. The forest had stilled its fear, and the monstrous
growths were sprawling open upon the steaming soil. I wondered what
control it might be which held them so far backward that none could
reach a deadly arm across the path I kept. Perhaps the nearer soil was
too shallow for the growth they needed.
I went forward in this quiet peace for about four hours, stopping twice
to eat from the store I carried, which I found, though only semi-liquid
at the centre, had a gratifying quality of quenching thirst almost with
the first mouthful. I suppose it to have been formed largely of water,
as many solids are, and to have been soluble to digestion to an unusual
degree. But it is a matter which I have no competence to decide.
I know that I must have covered more than twelve miles in the first four
hours, with times for rest included ... and then came the abyss.
The cliff-wall ended, and ran back in a black and barren hill, immense
and desolate in the daylight.
The forest ended abruptly on the edge of a chasm so deep that, though it
must have been nearly a quarter of a mile to the further side, the great
depth made it look narrow.
Far below, dim and snake-like in the distance, a great river wound,
between deep shelving banks that looked moss-grown, but were covered
with (perhaps familiar) trees.
I stood upon the edge, which sank like a wall, and I saw no possible way
to go forward, or to clamber down.
I knew that there was a way which I had been meant to take, and more
than once I walked from side to side of the path on which I stood,
bending perilously over an edge which fell almost sheer to not less than
five-thousand feet below.
As I did this, the rope-like tentacle, which I was carrying over my
shoulder, slipped forward. I made one effort to clutch it; then,
conscious of my peril, let it go, but I was overbalanced already. With
an involuntary cry, that echoed and re-echoed through the barren
heights, I fell forward.
CHAPTER VI
THE FROG-MOUTHS
Was the abyss an illusion only?
Dizzy and blank of mind, with a heart that beat to choking, and with a
bruised and injured knee, I lay upon a level vacancy, and the cause of
the accident lay, as on nothing, beside me.
How long I lay there I have no conception. I believe that as my
heart-beats slowed, and my senses cleared, I fainted from a revulsion of
terror, and, reviving, I lay afraid to move, and gazing with
half-delirious eyes into the appalling depth beneath me. But memory is
indistinct, and it is a terror which I recall with reluctance.
Soon or late, at last I realised that the path, though invisible to me,
must run out across the gorge, and timidly, and then more boldly I felt
to right and left, and wriggled back, and stood once more upon the
evident platform.
I remained there for a long time, seeking courage to go forward. With a
knowledge of what to look for, I fancied that the sunshine caught a
faint gleam of opal light that crossed the chasm.
How should I venture to tread it? How could so frail a bridge extend so
far without support or suspension? Would it sway beneath me as I
advanced? Would it break at last, and drop me, a dead thing, before I
reached the silver streak below?
In vain I tried to stimulate myself to the adventure. What hope was
there if I did not cross it? Was I not pledged in honour to the attempt,
and might not the path of honour be the path of safety also? Here,
without apparent reason, an old line of forgotten verse intruded,--
“‘Be bold,’ ‘be bold’ and everywhere ‘be bold.’”
My mind searched backward to place it. In that remoteness of time, when
all material things were unimaginably far, the imagination which formed
the greatest romantic poem in the English tongue could reach to inspire
me. I saw the vision of Britomart, her shield lifted over her face, go
forward into the certain-seeming death of flame, against which her
trusted weapons were useless.
With no conscious change of resolution, I rose slowly and stepped
forward, sounding my way by tapping to right and left with the axe-head,
and giving that snake-like tentacle a push that sent it over the
invisible edge into the depths below.
As I felt my way, I tried to look downward to watch my steps without
gazing into the gulf beneath me, but when I found it impossible to do
so, in a sickening terror I closed my eyes and felt forward blindly, or
opened them only to gaze at the further hills, which I was so slowly
approaching.
And in this way, when I was more than half across, I first saw them, and
as I did so I recalled in a moment the forgotten warning that had eluded
my mind before. These were they which must be avoided at all costs, even
at that of waiting in the deadly cavity till night had darkened.
They were descending the cliffs with an awkward waddle, comic enough to
watch from some place of security, their bodies showing dead-white
against the dull grey background.
I could not tell certainly that I was their objective. They would reach
the level some distance to the right of the end of the bridge I was
crossing. The cliffs on that side left some margin by which they could
reach the bridge-head, but if I could pass that, I saw that the cliff
ran on as before, flush with the path, and with a similar expanse upon
the left to that to which I had become accustomed. If, I thought, I
could reach the bridge-end first, I should at least have a clear course,
if I could outrun them. If I were caught here, I had no hope whatever.
It is strange how a more urgent fear may drive out one which had seemed
invincible. By some optical difference the path here was very faintly
visible, a thin ribbon of opal-coloured transparency, and the fact that
I could fix my eyes on the point at which it reached the solid ground
gave confidence. I ceased to feel my steps, and ran forward.
Doing so, I thought for a moment that my time was ample, but when they
were on level ground their gait changed. They were coming with great
bounds, and straight for the bridge-head, to pass which was my only hope
of safety.
I saw them more clearly now. They were as white as an ant’s egg, and in
shape like a squatting man. There were more than twenty coming with
bounds of thirty feet, but with a distinct pause between each leap.
I was running hard now, and as I did so I shouted what I meant for a
bold defiance, and the sound echoed and re-echoed up the gorge, and came
back like a wail of terror from the depth below.
As I left the bridge, I saw the foremost coming on my right hand, not a
hundred yards distant. In another moment I was on the path that ran on
as before, the high cliff on my right, and what I had taken for a
similar forest to that I had been passing hitherto, on my left hand.
I knew that it would be useless to run further. No human speed could
equal those gigantic leaps. I had no mind to feel one of the loathsome
brutes upon my shoulder as I ran.
Fear more than courage, desperate fear it was, which turned my feet, and
swung the axe to meet them. As I did so, I was aware that the cliff-wall
was open. Not an irregular cave-hollow, but another of those masoned
tunnels towering high overhead. Then the foremost of my pursuers came
down floppingly not two yards away.
I saw a hairless, dead-white, ape-like, frog-mouthed form, a width of
jaws in a flat skull, and small malignant eyes, that had in them a
malevolence different from anything I had known, or to which I can make
comparison. Its hind-limbs ended in large round pads of flesh which
splayed out as it hit the ground, and took the force of the impact, and
appeared, with a jerking motion of the strong forelimbs against the
ground, to give the impetus to the next leap.
All this I saw as I realised that for a second’s space it could not
recover itself and leap again, and I swung the axe and struck. As I did
it the thought crossed me that if the blade caught in the skull I should
be weaponless, and I brought it round to take the side of the neck as
though I felled a tree.
If they were strong brutes, they were not agile. The sharp blade cut
straight through the throat some inches deep from side to side. The
creature made no cry or motion, and no blood came from the wound. As I
recovered the weapon, I stepped quickly back into the archway.
It was twenty feet wide or more, and disproportionately high. An upright
bar of a grey metal thinly veined with red divided the entrance for six
feet upwards.
There were a dozen of them by now that were close around the entrance,
or that had leapt short, and were coming along with an awkward shambling
motion.
I stood within, with the poised axe, desperately alert and watchful, and
they squatted motionlessly around. Even the one I had cut still sat with
intent gaze fixed upon me,--no, not on me, suddenly I realised, it was
at that red-grey bar that divided us. And then I knew that it was not
fear of me, but of it, which held them back, and that they dared not
enter.
And as my own fear relaxed, I looked around, and saw that I was at the
entrance of a very lofty passage which ran curving downward behind me.
Step by step I went backward, still facing them, till the turn hid them
from view.
There I waited. Perhaps in time they would retire, and leave me a free
exit.
After hours, it seemed, I went forward again, but they were there still,
only there were so many more that all the space was crowded.
I was conscious now that I was tired to the point of exhaustion, and
thirsty beyond patient endurance. To stay there was not hopeful. I
gathered my remaining courage, and commenced to explore my refuge
further.
CHAPTER VII
CAPTURE
Very fearfully I went forward. The fact that those fierce beasts did not
dare to follow was itself a warning. One thing was certain. I was in the
presence here of an engineering capacity such as I had not seen
previously, unless it were in the opal pavement. The passage sloped down
steeply in a steady spiral. It was of ample width, and of great height.
The floor was not earth or rock, but a smooth rubber-like substance that
gave pleasantly underfoot. The walls were smooth and hard, coloured a
light grey, having a polished surface. The ceiling was opalescent,
giving a faint but sufficient light, which was reflected from the
polished walls.
I went down, expecting always that the steady turning descent would
bring me into some great hall or chamber, or at least into a level
passage, but it did neither. I went on because I was too tired to stop,
or at least because I was too tired to think of climbing upward, and to
stay was hopeless.
There was no least change in the monotony of floor, or wall, or ceiling,
till I felt that they must surely go on for ever, till I swayed dizzily
as I descended on that continued curve, till I lost consciousness of
time, and went on half-asleep, and half-believing myself to be in some
nightmare of illusion. And because I was so dazed, when it came, I
almost missed it.
It was a niche, or rather a cavity, in the wall, flatly paved, and
having a great jar standing in it. I think the instinct of my parched
frame told me it was water. The jar or basin was of the height of my
shoulder, and about ten feet across. I bent my head into it and drank,
and knew the joy of life as I had not imagined it to exist before.
I stopped myself sharply with the thought that it might be something
different from wholesome water, in this place where all was strange, but
I had drunk well by then. I looked round and saw a heap of large cakes
of a dark-brown bread-like substance. There were nine of these neatly
piled, and behind them was a white slab in the wall, on which there were
three blue paintings, like Chinese picture-writing, one under the other,
each about a foot deep, and too high on the slab for me to examine them
nearly.
I shredded off a great slice from the bread with the axe, and found it
good, and sat down and ate heartily.
After I had eaten, I felt so refreshed that I thought that I would rest
for a few minutes only, and resume my exploration, but I must have
fallen asleep, I don’t know for how long,--I had been awake already
beyond the length of my accustomed day,--but I woke as from a long
night’s rest, hungry and thirsty again, and I ate and drank awhile, and
hesitated whether I should turn back, and hope for a clear passage, or
continue down, to find I knew not what of fear or horror at the end. But
the thought of those squatting forms above was not encouraging, and to
go down is easier than to climb, and so at last I decided to continue
downward.
For many hours I continued. Always there was the steady spiral of
descent, the opal light, the high wide dove-grey walls, the steel-grey
flooring, which looked so hard, but was so soft and springy to the
tread. And always--I should have mentioned it before--a steady current
of air came upward. I cannot say “blew” upward, it was too gentle, and
too absolutely regular. It was of an exhilarating freshness, and like a
cushion on which to lean forward, in a descent which might otherwise
have been too steep.
So I went on, never knowing what might open before me at the next step
of the turning way, but with a mind which became dulled with the
monotony of the passage, so that I went on at last in a semi-conscious,
dream-like condition that took no count of time,--_there was a sound
behind me_. There was something with a heavier tread than mine that
pursued me downward. With an instinct of unreasoned terror I commenced
to run. And so doing, I kept ahead, but I gained little. I looked back,
but the curving passage was bare. Only I heard the tread, which I could
not distance.
A sense of the uselessness of flight steadied me, and I recalled my
resolution to meet the unknown boldly, as the safest way.
I stopped, stepped back against the wall, and waited. Then he strode
past, and was gone in a moment. He was a man of giant size, with a skin
yellower than old ivory, and of a curious smoothness. He wore no
clothes, but had a sack or basket hanging upon his back, and round his
waist a belt with bright metal studs or clips, from which, three on each
side, six of the frog-like apes that had pursued me hung by a leg,
swinging and writhing, and snapping with fierce teeth against the flanks
of their captor,--teeth which made less mark on the polished smoothness
of the skin than if it had been the ivory to which its colour compared
it.
So much I noticed as he passed. He gave no sign that he saw me.
I was still standing there when I heard him returning.
This time he picked me up, as a gardener might pick up an earwig, and
dropped me over his shoulder into the basket he carried.
I fell among moss, of a coarse growth, like sea-weed, but very soft and
yielding. It was of a sage-green colour, and of a very pleasant odour,
which I cannot describe. A new scent is, like a new colour, beyond
imagination.
I burrowed deeply into the softness of the moss, and feared and
wondered. But the present comfort was very great, and I reflected that I
had not been hurt, and that for such strength so to lift me meant that I
had been picked up very gently.
I think I should have slept, had he not lifted the basket from his
shoulders, and lowered it to the ground, closing the top, which drew in
with a short thong, as he did so.
For a few moments I lay still, and then wriggled through the moss till I
could see out of the opening, which was wide enough for a considerable
view, though not sufficient for me to escape.
I saw that we were in a cavity, like that in which I had rested
previously.
There were the same furnishings, and on the wall-tablet the giant was
painting a fourth mark, below three which were there already.
He had taken off his belt, and thrown it into a corner, with the six
captives still fastened to it.
He now pulled one of them off, and taking it between thumb and finger,
shredded the four limbs. While he did this, the creature made no sound,
but the wide jaws snapped continually.
Laying down the limbless body, he proceeded to peel and eat the limbs as
one might shred off the skin of a banana. They did not bleed, the flesh
being like a stiff jelly, of a bright-red colour, and veined with a
gristly white substance, giving an appearance like the flesh of a
pomegranate.
Hideous as these creatures were, it shocked me to see this callous
tearing of one that still lived, apparently with undiminished vitality;
but the eater’s face, as I now saw it, had no suggestion of savagery.
Rather it was melancholy and preoccupied, and as he ate he talked
continually to himself in a plaintive monotone, though with an organ
volume.
I reflected that men who are otherwise humane will swallow a living
oyster, of the skinning of eels, of the fish that are boiled alive in
Indian kettles, and of a hundred cruelties to which custom has inured
mankind, and thought I understood, however incompletely,--which, of
course, I did not.
The limbs being gone, he picked up the trunk, and, twisting off the
gnashing head, he threw it down and proceeded to complete his meal. Such
offal as there was,--it was unlike that of any creature familiar to
me,--he collected neatly, with the peeled skin, and the severed head,
and opening the bag in which I lay, threw them in with me. I realised
afterwards that it was for the orderly deposit of such refuse, among the
aromatic moss, that he carried it with him.
Afterwards,--but not then. For as he shook and closed the bag the
severed head rolled against me, and the snapping teeth ripped the
leather of my left sleeve from wrist to elbow. Panic seized me at this,
beyond reason, and I was more terrified of one severed head than I had
been before of the whole animal. How, I thought, if we were both carried
in the bag together, and it were shaken against me? Already I felt its
wide mouth closing on my flesh, and biting deeper while I strove to
shake it free, with no body to strike at. How if there should be five
more heads tumbling about me? And how soon did they really die? Terror
edging my wits, I realised that because their bodies had not the thin
fluid of familiar blood, the head could only be very slowly affected by
the separation. Then how long might----? I struggled up to the mouth of
the bag. It was drawn too tightly for escape, though I could see through
it as before.
My captor lay stretched full length. An arm moved restlessly. More than
once he muttered the same words. _E-lo-ne, E-lo-ne_, so it sounded, with
a hopeless, falling cadence, infinitely sad.
Evidently I was forgotten, if I had ever held his thought beyond a
moment.
After a time he slept.
Then I struggled to kick back the moss, and gain a space to stand
upright, and swing the axe, and desperately I attacked the side of the
bag.
It proved unexpectedly easy, and then difficult.
The first stroke cut down a long slit with a rasping sound, and the
light shone through it. The next stroke made a parallel slit, and I
thought that a few more would bring my freedom. But I found that, though
I could make many downward slits, I could not squeeze myself through
them, and to cross-cut was a different matter. I hacked long and
desperately before I contrived a ragged hole, through which I crawled to
freedom.
As I escaped, my fear left me. I did not dread the sleeping giant one
tenth as much as the contact of the unbodied head, with its snapping
jaws, and small malignant eyes.
Deliberately, I drank and ate before I turned to take the upward way.
Of that long toil there is little that is worth a word, with so much
else for telling.
Somewhat the rising current of air must have buoyed me. Coming to the
higher resting-place, I slept long, and ate and drank before and after.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BIRDS
When I came again to the surface-world there was no sign of life around,
but a great stillness, and the dawn was breaking in an unimagined
splendour.
On my left hand, not distant, sank the ravine, black and terrible.
Beyond it was the distant forest of the nameless things. But before me,
to the reach of sight, the ground sloped downward, and was covered with
a level-surfaced growth, so close that I could only guess its depth, but
showing only a sea of leaves, not larger than a man’s hand, and of a
bright green, as though varnished; and these leaves the dawn-light
altered to reflected gold, so that my dazzled sight recoiled from a
splendour beyond endurance.
It was as though one should look straight at the noonday sun, to find a
glory not of one small-seeming orb, but of stretched leagues, and myriad
facets, of an equal brilliance.
But at length, as the sun rose, the light changed and faded. A thin mist
moved over the surface of the unending field of green, but was not dense
enough to hide it.
The green growth came to the very edge of the opal path, and looking
down I saw a tangle of sinuous macaroni-like stalks that twisted
restlessly, having leaves only at the top, on the close and level
surface; and as I watched, tongues like pink worms pushed upward, and
licked and wavered in the air, and drew backward. As the day advanced,
thousands of these pink tongues were thrust upward and withdrawn
continually, giving a wavering pinkness to the glossy green. It might
have had beauty to familiar eyes, but to mine it had a loathsome
strangeness, so that I was reluctant to walk beside it, and for some
time I sat at the cave-mouth and pondered. I was half tempted to descend
once more and face what might be in the depths below. Certainly, there I
had found water and something akin to human food, and evidence was in
that mighty tunnel itself of such work as no brute creatures could
contrive or fashion.
I reflected, was it not reasonable that there should be a less highly
cultured life on a planet’s surface, subject to wind and rain and all
inclemencies, than in the sheltered security of its vast interior? Was
it not an amazing thing that the men of my own time, fatuously imagining
communication with incredibly distant worlds, had been contentedly
ignorant of their own, ten miles below the surface; had made facile and
contradictory theories of its interior, none of which the few known
facts supported; and because they found some increase in the temperature
for a trivial distance downward, had been content to conclude, without
attempt at verification, that this heat increased indefinitely. How
diligently they searched the secrets of the most distant stars, while
they had scarcely scratched the surface of the one on which their lives
depended!
So I thought, but instinct conquered. I was a creature born to the wind
and rain, and not to the hidden depths beneath me. Even though these
bordering growths were but the kitchen-gardens of the intelligences
below,--as indeed they might be,--in a moment I saw it, wondering that I
had not seen it sooner. Great stretches of one plant in weedless soil.
Even if the life around me were but as that of insects, useful or
noxious, or of beasts of food for their keepers,--still here at least
was the sun, and something of the stars I knew.
Here too, I had met the only creature with which I had changed thoughts,
however strangely, and to whom I had made a voiceless promise. At the
thought, I rose and went onward.
As I thought of it, the idea that I was in a vegetable garden of
subterranean giants gained in plausibility. The memory of that unrailed
invisible bridge, which to my imagination had seemed as thin and fragile
as a sheet of mica, made me doubt for a moment, till I remembered that
it spanned the whole space without support from beneath or above, and
had not swayed when I crossed it, and that it was of a sufficient width
to give breadth of foothold even to the huge bulk of my recent captor,
if he were able to walk in confidence across it.
With this thought came a wonder of what different world might be upon
the higher level of the cliff-top, which now seemed to me as no more
than the side of a trenched space of tillage, but I knew that my pledged
way was straight onward, even could I have climbed the abrupt wall,
which gave no foothold.
On my left hand, as I went on, the sea of varnished leaves still sloped
downward, stretched away to a now misty horizon, and I began to compare
its sameness unfavourably with that of the familiar world I knew, till I
considered how little I had yet seen, in comparison with the extent of
the probable land-surface which lay beyond me.
If a visitor to my own world, from some distant planet, were set down
for a few days on the Antarctic continent, how different would be his
report from that of one who spent the same time wandering in the Sahara
desert, or amid the steaming heat of the Amazonian forests, or the
cotton-mills of Lancashire. And there were indications already that I
had reached a world where life extended deeply below the surface of the
land, and where the sea had its nations also.
Only the air seemed vacant, and I was soon to see that that conclusion
was premature.
I had come to a place at which the cliff-wall, though still too steep to
climb for the first ten or twenty yards, sloped backward considerably,
so that I had a wider view of the sky above me, and looking up I saw a
flock of birds of the appearance of pigeons, having a similar habit of
flight, but larger, that moved above me, not flying as at ease, but
darting wildly from side to side, as though in avoidance of some deadly
danger.
The next moment the cause of their agitation became visible. There were
a number of huge black flying shapes which pursued them. But the
inexplicable thing was that the hunted birds did not fly from their
enemies across the open sky which stretched away to the horizon.
Rather, as though held back by some invisible wall, they swerved and
dodged backwards and forwards, while their pursuers, with huge black
slower-beating wings stretched across the sky, were always heading them
back, but seemed themselves to be of no mind to follow them closely.
For some time I watched the duel, while the black hunters gradually
closed upon their intended victims, till they had no space left to
manœuvre, and were becoming crowded overhead, yet still with no bird
going over the invisible boundary within which the deadly game was
played.
Then came the last act of the drama. The desperate quarry turned and
tried to dart backward, through the dark line of the beaters.
Many--unless they had other enemies beyond my line of sight--must have
succeeded. Many were struck by the heavy wings, so that they spun
upwards, stunned or dead, and a long neck shot out to snap them as they
descended.
Screams of syren-like exultation deafened the sky.
Then a cornered bird must have crossed the invisible boundary which they
had avoided so desperately.
Like a stone it fell instantly. For a moment, as the glossy leaves
parted, and the pink tongues dragged it in, I had the sight of a
dove-like bird, of a wedgwood-blue colour, but with a very long and
slender beak, curving slightly downward. In size it resembled the large
pigeons, called runts, which are bred for eating in Italy.
It was the most familiar-seeming thing, except the friendly stars, that
I had yet seen.
But I had no time for such thoughts now.
Its attacker, perhaps misled by the error of the bird it followed, must
have got at least one of its wide-spreading wings above that fatal
vacancy. Down it came also, though more slowly, turning in the air,
striving with desperate flutterings to recover balance in a space
between the cliff and the region of its terror, which was too narrow to
give its wings full freedom.
It came down on the path quite near me; the great flapping vans making a
wind against which I stood with difficulty.
Then it closed them, and gained its feet, and looked round, with a
monstrous long-necked head reaching out to either side like a hen’s as
it did so.
It was not black, as it had looked to be in the sunlight, but of a
dull-brown colour, inclining on the head and neck to a dark yellow. It
was not feathered at all, but the skin, which lay in loose folds and
ridges, which it could inflate at will, and which had no doubt served to
break its fall, was of a leathery texture, and the wide-spreading wings
were of a similar material.
It had one eye only, but of two facets, or perhaps I should say that its
eyes were contained beneath one eyelid. The eye, or facet, with which it
looked, would sparkle and light up with intelligence, while the other
remained dull and vacant.
When it saw me first, it had, I thought, an instant of terror, turning
into a vast perplexity. For some seconds the head remained twisted in my
direction.
I had learned something in the lesson of confidence, and I looked back
as steadily, but with a thought that if it wished to come my way it
should have all the space available to pass me in comfort.
Whether it understood my thought I could not tell, but at length it
turned its head away, and from that moment showed no consciousness of my
existence. No doubt its own troubles were sufficient.
It had its head lifted now, and was calling loudly, with a whistling
scream, to which a call replied from the cliff-top, and looking up I saw
that the edge was lined by the great birds, now perched upon it, with
long necks craning over.
I began to recognise its dilemma. For some reason it was evident that
the air above the plain had no power to sustain its flight. Why, I could
not imagine, but the fact was clear. On the other side was the
cliff-wall, and between was the width of the opal path, on which there
would be less than space to have spread its wings if it tried to rise
and fly along it, even if it could rise from level ground, of which it
might not be capable. The cliff here receded somewhat, as I have said,
and I wondered whether it would attempt to scramble up it with beak and
claws, and such help as its wings could give. But the recession was not
regular. There were perpendicular crags which might well have baffled
it. Anyway, after much consultation with its friends above, of which one
seemed to have the most to say, whether from leadership or affection, it
decided to make its way backward the way I had come, where it may have
considered that the width of the gorge, or the easier rocks from which
those frog-faced brutes assailed me, would give it access to the space
it needed.
So it turned from me with a rapid shuffling walk, while its companions
moved along the cliff-top beside it with continued screams of advice, or
encouragement; and it was with no reluctance that I proceeded in the
opposite direction.
CHAPTER IX
THE TUNNEL OF FEAR
The nervousness of the great bird while (as it were) trespassing on the
opal pavement, confirmed my impression of the prestige enjoyed by the
subterranean dwellers, among the creatures of the outer surface of the
world into which I had entered. Its initial terror of myself, until it
had recognised me as something distinct and inferior, was sufficiently
significant.
So far, I had seen only one of these dreaded beings, from whom I had
escaped with an ease which might not be repeated. How often, or at what
times, they were likely to appear on the surface, I could not know, but
I had learnt in that first dream-like interview, that the entrances to
their excavations were of special danger, and I knew that these were not
numerous.
Anyway, I had no choice but to push forward. It was the more urgent
because the claims of thirst and hunger were becoming unpleasantly
assertive--indeed, at this time, had I crossed another of those
subterranean entrances, I think I must have adventured down it at the
call of this primal need, but no such opportunity came, and before the
sun had reached its meridian, I saw the end of this stage of my journey.
I had learnt, in my first instructions, that the path that led down to
the grey beaches was one which must be traversed with the utmost
rapidity. I did not guess its length, nor could I foresee that in all
the strange and dreadful adventures which were before me, there would be
few indeed to exceed its horror.
I knew, from the depth of the gorge I had crossed, that I was high above
the sea-level. I saw that the garden-ground (if such it were) sloped
down, for many gradual miles, to an indistinct horizon. I looked
continually for the break in that sea of pink and glossy green which
would enable me to cross it.
When it came, I did not see at first, my eyes being drawn to the
steaming tank upon my other side. For here the cliff curved backward,
giving space for an artificial lake of heated water, from which a steam
rose continually, such as almost hid the cliffs upon the farther sides.
I found it too hot to drink, but I filled a tin cup which my knapsack
held, and waited for it to cool, till my thirst overcame me.
It had a bitter and unpleasant taste, but I was in too great a need to
be cautious. While I cooled a second cup at greater leisure I looked
round and discovered that I had reached the place I was seeking.
I saw, on my left, the entrance to a long straight tunnel sloping gently
downward. This entrance was reached by a terraced drop in the opal
roadway. The tunnel had a floor of yellow sand, which was divided by a
narrow conduit down which an overflow from the heated tank ran smoothly,
and very swiftly, owing to the slope at which it flowed. The sides of
the tunnel were of a smooth grey material, not concave but flat,
converging upwards, till they almost met at the top, but not quite,
there being a slit of perhaps two inches dividing them, through which a
certain amount of light entered the tunnel.
It had a sinister appearance, and as I sat for a time regarding it, I
considered what I might possibly have to fear if I should endeavour to
penetrate it.
The purpose of the great lake of heated water behind me appeared to be
evident. It must be the source from which the great expanse of ordered
growth was irrigated, and perhaps fed. The stream that came through the
tunnel might be a mere overflow, which was drained off into the sea, or
it might be used for the filling of subterranean pipes lower down the
slope. In either case, it did not greatly concern me,--or so I thought,
not foreseeing how greatly I should need its help in the coming peril.
The yellow sand on either side supplied a sufficient space on which to
walk upright beneath the shelving walls.
It was dimly lit from above, and obscured by the steam which rose from
the water, but I could see that it ran straight on for a long distance.
Actually, it was a length of about twelve miles, as I learnt afterwards.
It appeared that, being entered, it would offer no exit until I reached
the further end, however far it might be.
But there was no appearance of any possible danger, and I knew that it
was the way which I had been directed to take. The only warning I had
received was to traverse it as rapidly as possible, and it certainly did
not appear to be an inviting avenue in which to linger.
Perhaps it was the fact that I must emerge from it on the threshold of a
new experience, the nature of which I could only guess very dimly, that
made me rest so long, even when I waked from the sleep I needed, before
I entered the passage, but I remember that I did it with a great
reluctance, and started at a pace which, though it might not be equal to
the light swift running of my instructress, was sufficient to take me a
long way forward in safety.
After a time, I noticed that my feet were becoming warm, and realised
that the sand must be heated, though not so much so as the soil on which
I had walked previously. I did not think it to be sufficiently so to
constitute a serious danger, or discomfort, but I considered that it
might be a different matter to a foot protected only by its own fur,
and, supposing that I had found the explanation of the warning, and that
it did not affect me, and being somewhat short of breath from the long
spurt I had taken, I slackened to a quieter walk,--and as my right foot
came down, a pink streak shot out of the sand a few inches from it, and
smacked against my ankle, with a sound like a whip lash. I jumped, with
a cry of horror, or at least I tried to jump, and came down on my hands,
for the grip held, and I was powerless to break it. The pink worm did
not twine round my foot, but lay up the side, holding on, leech-like, by
power of suction. It was trying to drag the foot into the sand, but, for
the moment, that was beyond its power. Wrenching desperately, I tried to
get loose the axe, for which I had expected no use, and which was slung
on my back, under the knapsack, for convenience as I ran. When I got it
clear I realised that I could not strike hard against my own ankle, and
to an attempt at cutting, my assailant showed the resilient rubber-like
quality which seemed common to several of the forms of life with which I
was becoming familiar. With a despairing effort I strained my foot a few
inches from the ground, and drove a hard blow beneath it, at which the
severed worm fell writhing on the sand.
But now there were two others round my left foot, and their united
strength was too great for me to lift it to enable me to deal with them
in the same way. I gave up the axe, and hacked them free with the clasp
knife. Then I saw that the ground behind me, and for several yards in
front, showed similar worms that had pushed up through the sand, and
waved and felt around for the origin of the vibrations which had
disturbed them.
No doubt they had been rising behind me all the time, but I had passed
over the ground so quickly that I had always been in advance of my
danger, and unaware that it threatened me.
I suppose that the roots of the plants without,--if plants they could be
called,--grew under the wall of the tunnel, and lived among the sand,
though the conditions did not allow of the leaves shooting up in such
soil, or in the absence of the light they needed.
I noticed with some relief that the surrounding tongues could not reach
me while I remained motionless, and I concluded that they must be in
some way rooted, or growing from a common source, which kept them in
their places securely.
I watched for perhaps half an hour without motion while the long tongues
gradually quietened, and then thinking that the time would soon come
when I could make a rush to pass them, I made a careless movement, which
stirred them to fresh activity, and the weary waiting had to be
commenced again. At last, when most of them had withdrawn, and the rest
were quiescent, I made a sudden rush, and though more than one shot
upward as I passed, I ran through them successfully.
For some time I ran on at my utmost speed, and exhausted myself
proportionately. For another mile, perhaps, I kept to a panting trot,
and I began to see the pink heads thrust up as I passed them. I looked
back and saw them already high in the air a few yards behind. The sight
gave me a fresh spurt, but it could not last. I could see no end to the
tunnel. In fact I could see a very moderate distance only, owing to the
steam in the atmosphere, and the narrow slit through which the light
must enter. I had no means of estimating its length. It might be five
miles. It might be fifty. Soon my pace slackened. Soon I was hacking
with my knife again. Then there was the weary motionless waiting, till I
could again go forward in safety.
The next time my foot was caught I fell forward, and before I could
rise, a dozen of them were round me. One held me by the right wrist,
pulling till the hand was sunk in the sand, despite my frenzied efforts
to free it. I was carrying the clasp-knife open in this hand, but I
caught it up with my left and hacked through the sand, and at last cut
the pulling worm that held me. I turned to others that were straining at
my sides and legs, and one by one I cut them through. Then I noticed
that my right wrist was streaming with blood, and thought at first that
the knife had slashed it, till I saw that a broad line across the back
was mottled with punctured wounds, where the worm had sucked it.
I sat there for a long time, with neither strength nor courage to
adventure farther. I thought of going back, but I felt that the distance
would be beyond my strength to traverse.
The distance ahead _might_ be less,--it seemed my one hope. (It was
actually much longer, if I estimate correctly how far I had then gone.)
Anyway, it would be uphill back, and that would defeat my speed, and I
supposed that the creatures might be more alert after I had disturbed
them. I wondered if I could tap the ground in front of me and cut them
down, one by one, as they pushed upward. But I had had no food for many
hours, and I was already conscious of exhaustion. Water I could have,
and I drank again, after cooling it. I thought of wading in the central
stream, but even could I have kept my feet in that swift smooth current
I supposed that the heat would be unendurable. And then came a thought
which animated me with a fresh hope. Could I leap to the other side? It
seemed too broad to be possible,--and I could get no run for the jump,
unless I took it at a slant, which would make it longer. I had no more
than space to stand upright for about a yard from the water’s edge. I
could step two paces back if I crouched.
The sand had become quiet now. I would go forward while I could, and try
the leap when the need grew urgent. Was it wise to wait till I should be
again too exhausted to try it? On an impulse I leapt. In the nervous
fear of falling into the stream I leapt too far, and my head struck the
opposite wall, though not severely.
There was no relief on this side. The jar with which I struck the ground
roused my enemies with such celerity that I barely escaped them. As I
ran I thought I had gained nothing, till I realised that if I were hard
pressed I could always win a moment’s freedom, or a fresh start, if I
jumped again.
It was not much, but it was something.
Of the rest of that passage I do not wish to write in detail. I do not
wish to recall it.
It is enough that the time came when a point of light showed in the
distance, and when I staggered into the daylight. Of the scene that lay
before me, I was not clearly conscious. I was at the utmost point of
fatigue of nerve and body. I lay down and slept till the day,--which now
covered a period of more than four times that to which I was
accustomed,--was sinking toward sunset.
CHAPTER X
THE AMPHIBIANS
I awakened at last to a confused memory only, recalling how I had leapt
short and fallen into the steaming water, which, when it reached that
place, must have cooled. Vaguely I remembered how it had swept me down,
and of a half-stunned instinctive effort to regain my feet, but of how I
got out, or whether I had struggled long in the water, or been able to
wade down it, and so escape the danger of the sand, I could not recall
with certainty. I think I must have been on the sand for the last few
yards, or I should have been swept over the edge by the stream, which
fell sheer five hundred feet into the sea beneath. For I was lying on a
level opal path such as I had traversed previously, with this difference
only, that the cultivated ground sloped upward behind me, and the cliff
upon the other side sank steeply to the sea.
The sun was still hot,--more so on this lower level than on the higher
ground I had left,--and it had dried me while I slept, but I was stiff
with wounds and exhaustion, and faint with hunger, and I found that I
could only stand with difficulty. My boots were soaked with blood, and
the laces were torn away, so that I had to use some string from my
little store of necessities with which to fasten them.
If I wished to reach the end of my journey alive I knew that I must do
so quickly; but I looked round in vain for any path to help me.
Beneath me now was the unchanging sea, blue and smooth, with a touch of
white where the ground shallowed it. Three miles out, it may be, showed
the long line of rocks for which I had been told to look.
Beyond, I knew, must be the grey beaches which I was seeking.
But how could I cross the intervening water? It was a difficulty which
might not have occurred to a creature no more at home on land than in
the water, or perhaps less so. But I was not gilled or web-footed.
Sign of life there was none. Not even a bird was winging across the
unclouded blue.
Even to descend the cliff was impossible.
I might explore the path either to right or left, and with no choice
between them, for it ran straight on as far as I could see in either
direction, and the cliff-wall showed no change.
And then my eyes were attracted by a dark spot, a blur,--a slowly
lengthening blur, which came from the black rocks, and was gradually
stretching itself toward me over the water.
My perception was quickened by past experience. Here must be another
invisible bridge, by which something large and formidable was crossing
toward me.
In fact, as I quickly proved, the bridge stretched out straight before
the place where I was seated, and I had only to remain, and whatever was
coming must inevitably encounter me.
Almost too worn for fear, and recognising the futility of evasion, I
resolved to do so.
I had arrived at so low a point that only active help could aid me. If
that which approached were hostile or indifferent the result would be
similar. So I sat and waited.
It was not very long--for the approach came swiftly--before I was able
to guess that it consisted of a long column of creatures similar to her
whom I had first met. They stretched for half a furlong in mid-air,
advancing at a rapid trot, and as they came nearer I recalled their mode
of conversing, and tried to adjust my mind, to get, if possible, into
sympathy with them.
After a time I succeeded,--at least in hearing their minds, though they
did not respond. I suppose that this was because they were all thinking
as one, for normally I found it impossible to establish conversation in
this way, except by mutual willingness.
I found that these creatures, who had no use for articulate speech, and
to whom sound was an outrage, possessed at once a finer music and a
higher poetry than our clumsier arts had even reached out to imagine.
For they made the music in their minds, or recited it, if it had been
composed earlier, and its notes, that rose and fell, were the very
thoughts that inspired it. It was now a marching chant, and a war-song
of a kind, as I heard it,--
“We have offered our lives on the palm of one hand,
(Is it Wrong that hath willed? Is it God Who hath planned?)
To be taken and lost at our Leaders’ command.
We who are but God’s thought----”
So far I followed it, and then the unison broke, for they perceived me,
and doubted.
Nothing more of their thoughts could I learn till they had reached the
spot where I sat, and were filing past it. I saw that they were in all
respects similar to the one with whom I had been first acquainted,
except that the fur of each was trimmed or patterned in a distinctive
manner, until, when the first score had passed, there came a group of
five who had no such marks upon them, but were in that, and in all other
respects, like the one I first met. Of these, one detached herself from
the group and came toward me, while the others passed onward.
I had learnt enough of their conversing to make my mind at once blank
and receptive to receive her question. I say “her,” not because these
creatures showed any divergencies of form to indicate a bi-sexual
species, but because the slim bodies gave me an impression of
femininity, which makes “it” an inadequate pronoun. She asked,--“You
bring a message? We have received it already, but I should like to hear
it from you.” I replied, “It is this, ‘_I could do nothing. She is in
the fifth killing-pen on the left. There is no watch on the higher
side, and it can be climbed with little peril. The weapons are not
guarded, but the pens are. Bring all you can, except those who pass the
fish forward. You must leave my body till the return, for the fault was
mine._’”
She replied, her mind an open curiosity concerning me as she did so,
“You have remembered well. And she tells me that you saved her body, for
which we are grateful.”
I answered, “I thought I left her dead in the tunnel. Has she come here
before me?”
“We hope her body may still be there. It is dead now, but it should not
be damaged beyond remedy.”
My mind wondered vaguely, and her own answered. “You are a strange
animal, and as ignorant as you are dirty. There are two coming which
will bring you food, and which you must first eat, and then continue
with us, for we could not leave you in safety, and your body, apart from
its deficiencies and that its clumsy coverings are damaged, appears to
be useless until food has restored it.”
Her thought was without hostility; it was kind in tone, however
offensive in substance. She was clearly startled on realising the mental
protest with which I received it. She went on, “You have been useful,
and what we can do for you we will. But if this wild inevitable folly
does not destroy us, I suppose that we must give you up to the Dwellers,
for you seem to me as one that comes from the other lands, whom we are
unable to harbour.”
I have tried to translate the thoughts she gave me into English words,
but it is not easy, and the difficulty is particularly great where
people or places are mentioned. For in the language of thought it is
evident that proper names can have no place. The clumsy device of names
is a necessity of articulate speech, which Adam first discovered when he
attempted language. Consequently, when I write of the “Dwellers” I use
the best word I can apply to the idea she gave me, which was that of a
dominant race, by whom the earth--or that part of it--was held as men
hold civilised lands to-day, and without whose consent no other creature
can remain in security. There was a subtle implication of a shadow
beyond, against which they were leagued in common, but it was too
formless for me to understand it....
Had dogs continued, I wondered, through five hundred millenniums?
The two creatures which trotted at the rear of the column, and which now
paused at her signal, were shaggy, web-footed, with the flapped gills
with which I was already familiar, obviously amphibious, with seals’
eyes, and of the bulk of a walrus. Why should I think of dogs? But the
identity of a dog is not the result of a physical pattern, or how should
we call a Great Dane by the same name as a Skye Terrier?
Not for the first time or the last, I wondered less at the differences
of this strange world than at its similarities to the one behind me.
Round the neck of each of these creatures hung a bag containing food,
intended (as I learnt later) for their own eating. Of this she directed
me to take some for my own use from the nearer one, and when I
hesitated, with mingled fear and repulsion, the sea-dog thrust out an
unexpected length of narrow tongue, that curled down, snake-like, into
the bag, and drew out an object the size of a swan’s egg, but covered
with a tough flexible skin of mottled grey, and held it toward me.
At this my guide threw me a thought of sharp impatience, and enjoined me
to eat it quickly.
I took it then, and broke the skin, and found it contained a semi-liquid
substance, of a slate-grey colour, which I tasted doubtfully, and then
ate with eagerness, for it was sweet and of a delightful taste, and had
a quality which appeased both thirst and hunger.
CHAPTER XI
THE PROBLEM
I ate quickly, for the impatience of my companion’s mind was affecting
me like a physical pressure, and we then set off rapidly to overtake the
troop, which had now disappeared in the tunnel, my energy being
stimulated to the swift exertion, either by the force of my companion’s
will, or by the strange food which I had taken.
As we ran, our minds met and contended, making little progress at first,
for her curiosity was keen, and was of a kind which, being without
anxiety, and regarding me only as a strange animal which had lost its
way, was not easily turned, while I was acutely conscious that I had
here a friendly intelligence which, if I could use the time to
advantage, might give me information of vital importance, to enable me
to move with safety through the unfamiliar ways to which I had committed
myself.
Consequently we each strove for some moments to obtain information
rather than provide it, but in the end she gave way, thinking she would
gain more by humouring me, and that my questions could hardly fail to
disclose much of my own identity.
I then asked her how it was that the troop, the rear of which we had now
gained, was able to traverse the tunnel in safety. I recognised that the
pace at which they moved must give some advantage, but I should have
supposed that, though the first might pass, the roused worms would
strike at those that followed. She replied that the combined will-power
of the troop held them down very easily, on which I mentioned my own
experience, and admitted that I had made no effort to use my will-power
against them. She replied that this was natural in such an animal as I,
and that I had possibly allowed anger, or even fear, to enter my mind,
so descending to their own level, and rendering it easier for them to
attack me.
I could not deny this, but asked why she regarded me so contemptuously.
She replied that, as I was a strange creature to her, she could only
judge me by the degree of intelligence which I exhibited, but that a
species of any eminence could hardly be content to exist in bodies so
ugly, so awkward, and so badly made. She added that many of the lowest
creatures of the ocean-floor possessed bodies which were complete and
sufficient without extraneous coverings.
I replied that the human body was not necessarily insufficient, but that
clothing might be worn from a sense of shame, or as an ornament only.
She said that she understood the sense of shame, which she should feel
very strongly herself if she were burdened with such a body, but if I
regarded my clothes as ornamental, it was a point on which we must
differ; and, in that case, the wearing of clothes confessed me to be an
inferior, even among my own kind, as a Leader naturally would not enter
into such a competition.
I was puzzled by this reply, and she instanced the fact that she, and
other Leaders of her kind, did not pattern their fur, which would bring
them into unseemly competition with those below them--a competition
which would lead to envy if they succeeded, or ridicule if they failed
to outdo their rivals.
I then asked a number of questions intended to guide me as to the
conditions of the world I had entered, and it will be most convenient to
give the facts,--as far as I was then able to understand them,--in the
form of a direct statement rather than in that of the conversation which
gained them.
I learnt that the country in which I found myself was an island
continent, of about the size of Australia, but in the northern
hemisphere, as the stars had told me. It was controlled by the Dwellers,
who had lived below its surface for a long period of time, of the
duration of which I could form no idea, nor could I obtain any
information as to the depth or extent of their subterranean excavations,
for the sufficient reason that no Amphibian had ever penetrated them.
The island continent was surrounded on every side by a great ocean,
beyond which was a world containing such inhabitants that the Dwellers
had first gone underground to escape them, and then, at a later period,
planted around the whole extent of the coast a girdle of strange
growths, above which the air had no sustaining power, and which had
protected it so effectively that for an enormous period of time they had
been left in undisputed isolation.
In some remote antiquity they had entered into a treaty with the
Amphibians by which it was agreed that they should be left in possession
of the numerous rocky islets which surrounded a large part of the coast,
on three conditions;--they were to keep certain subterranean reservoirs
filled with fresh fish continually; they were to hold no intercourse
with the farther world; and they were to make no attempt to penetrate
inland, either above or below the surface.
Until recently, these conditions had been observed with exactness. They
had, beneath the ocean, an undisputed dominion of enormous area; they
did not even cross to the farther sides of the fish-tanks they filled,
from which the Dwellers netted the shoals of fish which they had herded
into them; they made no attempt to penetrate the protective belt which
surrounded the surface area; and they entirely avoided the other
continents of which the land surface of the earth consisted.
For the whole period since this treaty was made--I could only marvel at
their longevity--they had been ruled by a Council of Seven, whose
headquarters were beneath the black rocks which I had observed to
seaward.
The Council decided all matters affecting the welfare of the community
by thinking upon them until they arrived at unanimity, and these
decisions were always accepted without dissent.
But there was one of the seven who had not been present when the treaty
was made. She had been long absent, and was supposed to have been dead,
but she had subsequently returned from the exploration of the caves of a
range of submarine mountains at the farther end of the earth, in which
she had met with such adventures as had detained her for a long period.
Not having been a party to the treaty, she had not felt herself bound in
honour, as had the other six, to observe it. Nor, being of the seven,
did she feel controlled by their authority, as did the rest of the
community. She was of a disposition which loved the adventures of
strange ways, and, from the first, had wished to explore the interior of
the forbidden continent. For a very long period she had been held back
by the wishes of her companions, and by the fear that she might be the
cause of disaster to them, but at last a time had come when the impulse
had been irresistible, and there had been none near to restrain her. She
had spent the night on the forbidden land, and had returned at dawn with
a strange tale of a silent country, where all things slept, and where
trees and grasses grew, such as they had never seen, or remembered only
with the vagueness of a distant dream.
After this escapade they watched in doubt lest the Dwellers had been
aware of it, but the days passed in safety, and at length she ventured
again--and again--always returning before the dawn, until the tales she
brought enabled them to visualise a land inhabited by many species of
creatures, such as the Dwellers permitted to run wild, or conserved for
their utilities to themselves, and of a fertility which was alluringly
different from the ocean meadows in which they were accustomed to
wander, but in which all creatures slept in the night-time, and even the
Dwellers did not appear upon the surface of the land they owned.
After a time it appeared certain that these expeditions might be taken
with impunity, providing that the night were chosen, and a return made
before sunrise. But the time came when the desire to see the moving life
of the daytime overcame her. She remained in hiding, she saw much, and
the next time she stayed away for three days. Acting with great caution,
and with the advantage of her past experience, she returned in safety
and unsuspected; but in the meantime a companion, alarmed at her
lengthened absence, had started out to find her. On learning this, she
at once set out again, though the day was then dawning, and the open
paths had to be taken at a new peril; she found her would-be rescuer
herself captured, and apparently in the greatest danger, and on her
return to obtain the help which was essential, had encountered me, with
the result of which I knew already.
Conscious that her body was damaged beyond immediate remedy, and aware
that her separate mind could not communicate with her friends unless
their own should be receptive, she had entrusted me with the message
which I had tardily delivered. But in the meantime, she had found it
easy to establish intercourse with minds which were anxiously awaiting
news of herself and her companion, and it was on the information that
she had supplied that the expedition was started.
It was a deliberate breach of the treaty on which their security was
founded, but with two of their number in jeopardy, and the body of one
lying where the Dwellers could not fail to find it sooner or later, they
had felt that they had no alternative but to attempt the enterprise.
Among the various creatures which lived upon the surface of the
continent, it appeared that there were certain ferocious animals of the
lowest kind, gregarious in their habits, collected in mountain
strongholds, and having bodies which were like those of fish in this
respect, that they decayed after a short space of years, sometimes even
rotting while the unfortunate animals remained within them, and being
continually replaced by young of the same species which grew up around
them. They did not appear to have any life apart from these bodies,
though my informant could not tell with certainty whether they actually
ceased to exist when their bodies perished, or were incarnated in their
descendants.
These creatures had carnivorous feasts at regular intervals, in
anticipation of which they hunted the wild things of the land, and set
traps for them, into one of which the unfortunate Amphibian had fallen.
As one of these feast days was shortly due, she was now penned up, not
merely in anticipation of death, but that her body might be destroyed
beyond remedy, in which case I understood that the path of reincarnation
might be both long and difficult.
The problems were, therefore, first, to remove the body which lay in the
tunnel entrance to a place of safety, where it could be repaired, and
its owner could resume it; and second, to rescue her companion either by
force or subtlety, bringing their faculty of thinking in unison, and of
combined will-power, to operate against opponents who were not expecting
attack, and who relied upon their savage strength and weapons to
maintain their own security, and to hold the prey that they had
captured; and third, to do these things, if either were possible,
without the knowledge of the Dwellers, whose means of information were
only vaguely guessed, but who were known to come out on the surface in
the daytime.
CHAPTER XII
THE MARCH
We were now clear of the covered way, under a sky of brilliant
starshine, holding a course through the darkness that never wavered or
slackened, even when the gorge was crossed by the invisible bridge.
Here it occurred to me to ask how, if the country relied upon its girdle
of strange growths for its immunity from the outside world, it could
afford to risk invasion up so wide an unprotected channel as the gorge
supplied, but I could learn nothing beyond the suggestion that its
enemies would probably be too stupid to discover the gap, (if it really
were unprotected), which seemed a strange supposition when applied to a
power so dreaded, and the information that this gorge was remembered as
the scene of a great battle before the protective girdle had been
planted, in which the Dwellers had been destroyed in hundreds, but in
which one of their enemies had also perished, and the remains of its
body had blocked the channel for many years afterwards.
I had thought of the Dwellers hitherto as dominating by their strength
and size, as well as by their evident physical knowledge and engineering
skill, in both of which my present companions appeared to take little
interest, but I now had a vision as of a world in which a race of ants
of superior intelligence might revolt successfully against mankind, and
of a warfare in which they had been trodden down, as a man might stamp
on an ant’s nest. But the truth, as I learnt later, was somewhat
different.
My companion now pressed for some account of myself, and I answered many
questions, finding her more ready to believe that I was the product of
an earlier civilisation than I should have anticipated, but that this
information made it appear the more necessary that the Dwellers should
be informed of my existence, and the less probable that they would
regard it with complacency.
She explained that it was known to the Dwellers that the earth had been
the scene of countless civilisations, through aeons of forgotten times,
all of which had successively destroyed themselves by the misuse of
their own discoveries, and that their whole energy was directed to
overcoming this recurrent danger, which had appeared to operate with the
certainty of a fundamental law. To them I might well appear as the seed
of death which nature had sent forward to frustrate a purpose which
might otherwise have defeated her own intention. On the other hand, she
suggested kindly, my obvious ignorance and insignificance might be my
protection, as I had so evidently been born upon the earth in one of its
more barbarous epochs. As to their own course regarding myself, they
would do what they could, but----and her mind shut suddenly, though not
before I had caught a glimpse of her difficulty.
For if they were discovered in the present enterprise, even if it did
not in itself cause their destruction, they might find themselves at
open war with the Dwellers, in which case there would be no purpose in
surrendering me, while if the expedition returned in success and
secrecy, they might wish to give me up rather than risk another cause of
difference,--but how then could they secure that I should withhold my
knowledge of the events which were now proceeding?
It appeared to me to be a position in which they might well decide to
destroy what was, to them, nothing more than a strange and inferior
animal; nor did the alternative appear more attractive in its
probabilities, for if they were at war with the Dwellers, would they not
retreat to the ocean-floor which was their familiar resort, and where, I
supposed, their enemies would be unable to pursue them, and how could I
adapt myself to such an existence?
I decided that I could only act as circumstances developed, and that, in
the meantime, it was both duty and policy to give such service as I
could to those who had shown me kindness.
Meanwhile, the rapid march continued. There was a moon now, the first I
had seen, a thin bowl of silver in the eastern sky, more brilliant than
that to which I had been used--a difference which may have arisen only
from the fact that I was in a more equatorial region than that which I
had left behind me.
By its light the path became visible, a faint opalescence beneath us,
and, later, the black entrance to the tunnel of my first adventure.
Here we halted for the recovery of the body that I had left within it.
But after some space of silence, a sense of grief and oppression invaded
me, which I knew was felt by all those around me, as the news spread
from mind to mind. The body was not there.
Whatever had happened to it--and that it had fallen into the hands of
the Dwellers was almost certain--I understood that the inquiry must be
delayed till the further object of the expedition had been accomplished,
or at least attempted.
The sea-dogs, which had been brought for the purpose of conveying back
the body, were now ordered to return, and the forward march continued.
My guide had rejoined the other Leaders of the expedition, assigning me
to the care of the rearmost of the troop, beside whom I went forward,
keeping up the pace with difficulty, but afraid to fall behind, and
aware from the thought which combined us that there was still much
ground to be covered before the darkness lifted. When I had continued
for about half-an-hour, during which some miles must have been covered
at the rapid trot which was maintained without alteration upon the level
surface, a knowledge of my exhaustion must have entered the mind of my
neighbour, for I found a small webbed hand passed into mine, and with it
a thrill of nervous energy that enabled me to continue, till we shortly
turned to the left, and took a rough uphill path, on which we slackened
to a walk, and were soon climbing over rough boulders, and up sharp
ascents where hand and knee were needed.
For a mile, perhaps two, we continued up this arduous way, at times with
a glimpse, right-hand, of a gorge of black forbidding precipices,
silvered in the moonlight, but most often with sight of little beyond
the immediate rocks among which we clambered.
Then we became aware that a high wall of overhanging cliff confronted
us, into which those who led us had disappeared already, and, guided by
my companion’s hand, I entered a narrow gulley, whether natural or
artificial I cannot say, but which extended for many miles through the
mountains. It was not more than five feet wide from wall to wall. A
narrow line of sky showed its stars, where the gulley opened on the
mountain slope some hundreds of feet above us.
We emerged at last at a great height, on an open slope, on which trees
grew, but not thickly. They were tall and somewhat slender, silver-grey
in the moonlight, as a poplar shows its leaves when the wind lifts them.
Here we continued a long time, going forward, as I thought, not
directly, but keeping always where the trees were thickest. Once, far
below, we had a view of the gorge from which we climbed, narrow here,
but opening out to seaward many miles away, a vision of mysterious and
incredible beauty which the next step ended.
I judged now, by the moon’s height, that we must have travelled rapidly
for about twenty-four hours of my accustomed reckoning, and that the
night was half over. When the sea-dogs left, I had been given a store of
the food they carried, and to this I had resorted more than once
already. My companions appeared to be equally independent of fatigue or
food, but my condition was different. I had been without sleep for a
long period, and I was aware that it was only the vitality that I
received from my companion’s hand, and the fear of the contempt of my
new associates, that dragged me onward. These might not have availed me
much longer, but now we had approached a dense wood of a different kind.
I was instructed to lie flat and crawl forward under boughs too thick
and low for any other method of progression. At once we were in
darkness, with the great boughs close above us, and beneath us a bed of
soft resilient moss, which must have been nearly a foot in depth, over
which we crawled and wriggled quite easily, but which yielded to our
weight unless we moved forward. It was warmer here,--the night air on
the higher ground had been cold since we left the gulley,--and there was
a strange and pleasant fragrance from the boughs above us, so that when
an order was passed to rest, I sank into the soft moss very willingly,
and had I known that it would close over and suffocate me while I slept,
I think that I should scarcely have had the strength of mind to reject
its embraces.
CHAPTER XIII
THE KILLERS
I could not say if the others slept, for I knew nothing more till I
waked bewildered in a dim golden light, with my comrade of the night
touching my hand to rouse me. The rest of the troop had begun to move
forward already.
I was sunk deeply in the soft moss, which was of a very close texture,
and of so dark a green as to look black in the shadow. The branches
overhead spread low and wide, as do those of a beech. The leaves also
were beech-like, but of a golden yellow. Not the yellow of Autumn, but
one of an abundant vitality. I noticed the fragrance which had soothed
my exhaustion when we entered. It gave me now a sense of contentment and
physical well-being such as I had never experienced.
It must have been full daylight without, for the light did not increase
farther within the wood, but here it was a golden twilight only. I was
able to look clearly for the first time at my companion. The human mind
is so ductile that already the slim furred form gave an impression of
familiarity. Not being one of the Seven, she had the distinctive
patterning by which each was individualised. In her case, a zebra-like
striping on the back, produced by trimming the fur shorter, as it was of
a darker shade beneath, the silver-grey marking of the back being
superficial only.
We conversed freely as we crawled forward for some hours over the
springy moss. I met here with a mind of a ready friendliness, and a very
lively curiosity. I suppose, by our reckoning, she had lived for an
enormous period, but the mind that met me gave an impression of an
invincibly child-like quality,--but it had other characteristics which I
was to learn more slowly. The impression which I gave to her was, no
doubt, somewhat different.
Her keen delight in the new world,--as new to her as to me,--through
which we were passing, contended with her curiosity to learn the still
stranger world of which I could tell her, and gave little time for me to
learn of her, or of the life to which she was native. But she gave me
glimpses of an existence which found its pleasure in wandering through a
marine world which was as much more extensive than the dry ground as it
is to-day, and which I judged to have changed but little. One episode
she gave me vividly because of the indelible impression which it had
made upon her. It appeared that her kind can wander freely among the
huge savage creatures of the ocean-depths, exploring its heights and
valleys, and penetrating its caves with impunity, because they can
control every form of life it contains by a will-power which works
without effort. She had attempted, in a spirit of mischief, to allow
various savage creatures to attack her, intending to forbid them at the
latest second, but she found invariably that though their minds were
confused by a feeling of her complacence, the respect of her kind was
too deep an instinct for them to disobey, until she tried the trick upon
a species of shark of an exceptional ferocity. Vividly I saw it, under
depths of green water, from which all weaker forms of life had withdrawn
in terror. The savage rushes of the hungry fish which she had foiled at
the last moment with a thought of derision, and the snap of his
disappointed jaws. And then,--the instant’s diversion of mind in its
too-confident certainty, and the half-second too late,--the passionate
repulse that sent the great fish cowed and grovelling to the sea-floor a
hundred feet below,--and the consciousness that her right arm was
hanging torn and useless. And then the long swim homeward for two
thousand miles to the only place where help could be given, and how she
had told her tale to the Seven, and they had decreed that the arm should
never entirely heal, so that it should be a warning to her and all her
race for ever. And in evidence she showed the scars, where no fur grew,
and I understood that the scar of a healed wound was something beyond
the previous experience of her kind.
Of the swimming of the great tunnel she told me also, which extends for
several thousand miles from one sea to another, through an intervening
continent, and of strange forms that lurk in its labyrinth of caves,
such as the open oceans have never seen,--labyrinths in which you may
wander for many months, seeking in vain for an exit.
Of such things I learnt much, but I noticed that her mind was little
fixed upon the object of the expedition. That she understood that it was
very dangerous, and might terminate her bodily life was clear enough,
and that the thought of such potential sacrifice for her Leader’s rescue
filled her with a pleasurable exhilaration that was stronger than fear,
this I understood; but of the thought of any possible aggressive
violence to achieve her end, her mind seemed as incapable as her body
seemed ill-adapted for such a purpose. Frequently her thoughts were of
the movements in the moss below, which must have teemed with life,
though it did not annoy us in any way; or of the occasional sound of
wings in the boughs above us; or of the straight and narrow paths that
cut through the moss continually, down which we once saw a small form
disappearing, looking like a beetle running upright on its hind legs,
and of the size of a field-mouse.
But though her mind was not anxious as to the result of the expedition,
I soon had evidence that those of her Leaders were differently occupied.
A thought came down the line to halt, and for me alone to go forward.
This I did, till I came to an open space in the forest. Here I found the
five Leaders seated where the moss-carpet extended somewhat beyond the
trees, and for a moment they waited while my mind was held by the beauty
of the sight which met me.
The trees which surrounded the glade were of one kind only: beech-like
in growth, though the branches spread and drooped with greater
regularity. The gold which shows faintly on an oak in springtime was
here the dominant colour, tinged with green if the wind lifted the
leaves, which were of a fine transparency, or deepening to the
background of a Tuscan fresco, as it sank again into quietude. The moss,
which extended on all sides outward from the trees for a short distance,
showed dark in a strong sunlight. Beyond this, the glade was covered
with a short growth of coral-pink, on which blue pigeons, such as I had
seen before, were feeding, and showing no concern at our presence.
Grace of line and harmony of colour--everywhere I found them, as in the
world I had left. Surely beauty is more fundamental than righteousness!
Or may the two be one only?
If there were any difference in the new world, it was only that nature
produced her effects with greater economy of material, massing her
colours, and content to display a few varieties of plant or tree only,
where I had been used to the combinations of hundreds. But I recognised
that I had seen too little to justify such generalisations. It would be
as though a man were to spend a few days on the Norfolk Broads, or in
the Highlands of Scotland, and imagine the whole surface of the earth to
be similar to the scenes he witnessed.
But the Five were waiting. My guide of the previous night addressed her
mind to mine, and the others arranged themselves to perceive us. I was
first asked if I were willing to give my aid to the object of the
expedition, if it should be of any utility. It did not appear to occur
to them to offer any reward or inducement, and in reply I consented
unconditionally.
I was then asked to explain the purpose of the axe I carried, with which
I had defeated the vegetable octopus of my first adventure. This led me
to inquire why its victim had not been able to save herself by the power
of will on which they relied for their protection, to which I received
the answer that it would have been of little avail, as the whole forest
was against her, and was conscious that it was carrying out the duty for
which it had been planted, whereas she was breaking the treaty with its
originators. I recalled the way in which it had quailed before me, but
it was pointed out that I was not under the obligations of the
Amphibians. None the less, I felt that the incident gave me some
increased prestige in the minds that considered it. The fact was that my
hatred of the creature as an octopus was blended with the contempt which
I felt for it as a cabbage--the first idea persisting--and that this
attitude toward something which they regarded as formidable, both in
itself and in its anger, impressed them inevitably.
But I soon modified this advantage. In explaining the uses of the axe, I
offered to demonstrate it by felling one of the trees around us. The
idea that I should destroy life for an illustration broke upon their
minds with incredulity, that gave way to contempt. For a moment they
regarded me as morally unfit to be associated with their enterprise, but
recalling that they were contending against creatures even baser than
myself (if that were possible) they decided to interrogate me further.
It was first explained to me that the spirit of her whom I had rescued
so unsuccessfully was now guiding the expedition, and I was asked to put
my mind at her disposal, so that I might see the creatures against which
we were operating. On doing this, I received a vision of a forest path,
on which three of them were walking in single file. They were about
three feet in height, and in appearance they seemed to me such
caricatures of humanity as might be the outcome of a nightmare dream. In
colour they were a bright worm-pink, and of a surface which was
repulsive beyond the resource of any word we have to describe it. Their
heads were bald, but of a darker colour than their bodies and limbs.
Their eyes moved continuously with an alert and restless malignity.
Their lips--or rather the orifice of their mouths--elongated into a
narrow tube about twelve inches long, through which they could take
nourishment by suction only. Through these tubes they could make
whistling sounds, by which they communicated with one another. They
could stand easily on their legs if sight or reach required it, but
squatting was their more natural posture. Each of them carried some kind
of rope or cord in considerable quantity.
There was a fourth that followed, of the same form and colour, but of
more than twice the size, and of a ferocity more brutal, though not more
malevolent, than that of those who preceded him. He carried a powerful
bow of dark wood, bent for use, and with a shaft ready for the cord.
It was conveyed to me that these were not adult and young of the
species, but that the archer was of an exceptional growth, of which they
had two or three only in each generation.
In the vision, I could hear plainly that others of their kind were
whistling to them through the trees, to whom they replied with notes of
rising excitement. Soon I perceived that one of the frog-mouthed apes
that I had already encountered was being driven towards the party that I
watched. I understood that it had been separated from its companions,
and headed off from the safety of its native rocks. It now came bounding
in a heavy bewildered terror toward the waiting archer.
Remembering how my own axe had cut through the throat of one of these
creatures without apparently disturbing its equanimity, I was curious to
see how a shaft could discommode it. I soon learnt. The hunted creature
saw its new foes, and turned sideways. As it did so, it crossed the bole
of a giant tree, and at the instant the archer wrenched the bow back to
his ear, and the shaft flew. It drove through its victim’s neck, and
deep into the trunk behind it. Before the shaft had ceased to quiver,
the three that bore the ropes leapt forward and were twining them round
the now struggling victim, binding it first to the trunk, and then,
heedless of the gnashing teeth above the fastened neck, till every limb
was useless.
By now the beasts that had driven it were arriving, and with an inferno
of exultant whistlings the worm-pink crowd had loosed it from the tree,
and drawn the shaft out of its neck, that they might drag it with them,
now roped beyond movement. I watched it drawn for some miles in this
way, clear of the woods, and up by rocky paths, until a high plateau was
reached, a mile-wide shelf of rock, beyond which the mountain rose
abruptly once again. On this shelf was their stronghold. A low,
continuous, smooth-sided back-sloping stone-seeming wall, very broad at
the base, and rising to a sharp ridge, swept crescent-shaped from the
cliff, and enclosed the larger half of the plateau.
To this wall there was one barricaded entrance only, through which the
hunters dragged their victim. Many more of their kind, of all sizes,
were within the enclosure, but the sight of the captured prey was
evidently too commonplace to attract their attention, and I saw that
they squatted in the sun, or moved on their own errands, in complete
indifference, while it was dragged toward a large cistern of boiling
water, which was sunk in the ground, and into the centre of which a
stone pier jutted. By carrying their ropes round the sides of the
cistern they were able to draw their victim along this pier, so that it
fell off at the extremity into the boiling vat. It was bound too tightly
to struggle, and sank at once to the bottom, where it continued to move
spasmodically as long as I observed it. I understood that it would boil
there for many hours till the contents of the tough skin should be
reduced to a semi-liquid form, such as its captors could draw in through
their sucking mouths, and the whole sight filled me with a loathing for
these bestial forms, and for the cruelties they practised. I did not
reflect that the boiling of living fish, which is common in Asia, or of
lobsters in our own country, is a far greater cruelty, being exercised
on creatures of higher sensibility, and with far less excuse, as they
could be killed without difficulty, which was by no means certain in the
instance which I was observing.
I saw also that the centre of the crescent did not contain any buildings
except such as were of a public character. Of these one confined the
selected victims of the approaching feast, and this was built over one
end of the boiling tank, and guarded by one of the giant archers, with a
number of assistants round him. There was one other giant lying with a
leg discoloured and useless against the cliff-wall, in an evidently
dying condition,--shortly, no doubt, to share the fate of a dead body of
one of their number which I saw flung over the farther side of the
plateau, where it fell abruptly to a great depth.
I saw that the wall was hollow, with many doorways on the inner side,
and that it formed the dwellings of the settlement. There were many
young, moving in a more lively manner than the adults, and including two
of the archer kind, which, though evidently immature, were already
larger than the rest of the tribe.
CHAPTER XIV
THE HALT
I was recalled from this contemplation by the pressure of the minds
around me, and my first thought was to ask why, if the Dwellers were
supreme, they allowed the existence of such foulness. I was answered
that it was all as strange to them as to myself, but I learnt later that
the blood of creatures of a malevolent kind had a chemical quality which
was required for certain purposes in connection with the defence of the
continent, and that these creatures were deliberately bred to supply it.
I was then asked whether I were familiar with the weapon carried by the
archers, and could use it if necessary. I replied that the bow had long
been regarded as a deadly weapon in the world from which I came, but
that in my own time and country it had fallen into disuse. I was not
entirely unfamiliar with it, having consorted with some who had used it
in competitions of skill, in which I had done indifferently well, but
the bows I had used had been little better than toys when compared with
that which I had now seen, and the memory of the depth that the shaft
had been driven into the hard wood made me doubt whether I should have
the strength to bend it.
This information was received with quiet satisfaction. I began to have
an increased respect for these Amphibians, as I recognised the serenity
with which they faced a problem which might well seem insoluble, under
conditions which were in some respects more alien, and must have been
far more repugnant, to themselves than to me.
I noticed the unhurried care with which they arranged the facts as they
perceived them, and that while they had outlined an intention of
effecting the rescue by the power of their own wills, without arousing
the opposition of the will-power of their opponents, they were careful
to avoid any detailed plan, until all the available information had been
obtained to guide them. I began to understand how it was that they could
rely upon arriving at unanimous decisions for all their actions, and the
unquestioning faith with which these decisions were received by their
followers. I felt that if the Dwellers were to appear at that moment
with the threat of some overwhelming penalty, it would not radically
disturb the equanimity of the minds that met them.
I was next asked whether I thought I could descend the cliff that rose
at the back of the settlement in the moonlight, as the vision had shown
it, and replied with certainty that I could not do so, either by night
or day. I am without any special aptitude for climbing, and I think
there are few men who would have attempted that descent under any
conceivable circumstances.
I was then directed to await my previous companion, and the crawling
march continued. As they passed me, two and two, I was able to estimate
their numbers, for the Leaders had been at the head, and my own place
was at the rear of the procession. I found that there were over three
hundred whose lives had been committed to this enterprise.
On rejoining my companion I asked her whether this were the whole of her
tribe or nation, to which she replied that there were many more, but
that they could not have been summoned without delay, being scattered in
many oceans, and a proportion of those available had to remain, that the
Dwellers might not notice the absence of their accustomed service.
Only, I learnt, at an annual date which the stars showed them, did they
all congregate, to sleep for three days’ space in the feeding-tanks, and
gain strength for the year to be.
I gathered that my own method of continual eating, and the swallowing of
waste matter, which my body promptly rejected, placed me definitely with
the lower animals in her thought, though not unkindly--or rather with
the sea-dogs and the fishes, for of a lower terrestial creation she had
little previous knowledge, and it was, indeed, stranger to her world
than to that from which I had wandered. I wondered how she regarded the
Dwellers, of whom the one I had seen was certainly more of my own kind,
but I recognised that she had other reasons to respect, if not to love
them.
I next asked what might be the natural longevity of her kind, and if
there were no old, infirm, or children that had been left behind, but to
this she replied that they were not fishes, and their bodies did not
alter or decay as the years passed. Obviously, if their bodies were
damaged beyond remedy, they withdrew from them.
How, I queried, if they were not subject to birth or change, could one
so disembodied hope for any new incarnation, and by what channel could
it be gained?
But I could only learn that she was unperturbed by the suggested
difficulty. Beyond this, her explanation faltered, or my mind was
deficient to comprehend it. But the longer that I conversed with my
companion, while the slow hours passed, and the crawling march
continued, the more I realised that life persisted to the same ends, by
the same methods, through all its physical changes, and even these--how
slight they might appear to a detached observer!
In the softened golden light of this unending forest, could I have said
certainly that I was not in some untravelled part of the world I knew?
Nothing was too strange for that, except perhaps the Amphibian whose
hand I held, and whose nervous strength it was which enabled me to go
forward. And even she--was her form as grotesque, even to my human mind,
as that of many beasts or reptiles which I could have seen in my own
garden, or behind the bars of menageries? And was she not, of all the
things around me, becoming the most familiar through the mental intimacy
which was growing up between us?
In this great forest there was an atmosphere of enduring peace; it was a
lake of stillness, rippled by softly-rustling unseen wings above us, or,
more faintly, by the stir of slighter life in the moss below. Frequently
we crossed the narrow roads I have mentioned, and as I looked at them
more closely I was confirmed in the opinion that they were the work of
the beetle-bipeds, one of which I had seen for a moment, for the moss on
either side was trimmed with formal regularity, for doing which the
mandibles of such a creature would be well adapted. The moss would be
far too close in its growth for them to penetrate it in any other way,
and yet not close enough for them to walk over it without sinking, so
that it would otherwise form an insurmountable barrier. I was confirmed
in this opinion when we passed an open glade which was white with low
regular mounds of mushroom shape, from one of which I had a glimpse of
two of these creatures issuing, and passing rapidly out of sight behind
it....
I began to think of the Amphibians as being independent of sleep, as
they were of food, but as the morning advanced an order came that we
were to move sideways to the left (the two in front of us moving to the
opposite side) until we were at the edge of the forest, which we were
then approaching, and there to rest, and await the order to undertake
the more arduous part of the journey, which must be accomplished while
the daylight lasted.
Meanwhile all minds were to be concentrated upon the object of the
expedition, which I now learnt was their method of sleeping, the mind
being rested upon one thought only for a previously-decided period, a
method surely superior to our own, in which it wanders blindly through
disjointed recollections, and in vain conceptions of foolish or
repugnant things.
A number were, however, directed to remain alert and wakeful, and to
watch for any menace which might appear from the open country before us,
from which only (it was assumed) could any danger threaten.
Being now on the extreme left of the line which the last movement had
extended in echelon along the edges of an out-jutting spur of the
forest, with our Leaders at its advanced point, I was asked whether I
were able to assist in this manner, and was directed to watch as long as
I could do so without exhaustion, and then to arouse my companion.
The halt would continue until the sun had reached its meridian. The mind
of one of the Leaders would remain receptive to any report I might send
it.
Even if I had not undertaken this duty, and recognised its importance in
a land which was as potentially hostile to my companions as to myself,
and which was even stranger in some of its aspects to themselves than to
me, I could hardly have failed, for a time at least, to remain awake and
aware of the strange beauty of the scene which was extended beneath me.
My companion sank at once oblivious in the deep moss, which yielded to
our weight when we halted, and in which I took a sitting position,
enabling me to look out from beneath the boughs which spread low
overhead, and were sufficient to screen me from the outside observation
of anything which did not approach very closely.
The ground before me sloped gently down to a deep and very wide valley.
Far to the left were low hills; to the right front was a distance of
wilder mountains, with snowy sides, height beyond height, with a
suggestion of the foothills of the Himalayas. The valley undulated, and
was heavily wooded in some places. It had wide plains, but without sign
of cultivation, or of moving life.
The sky above us was the unclouded blue I had seen previously, very deep
now in the strong sunlight. Far off,--and sight went far in the clear
air, across the lower land,--there was a wide low forest with a silver
hint of lake beyond it.
In colour, the whole scene gave me a first impression of a splendour of
gold and blue, with dark hills around, and snowy mountains above them,
but as I looked more closely I saw that there was an undertone of green,
as in the old familiar landscapes, but with this difference, that where
I had been used to the dark blue-green of trees and hedges breaking the
yellow-green of the corn and grass-lands, here yellow-green, deepening
to many shades of gold, was the prevailing tone of the woodlands, while
open slopes and plains were covered with a blue-green verdure, in some
places with no more hint of blue than in the leaves of a rhododendron,
at others brighter than a peacock’s neck.
This was the general impression of a wide stretch of country, which
might show differently at a closer view, or with a change of season.
When I looked immediately in front of me I saw that the moss extended
for two or three feet only from the forest-shade, and beyond this was a
blue-green growth, of an orchis-like kind, which covered the ground
where it sloped gently before me. Here and there, other plants struggled
for existence among it, including one of a trailing habit which I
noticed for a very fragile and beautiful flower shaped like a campanula,
and approaching a very deep orange shade, but different from anything I
had seen, and I have therefore no word by which to describe it.
Last, and nearest, I noticed, a bare yard to my left, where a low branch
shaded the moss a little in advance of the trees around it, a
ground-nest of beaten moss, of the size of a hand-bowl, and in it three
small black puppy-like creatures, curled close, and sleeping in the
shaded warmth of the morning.
Surely there was little change in the new world from the world behind
me!
Here I watched for many hours, as the sun rose slowly. Once a huge bird
crossed the sky, coming from the lower hills and disappearing at last
over the distant heights of snow. It was many times larger than those
which I had seen previously. It flew with strong steady strokes, but was
too distant for more detailed observation.
Then I noticed a dark object moving slowly up the slope toward me, and
grazing as it came.
Its body was of a dull blue colour, and was of the size of a sheep, or
somewhat larger, but as round as an orange. It walked on two legs only,
and there was no sign of forelimbs. But for the absence of any head I
might have imagined it to be some kind of chicken, and looked round for
the apparition of a monstrous hen.
There was a face set in the front of the round body, consisting of two
eyes which surveyed the world with a twinkling and mischievous humour,
and a mouth, of which the upper lip was elongated, like an elephant’s
trunk, but to somewhat different purpose, and proportionately longer.
Hard and thin and snake-like, it had the under side serrated with sharp
bony ridges.
With this trunk it felt doubtfully over the surface of the herbage on
which it fed. Then, finding a patch that grew to its liking, it pushed
its trunk into the close growth, which appeared to resist its passage,
with a rasping, tearing sound, till it was curled round the selected
tuft, and then it pulled, and the sharp edges cut and tore the fibrous
growth from the resisting roots, till the trunk turned inwards, to push
its sheaf into the gap of the wide slit mouth, that was scarcely large
enough to receive it, till the trunk had pressed and packed it in. And
like a thrush that has won his worm after much pulling, the mischievous
eyes twinkled with a humorous satisfaction.
Care or fear, it seemed, it had none, nor any thought of enmity, as it
came with leisurely steps and jovial roving eyes towards the edge of the
wood where we were lying.
I passed the information to my Leader’s mind, but received no
instructions to do more than observe it. Closer it came, peering beneath
the branches, its trunk moving so near to me that in a sudden panic I
gripped the axe to strike, if it should attempt to molest me. But it
only gazed with eyes in which curiosity appeared to be overcome by
amusement at my comic aspect.
Indeed, it was this derisive glance which first made me realise at all
adequately the appearance I must present in my tattered clothes to these
creatures whose bodies were so much more easily cared for, and
sufficient for their environment.
I thought that I had met with the humorist of the new world, and did not
guess that I was on the threshold of tragedy.
My companions rested undisturbed, and it did not appear even to realise
their presence, at which I was puzzled for a moment, thinking that they
must be as strange to it as myself, and not understanding that the calm
indifference of their minds, and the serene tranquillity of that of the
Leader to whom I had reported its presence, were impregnable bulwarks
against any form of molestation from a single animal of its order of
intelligence.
Its eyes wandered from me, as having exhausted the amusement I offered,
and fell upon the nest beside me. I thought that it surveyed the
sleeping inmates with a greedy but doubtful interest. Right and left,
with swift apprehensive glances, went the twinkling eyes, then a long
trunk thrust in, and one of the sleepers was caught and swept into the
gaping mouth-slit, too quickly for me to have interposed, had I wished
to do so.
I had a thought that it was not its accustomed food, and that it had
acted rather in a spirit of practical joking, amused to imagine the
consternation of the returning parent, and the vain search for the
missing puppy. If that were so, it was a jest of the shortest.
Even as the mouth closed, I had an instant vision of a lithe shape, like
a small black panther, that sprang down from a nearby tree at the wood’s
edge, something in its mouth like a snake curled close, or as a
wire-worm shows when the spade exposes it. Then, on the instant, as it
reached the ground, it saw, and dropped its prey, and leapt, a lightning
bound of twenty feet, for the back of the robber.
Swift as it was, it was too late for its purpose. With the speed of
fear, the jester had rolled on to his back with drawn-up legs, and it
was the long toothed trunk that met the panther with a blow that flung
it sideward.
The foiled beast drew back for a moment, crouching to spring, in its
eyes a ferocity that left no doubt of its purpose, while in the glance
of its opponent there was a consternation that had yet in it something
that was grotesquely comic, like a fat man’s pathos.
Twice the panther leapt in, and was flung back with a reddening line of
torn fur on the glossy back. Again it sprang, and held on for a moment
with tearing teeth, while the trunk slashed it. Then it struggled clear
with a torn side, and a forelimb that dragged awkwardly. But where its
teeth had been in the blue-black skin, a jet of pale red fluid squirted
up in the sunlight.
It was more cautious now, if no less resolute in its purpose. It circled
round, crouching and watchful, but the cunning frightened eyes never
left it, and the back-drawn trunk was ready. When next it sprang, the
wounded limb told, and it fell short, and drew back with a torn ear and
a bleeding jaw. I cannot say whether that gave it the idea, or whether
the chance of battle befriended it. I should not have supposed it likely
to succeed by cunning, when strength and agility had proved unavailing.
But so it was. It leapt, and the trunk shot out to meet it, but the leap
fell short, either through sleight or weakness, so short that it came
down on the very end of the trunk, as it missed the intended stroke, and
the strong jaws snapped upon it. Back the captured trunk wrenched
desperately, and the panther was dragged some distance forward, but by
now the uninjured fore-paw was holding also, and the back legs were
straining to keep their ground, against an opponent which had no grip of
that on which it lay. The serrated teeth were on the underside of the
trunk, and as it slapped down, missing its stroke, it was caught on the
upper surface, which was smooth and soft, so that the teeth sank deeply.
And then, inch by inch, the panther bit upwards, biting till, foot by
foot, she left it limp and useless behind her.
And gradually, as she bit, the struggles weakened. All this time that
thin jet had sprayed upward, and from the appalled eyes the twinkling
intelligence was gone out, as the panther leapt at last on the ball-like
body, and ripped it open with strong claws that found no resistance.
With each tear, the thin blood jetted out like a fountain, till the
round body collapsed like a prickled bladder, in which the victor’s head
was sunk with a growling contentment, so that I thought that,
panther-like, she was already making a meal of her opponent’s body, till
the head emerged again, and in her mouth was the recovered puppy.
Purring gently, she laid it in the nest, licked it all over, still
alive, and seeming none the worse for its first adventure. As she did so
she saw me, and the light of battle glared again in the fierce eyes for
a moment, and then died, and, regarding me no more, she lay down and
licked her wounds, and cleansed her damaged fur to something of the
glossy smoothness on which her comfort and her pride depended.
While she was occupied in this way, I realised that it had become time
to arouse my companion, and having done this, and communicated what had
occurred, I sank into a sleep of exhaustion, from which the strangeness
and excitement of my surroundings were powerless to hinder me.
CHAPTER XV
THE PLAN OF ATTACK
I was awakened by my companion from a deep sleep, out of which I was
aroused with difficulty, and found that it was high noon, and the order
had already been passed that we who were on the left hand of the
outlying spur of the forest, around which we had rested, should cross to
the other side, from which the next stage of the advance would be taken.
This we did, forming a second line behind those who were already in that
position, and halting there while final instructions were given to us,
to the effect that we were now approaching the most hazardous part of
the journey, and that speed and silence, with readiness to obey any
orders we might receive with instant alacrity, were essential.
We were directed to avoid separate intercourse, and to concentrate our
minds upon the path we were taking, while holding them at the disposal
of our Leaders, and under no circumstances to allow any emotion to
control us, unless it were the ordered feeling of the expedition, and
were operated in unison.
Although these orders were not directly applicable to myself, I was
conscious of an increasing willingness to adapt myself to the methods
and controls of my new companions, and was not insensible to the relief
of mind which arose from the knowledge that the will of every member of
the expedition could be brought to operate in this way.
It is true that all my habits were alien from a method of warfare which
moved against unknown hostilities, such as were certainly capable of
physical violence, without weapons or any evident means of self-defence,
trusting, apparently, only to a mental attitude for its protection, and
leaving me to wonder how any aggressive action could be even attempted.
But I had already realised that the Amphibians had powers of intellect
which, though different from my own, were very far from contemptible.
I was inclined to wonder whether my own complacency might not be the
result of some subtle exercise of their will-power upon my own mind,
which was probably so, though not in the way in which I supposed it,
their influence not being the result of any mental violence or assault,
but resulting from my gradual recognition of the assured serenity with
which they possessed their souls against any pressure of surrounding
circumstance, a serenity which had no root in obtuseness or
indifference, but, with their leaders at least, was consistent with an
unsleeping vigilance and forethought, and a chivalrous willingness to
sacrifice themselves at the call of their companion’s peril.
We were now told to advance out of the forest in double file, all
emerging at the same spot, on the right front, which was immediately
before me, so that I watched the whole of the front line as it crawled
to this spot and moved out into the sunlight.
Last of this line came the Five, an order passing ahead of them that I
should be in readiness to follow. I was conscious of a strong reluctance
to leave my zebra’d companion, of whose vitality I had taken so freely,
and to whom I was drawn in consequence in a strange inhuman intimacy.
But they answered my thought instantly that this was not intended. We
were to move out together, immediately behind them. Being in the
rearward line, we had been able to see little beneath the low and level
branches till the moment came for us to go forward. Then the first sight
that met me was a round blue-black body, from which two humorous
twinkling eyes surveyed me satirically. For a moment I thought that I
had encountered the most amazing reincarnation of this amazing world; at
the next I recognised that there were two other similar creatures a
short distance away, and that I was not encountering a reproduction of
the one I had seen collapse so thoroughly, but only others of the same
species.
Beyond these creatures, I had a moment’s glimpse of a different
landscape from that which I had watched from the other side of the spur.
Here the ground rose, the upward slopes growing steeper, toward a bare
and desolate mountain grandeur. The next moment I saw the last of the
Five leap lightly downward into a deep and narrow trench which cut
through the ground before us, and I followed more awkwardly, my
companion gaining my side as I did so.
I am conscious in this narration of the paucity of proper names,--of the
use of no arbitrary sounds to distinguish the kinds or even the
individuals of the strange beings amongst which I was moving, but the
fact is that, unless I am to invent them, I have none to offer. It is
the evident difference between mental intercourse and oral or written
speech that such signs are imperatively needed in the latter, while in
the former they would be worse than useless. The thought that brings the
picture of the individual or place itself has no use for a sign by which
to describe it. But of these I felt the lack even before I attempted to
write down my experiences. It is the inevitable result of the constant
use of a spoken language that we acquire the habit of substituting words
for realities, even in the processes of our own thought. I found in the
minds of my companions no names for each other, nor any vaguest desire
for such a method of differentiation, but I accustomed myself to this
omission with difficulty, and am fully conscious of the disadvantage
under which I am now writing.
It was now the nearest of the Leaders--the one with whom I had held
intercourse previously--who addressed herself to my mind. She commenced
by informing me that she was about to describe the plans which they had
formed, because they included a part for myself of the first importance,
but of which they believed I should be capable.
Though I knew that I should undertake whatever might be suggested, if it
were within my capacity, yet the feeling that I had been called up like
a dog to receive my instructions, and the instinct of my commercial
training, prompting me to make a bargain for my ultimate protection,
complicated my reaction to this suggestion. “Are you less than a
sea-dog?” queried the mind that met me, but perceiving that I intended
assent, it became indifferent.
It appeared (I attempt no explanation) that the member of their number
whom I had first met, on whom they were depending for guidance, could
only communicate such knowledge as she had gained before she had left
her body; and beyond that was only able to help them by the doubts or
dissent with which she had met the various plans which they had put
before her. They were therefore in ignorance of events that were now
transpiring, but were able to receive detailed descriptions of the
ground they were about to traverse, and of the experiences or
observations she had made thereon, one of which had been shown to me in
the vision which I have told already.
The plan now proposed had been received with assent, though doubtfully,
and they had finally decided to adopt it.
She explained that trenches, such as we were now following, extended for
many miles along the lower slopes of the hills, and through the valleys,
bisecting each other, and dividing the ground into fields of very large
area. Whether they were the work of the Dwellers, or were constructed by
our present opponents,--whom I should not have supposed to be
sufficiently numerous or intelligent for works of such magnitude,--was
not known, but it was certain that the latter made use of their
extensive existence to herd some of the creatures they ate, which were
not of sufficient agility to leap the barriers. In this connection the
blue-black monstrosities I had encountered were used by them as
watch-dogs or drovers, being themselves immune from slaughter in return
for these services. It was certain that these creatures would carry the
news of our presence to their masters as soon as they were able to do
so. While they had been in our immediate vicinity the will-power of our
Leaders had been sufficient to restrain them, but this would not last in
a case in which it was exercised against the instincts and obligations
of the creatures themselves; and a suggestion from my mind that we might
destroy them was dismissed contemptuously.
They would, however, continue to watch for a while, and would know, from
the direction which would shortly be taken, that the expedition was
turning into the mountains. Their masters would know that no danger
could threaten from that direction for a space of one or two days, as
the distance to be covered was not less than five hundred miles, and
part of it was over very difficult surfaces, whereas we were only about
one hundred and thirty miles from their stronghold, if the direct course
were taken, and the trenches which I have mentioned, which were well
drained on the higher slopes, provided a road along which the Amphibians
could have proceeded with great rapidity. The distances were, of course,
conveyed to me visually and not by terms of measurement.
The way through the mountains was, for the Amphibians, sufficiently
hazardous, and would be, for me, impossible; and the Five had decided
that it would be best for me to proceed with my one companion by the
easier way, where it might be anticipated that my presence would not be
suspected, and myself to attempt the rescue, by peaceful stratagem if
possible, or by force if it should be necessary to do so.
My companion would supply the nervous energy necessary to enable me to
cover the intervening distance in the forty-eight hours which yet
remained before sunset, while, if any physical violence were necessary
to effect my purpose, I should be acting according to the laws of my own
nature, and against creatures more or less on my own level of conduct.
The enclosure which it would be necessary to enter I had already seen in
the vision. It was the custom to place all the hunting weapons of the
tribe during the night in a central building, which was not guarded, as
no attack was ever anticipated from outside, particularly during the
long night, when all the creatures on the earth’s surface rested. The
building in which were the killing-pens was guarded day and night by one
of the giant archers, lest its victims should attempt escape, and for
other reasons which I could not follow.
The main force of the expedition would arrive, if all went well, on the
top of the great cliff which overlooked the enclosure, at the
commencement of the second night. Had I found it impossible to attempt a
rescue, or had I failed, they would then proceed by other methods.
Should I succeed, I was to place myself under the orders of the one I
rescued, who, being one of the Leaders, would naturally assume control
of myself and my companion.
I was given a few minutes to consider this plan, and to make any
inquiries which might occur to me, while our course continued in the
same direction.
As I reflected upon it, I was conscious of many points which invited
criticism. It appeared that the whole expedition was being led into the
mountains for no very evident purpose, while I was to take the
individual peril and responsibility of the rescue for which it had been
designed. If the mountains offered even greater perils, it were the more
reason why a different procedure would be adopted.
On the other hand, we were operating under conditions which were in some
respects as strange to them as to myself, and for which they might be
said to be even more unfit. I was, at least, the only one who carried
anything that could be used as an offensive weapon, and there was some
justice in the reflection that I came from conditions of life from which
the argument of violence was less alien than it was from theirs. Also,
the fact that I could not pass the dangers of the mountain way, if it
were really so, was unanswerable, and the fact that our opponents could
not expect an attack from that direction for so long a time, certainly
suggested that I could best be used in the interval in the way they had
planned. Whether they expected me to succeed, or regarded me simply as a
forlorn hope, or even as a feint attack to disguise a deeper purpose, I
could not know. I considered that if I should be successful in effecting
the rescue undetected, we might be far on the return journey before the
dawn, but that they would arrive after it had certainly been discovered,
and with their enemies between them and their retreat, in which case
they would have their full share of the peril.
I had, at least, no better plan to propose, and I shortly signified that
I had no further questions. I was then told that I must restrain any
impulse of violence which I might feel, unless there were no alternative
possible, as it developed action on a plane which they despised, and on
which they were unaccustomed to operate, and might bring us into
additional and incalculable trouble with the Dwellers also, if they
should become aware of our expedition, or were already cognisant of it.
It was to descend to the level of the Killers themselves.
I write “Killers” as the nearest word I have in which to describe the
thought with which she defined our opponents, but it is quite
inadequate. Scorn was in it, and loathing, if such feelings can be
entirely passionless and judicial, and in it was the whole summary of
what they were and did, but centrally there was the conception of them
as things that killed continually, and that enjoyed killing, and as such
I translate it. These worm-pink horrors with the sucking mouths were too
low for any emotion to stir in regarding them. She looked on them as I,
whom she regarded as a beast only, look upon one of my own kind who can
kill birds for pleasure.
CHAPTER XVI
THE SENTRY
We now came to a place at which another trench extended on the right
hand, at right angles to the one we followed, and striking upward toward
the mountainside that now rose above us with an abruptness that appeared
unscalable. Looking up the straight line of the trench we could not see
the defile by which those heights were entered, nor was it easy to
imagine that this bleak forbidding precipice was only the first of a
wilderness of loftier ridges, from the top of which it would appear
almost as low and flat as the plain around us.
We watched the long column of our companions as it proceeded up the
narrow trench, at the end of which we saw it emerging on the open
hillside, where it must have been visible for many miles to any watchers
on the plains below. Then we turned, not without a feeling of loneliness
which increased the intimacy of our companionship, and went on at a
gentle walk--for the time at our disposal required no haste--in the
direction which had been indicated.
Yet the leisured pace had a consequence which might have been
disastrous, and the exact result of which I am still unable to
determine.
We were engaged in a pleasant intercourse, in which I was realising that
the apparent apathy of my companion’s mind in regard to the issue of an
expedition for which her Leaders were responsible, which had previously
surprised me, did not preclude a keen adventurous delight in an
enterprise which had now been entrusted to our own initiative, when I
was conscious of a shadow that fell for a moment across the floor of the
trench before me, into which the midday sun shone directly downward.
Looking up sharply, I caught sight of an egg-shaped body and two
jovially derisive eyes that withdrew at the instant of their detection.
Instant also was my thought of the consequences if the news of our
coming should go before us, and with that thought I loosed my
companion’s hand, and jumped for the side of the trench. The abundant
vitality which that grasp supplied me lasted long enough after I had
loosed my hold to enable me to grip the edge of the ground two feet
above my head, and swing myself on to the surface.
Rising here, I confronted the detected spy not ten feet distant, gazing
at me with a glance of humorous contempt, from which doubt and even
consternation were not entirely absent. Its body was less round than
that of the panther’s victim, being like an egg balanced on two legs,
with the thicker end in front, from which the twinkling eyes looked out,
with the long trunk curled beneath them.
I realised suddenly that I was not beyond reach of this weapon, and that
I was likely to be swept back into the trench with little ceremony, even
if no worse befell me. But the next moment I was aware that my companion
was beside me.
Whatever brain was in that blue-black body, or courage for the facing of
meaner things, it had no will to meet its new antagonist. Nor did the
order which she gave it to avoid us even disturb the quietness of the
mind that formed it. Accustomed for so long to an unquestioned supremacy
over all the creatures that the oceans held, it could not occur to her
as a possibility that such a one could resist her will, or disturb her
serenity.
Fear was in the cowed but cunning eyes as it moved backward, but when it
had retreated for fifty yards or more it suddenly threw up its trunk in
a defiant gesture, as of one released from a reluctant hypnotism, and
commenced a rapid run toward the farther end of the valley.
As it did this, I realised that I was losing it, and that our lives and
the success of our enterprise were at issue.
I unslung the axe from my back, and started in pursuit. But my feet sank
deeply in the soft herbage, and I found that speed was impossible. At
times, too, the ground itself gave way beneath me, and I stumbled
forward with difficulty. Struggle as I might, I saw that the distance
was increasing continually.
My companion’s mind called me to return, but I would not heed it.
Then I saw that she also was running, but far out on the left as though
she were leaving me.
I was still wallowing forward in a stubborn stupidity when I realised
her purpose. She was endeavouring to cut it off, and, running far more
swiftly and lightly than either of us, she was soon in a position to do
so.
But having gained the advantage, she appeared content to hold it, not
closing in, but edging the chase continually toward the higher ground.
I did not understand her purpose till I found myself running upon the
hard surface of the hillside, and gaining at every stride. The chased
beast knew it also, and turned to face me.
My hunting instinct was roused now, to reinforce my judgment of a
compelling necessity, and I was determined to kill it. But I had
sufficient caution to pause outside the range of the sweeping trunk that
threatened me.
It did not throw itself on its back, as I expected from the conflict
which I had witnessed previously, and I began to realise that it had
been running not so much to avoid me, as to carry the news to its
masters. It might be in awe of my companion’s mind, but toward myself it
very certainly had no such feeling.
I became aware that it was advancing upon me.
My companion had paused at a distance, and made no motion to assist me
further.
The trunk was waving now within three feet of my face. I swung the axe
as it was raised to strike. The sharp blade grazed the tip, and it
winced back swiftly.
For some moments we faced each other silently, neither willing to
retreat, nor to come within range of the confronting danger. I was on
the point of springing in, and risking all on one stroke, when the
memory of how the blue-black body had punctured where the claws tore,
suggested that I could throw the axe with sufficient force to disable
it.
But the throwing of axes is an occupation in which I was quite
unpractised. Trying to fling it over the trunk that waved and feinted
before me, and with sufficient force to effect my purpose, I misjudged
entirely, so that it skimmed the smooth back only, and fell ten or
twelve feet behind it.
Reckless, I ran forward to recover the weapon. My antagonist might
easily have struck me off my feet as I did so, but it had turned also
with the same object.
Not having to turn, I was a second quicker. I stooped for the axe with
the consciousness that my opponent was already upon me, and as I seized
it I threw it desperately backward.
The next moment I was struck to the ground. I felt the clothes tearing
from my back, and turning round I tried to come to grips with the trunk
which would otherwise beat the life from my body. As I did so I was
conscious that the attack had ceased.
I looked up, and saw my companion standing above us. My antagonist cowed
away from her with terrified eyes. The axe I had thrown had stuck into
its back, and remained there.
Very quietly she took the haft and drew it out. As she did this a
fountain of thin red blood, such as I had seen before, shot up and
sparkled in the sunlight.
I rose up, and we stood side by side looking at the creature that made
no more resistance, but lay dying before us.
She handed me the axe in silence.
A moment after, she gave me her hand again, and we returned to the
trench together. But though I tried to speak, her mind would not answer.
She had closed it against me, and for many hours we continued thus, her
mind a blank wall of negation at the advances I made continually.
CHAPTER XVII
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE
Dusk was already rising in the narrow trench, though the world was still
bright with the colour of a sun that set early over the mountains, when
she addressed me in the medium which is fifty times more swift than
speech, and a thousand times more accurate in its transmission of the
thoughts which form it.
“How could I answer you till there was peace in my own mind?” she asked
me. “I was confused by violence. It is a thing we do not practise,
either for defence or aggression. You appear to me to be partly as we
are, and in part as the lower order of created things, and with such a
body as is more base than either. For the first time in all my life I
could not tell what was right to do--to withhold, or to aid you. It
seems to me that you must have much sorrow.
“But now I have thought of what is right. It was to you that the charge
was given. You were to avoid violence if it were possible. It was left
to you to judge of that necessity. The responsibility is not mine. From
now you will have my help when you ask it. When I thought this, peace
came, by which I know that I have thought rightly.
“For yourself, it came to me, as I saw your mind when you fell, that you
have a brave spirit in a body of deplorable weakness. It is full also of
strange passions, which you can scarcely control yourself, and for that
reason the lowest creatures can defy you. But I saw the spirit that is
imprisoned within you, and for that I respect you.
“When we return we will ask the Leaders that all shall think together
that your body may be destroyed, and you may escape from its misery.”
I answered, “I am glad that there is peace between us, and some measure
of understanding, and for your promise of future help I thank you also.
But in the world from which I came my kind is supreme of all created
things. Here you despise me, yet you yourselves are not supreme in your
world. You fear the Dwellers, who, as I understand, eat and use violence
as I do. I understand that you supply them with fish, which seems
inconsistent with your objection to the slaughter of meaner creatures
around you.”
She replied, “I know that you are telling me the truth as you see it;
and some kind of supremacy you may have in your place, though it must
be, indeed, a strange one. I cannot suppose that there are other
creatures with bodies weaker than yours, more quickly tired, or more
awkward. Are all its animals wearers of those tattered things in which
you conceal yourself so quaintly?”
I replied, “Our bodies are doubtless better adapted to their familiar
conditions than for those in which I now find myself, as our clothes are
also. The lower animals--with some unimportant exceptions--have no outer
coverings. Should we dispense with our clothes we should consider that
we had descended to their level. We wear them from shame, from
self-respect, and to enable us to endure the climatic changes, and the
severities of the colder portions of the earth on which we dwell.”
“I can well understand,” she said, “that you are ashamed to show your
bodies to other animals, or even to each other, but can you really say
that you cover them from climatic changes? Your face and hands are bare,
which would be of all parts the most sensitive. If you can harden them
to such exposure, could you not harden the remainder of your bodies
also, and feel the joys of sun and wind and water, as all creatures
should?”
“The custom of wearing clothes among my own kind,” I answered, “is very
ancient, and is universally practised. Whether it be for warmth or
ornament, or from causes more difficult of definition, it would be
impossible for any one of us to break it. He would be persecuted or
destroyed by his fellows. You must understand that we have no individual
freedom. In my own land this loss of discretion has been reduced to an
absurdity, there being so many laws to be obeyed that it is impossible
for any one--even those who give them unceasing study--to know all that
there are. Also, we pay men to make more laws continually, so that, in
theory, we may be brought into yet closer bondage, but in practice that
is a thing which is barely possible, and as new laws are made, others
fall into disuse and forgetfulness, because it is beyond human capacity
to observe so many. We do not want more laws, but we have started a
machine in which we ourselves are involved, so that we have no power to
stop it. Many of us despise the laws that we have already--so far as we
understand them--and break them whenever we can do so to our own
advantage, and with sufficient secrecy. Others respect them so greatly
that they will do mean and base things without shame, if the law require
them, thinking it to be sufficient apology.”
“It is too strange,” she answered, “to be understood, unless it be told
more fully, and our time is too short for that, but I have not replied
to your question concerning the fish-feeding of the Dwellers. I see
clearly what you mean, but it is a thing which had been done from the
beginning. It was arranged by our Leaders, and we have not thought to
question it. It is true that the Dwellers, though they are superior to
your kind beyond comparing, are of more animal bodies than we. They must
be fed, and their food, in part, is the fish, which themselves live by
the destruction of others, and are destroyed by them continually. We
divide the shoals and drive those that become excessive into the great
tanks which extend beneath the mountains, where the Dwellers do with
them as they will. I neither doubt nor excuse it. The mackerel that we
drive, or the deep-sea salmon, will eat even of their own kind, and the
fruits of death are in their own entrails while we drive them. They obey
us, as is natural, without protest, and this thing which we do has never
troubled our peace.
“You say that you are supreme, and we are not. I think you can have
supremacy only amidst a very low creation. It is something which, until
now, we have neither sought nor heeded. In all the oceans we have held
it without challenge.
“But I think the difference is not there. It is that you are not sure of
yourself. Your own thoughts, or even your own body, may resist your
will. You are like the state of which you tell me, wherein laws are
confused and changing, and may be broken by those who make them.
“Of all this we know nothing, and therefore, were I in the midst of the
Dwellers, whose powers are terrible, I should walk in greater freedom
than you could do in your own land, whatever be your supremacy among
inferior things. But I am hindering your mind from the adventure which
is before us. It is yours to direct it, as our Leaders rightly saw, for
we are contending against creatures who are more of your own kind than
ours. Let me know what is your purpose, and I will give you all the aid
I may, either with mind or body.”
As she concluded thus, we reached the place where the trench we followed
stopped abruptly before a rising bank, and we knew that we were at the
end of the divided fields, and could no longer travel in the same
concealment. Steps led here to a trodden path, which we left immediately
for the lesser risk of a hillside which was covered with gigantic
boulders, between which we moved cautiously upward, while the day was
slowly dying, the western sky showing, for the first time in my
experience, something of the sunset-light of my familiar world, in a
cloud-born glory of yellow and purple light above the mountains.
My companion answered my thought: “It is the season of storms
approaching. In three days’ time there will be cloud, and great winds,
and hidden skies. It is nothing to us, but for those that live on the
earth’s surface it must be distasteful.”
I made no reply, for at that moment my glance fell on a Browning pistol
which lay amongst the loose stones I was treading. In the compelling
strangeness of the experiences through which I had passed I had given
little thought to those who had come here before me, but I remembered
now the arsenal of weapons with which Templeton had returned and
vanished.
I looked round, as though expecting him to appear before me. In the
growing gloom I searched round for some further sign, but could find
nothing. I opened my mind to my companion, but she could not help me,
though she searched with keener eyes than mine. I reflected that we were
a long distance from the spot on which I--and presumably he, but was
that certain?--had first arrived. If he had travelled so far, he might
have gone farther. The abandoned pistol was ominous, but perhaps he had
only thrown it away because his ammunition was ended. Possibly he had
left it there, intending to return. Possibly he dropped it by accident.
Anyway, it was useless to me, and I laid it down where I found it.
And as I rose, my companion’s mind, to which I was becoming increasingly
sensitive, interjected urgently: “Do not move, or fear. Look up to the
right hand.”
The ridge of the rocky hill we climbed stood out sharply against the
sunset light behind it, and above it rose the head and shoulders of a
giant form. He had stepped over to our side of the ridge, and stood
above us, one hand on the crest, as a man might lean his hand on his own
gate, and was gazing around, as one who is more occupied with his own
thoughts than with a familiar scene beneath him.
So he stayed for a moment, and then descended the hill with giant
strides, as the Titans may have moved when they found the earth too
small, and thought to own the heavens.
He might have crushed us under foot, as a plough-horse treads a
crouching mouse in the furrow, but we stood quiet and unmoving as he
went past without seeing us--or so I thought, but my companion differed.
“You cannot know the thoughts of the Dwellers,” she told me. “They are
not as we, or as you are. They are terrible in power, and, sometimes, in
forbearance also. But they are beyond our understanding.”
My own impression was different. I saw a Titan indeed, but one of my own
kind, and one, I thought, who was preoccupied with a great perplexity.
But whether he had seen us I could not tell.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE ARSENAL OF THE KILLERS
The moon had not yet risen, but the starlight was brilliant, as we
climbed the path that led to the stronghold of the Killers.
As we approached it in the darkness it looked larger than it had
appeared to me in the vision, and our task more formidable.
At this high altitude the night began to be cold already, and I supposed
that the temperature might fall very low before the dawn of the next
day. I began to understand why I had found the stillness of the first
night so absolute, and why all creatures sought for rest and warmth
during a night-time so much longer than our own, and in which the change
of temperature might be so much greater.
But I had more urgent considerations to engage my thoughts. To rescue
the imprisoned Amphibian from a guarded prison in the midst of the
stronghold of the Killers, whether it were attempted by force or
strategy, appeared about equally hopeless, but the Leaders had laid this
task upon me, and whether they really believed me capable of performing
it, or had used me as a pawn in a larger purpose, I was equally
committed to the adventure.
My comrade also laid the responsibility upon me, as she clearly had the
right to do. I had her promise of unquestioning aid in anything for
which I might call upon her, and I had learnt to rely more than a little
upon her fearless serenity of mind, as well as upon the abundant
physical vitality which she shared with me so freely.
On the other hand, the more I relied upon her powers of spirit or body,
the more menacing became the fact that I was braving those who had
entrapped one of her own kind, of superior grade to herself, who
apparently could not escape unrescued.
Whether they had received warning of our coming I could not tell, but I
reflected that even though a report should have reached them that the
regiment of the Amphibians had passed into the mountains six score miles
away, they would not only suppose that no fear from that quarter would
be possible for a day at least (or much longer if they should judge by
their own speed of progression), but might not even think that any
hostility to themselves were intended, nor might it occur to them as
possible that an attack would be made in the night-time, when they might
suppose the custom of rest to be universal.
Even if they knew that two of us were wandering on the lower slopes, we
might only appear to them as prey to be sought in the morning, and, I
thought, with a sudden lightening of humour, they might be right in
their estimate.
On the balance of probabilities, I thought the better course would be to
approach them boldly, and try what might be done in secrecy while the
darkness was round us.
Indeed, when we gained the plateau, caution lacked opportunity, if we
were to advance at all. For outside the enclosure it was bare and flat
beneath the starlight, and a rat could have found no shelter.
Having crossed the open space as quietly as we could, we walked for some
distance along the outside of the enclosure. It was a back-sloping wall,
or roof, as I had seen it before, having no door or window in all its
length; but knowing that there were doors along the inner side, and that
the Killers slept within it, and not knowing how lightly they might do
so, or how thin might be the wall that divided us from them, we now
moved very silently till we came to the gateway. Here we paused in
surprise, for it was not only unguarded, but open.
There was a double gate that opened inward. Sockets were faintly visible
in the ground, into which vertical bolts could be driven to secure them.
You know how a fox will use all its cunning to find some illicit
entrance to the poultry house, but will turn away from open door or
window, lest a trap be concealed behind the apparent negligence? So I
felt as I looked, and saw something dimly on the ground behind the
gateway, and hesitated, and remembered that the night was long, and
haste was needless, and asked my companion how soon would be the
moonrise.
In the end, we went back and waited under the edge of the plateau.
It is commonly held that the capacity of the average woman for logical
reasoning is inferior to that of a man, but that she has a compensating
advantage in a superior ability of intuitive perception, and may even
reach a more correct conclusion in some instances by such unreasoned
cognition, than a man will do by the exercise of a superior logical
faculty.
Whatever impressions of femininity my companion might give in other
aspects, it is certain that in this comparison she was more masculine
than myself, and the light which I had given her into the workings of my
own mind--for, in view of our understanding, I had been careful to open
it to her as I had considered the various possibilities which might
affect the success of our enterprise--had aroused a wonder which she now
expressed with her usual clarity.
“It appears,” she considered, “that there is a difference between the
processes of your mind and mine. When I encounter a difficulty which
requires decision, I reflect upon it systematically and thoroughly. It
may be a long time before I arrive at any possible conclusion, but, when
I have done so, it is final. You appear to make choices, and to decide
plans, without always having recognised your reasons--if such there
be--even in your own mind, and you would be unable to explain them to
another if you wished to do so. This method appears to be the cause of
much hesitation, worry, and discord, by which your mind is drained of
its energy to no sufficient purpose, and of actions which are
contradictory or indecisive. There are even times when you appear not to
be acting either by reason, or by your own will, but to have surrendered
your personality to the body which it inhabits. This is repulsive to me,
because I cannot conceive of a reasoning spirit being reduced to a baser
servitude. Fear is good, and it would be a poor kind of body which did
not give you that warning. But your body is not content with warning, it
attempts control, and if you refuse obedience, you do so with
difficulty. I think that this arises because your mind is not sure of
itself, and your body lacks respect for its weakness. Then your physical
impulses fight among themselves for supremacy, and you have no power to
rule them. When I look into your mind I see also that it has little
knowledge, as it has little control, of the body in which it dwells, of
which the major functions are carried on quite independently of its
volition, and of the existence of which it may even be entirely
ignorant.
“In all these respects you might be considered inferior to ourselves. I
think you are so; and I recognise the admiration you feel for our larger
measure of control, both of ourselves and of the creatures that surround
us. Certainly I would not be like you. It would be as though we should
be eaten by our own dogs. But when I see how your mind endures amidst
such surroundings I am unable to despise you. I seem as one who swims
with a friendly tide, and can make no boast, though she outdistance one
who fights onward amidst contrary and contending currents. Therefore, I
think God may judge you the prize at last, though He has given you a
body that is lower than that of a sea-dog, and a mind that has no power
to control it, and that walks in circles.
“I see further, that your own methods of inductive reasoning, casual as
they are, may be more appropriate to the fluctuating barbarism of the
conditions of life to which you are native than would be those to which
we are accustomed, and I know surely that you can use your own methods
to better purpose than I could possibly do.”
By this time a crescent moon was rising behind us, among stars that
shone with a frosty brightness, and a cold wind moved over the plateau
as we crossed it once more, so that I shivered in the torn and shredded
garments that I had sewn together, as best I might, when the halts had
permitted.
We came again to the vague menace of the open gateway. In the clearer
light we saw that objects lay on the ground immediately within it,
reminding me of the twisted bands of hay which farmers sometimes use for
the binding of fodder, and before them were shallow shining oval
depressions, as though moulds had been lifted from them.
Neither of us could make any guess as to what they were, or of what they
might be significant, but of one thing I was certain, they had not been
there when I saw the Killers draw their roped prey through the gateway;
nor were they appropriate for a free passage.
There is a fear that comes when the nerves revolt from a danger which
they perceive, which my companion had deprecated, but there is another
that arises from a reasoned caution, which it is often well to heed,
though the physical frame would disregard it.
I knew that my comrade’s mind approved, when I turned from that unknown
fear, and continued along the wall to select a spot at which we should
attempt to scale it.
Of itself, it gave no choice, being everywhere of the same height and
smoothness, and leaning at the same angle. Everywhere, so far as my
observation had shown, it was inhabited by the Killers, but whether in
separate cells, or whether the numerous openings led into one common
living chamber, I had no means of telling.
The only choice lay in selecting the nearest spot to our objective
inside the enclosure, and this we did as far as memory and judgment
enabled us to determine it.
The sides of the wall or dwelling, were about ten feet high, and sloping
together at such an angle that the inner floor (without deducting the
thickness of the walls, of which we had no knowledge) must have been
about eight feet in width. The walls inside must have narrowed rapidly
upward, suggesting that the Killers required little space for comfort
during their long night’s rest. Of ventilation there was no sign
whatever.
The outer side, being quite smooth, was far too steep to be climbed, and
we scaled it at last by my companion leaning against it while I mounted
her shoulders and gripped the ridge. When I had a firm hold she caught
my foot and climbed up very lightly, and then, with her help, I was soon
astride the ridge, and the descent was easy. Our only real difficulty
was to do it in silence. We had to move along the ridge for a short
distance before descending, as we found ourselves directly over one of
the apertures by which they entered. It was fortunate for us that we
took this precaution, for when we had reached the ground, and moved
cautiously across the doorway, we found that it was closed by a door
which slid down from the inside, but not entirely so. It came to within
about three inches of the ground, and beneath it protruded three of the
long suckers, which were the mouths of the Killers. Moving onward, we
saw that similar suckers were thrust out from every doorway, which at
least explained in part the omission of any higher apertures by which
air or light could reach them.
There was a wide bare space between the outer wall in which they slept,
and the buildings we were seeking. Of these there were eight in all,
each of which must have had its place in the social economy of those
loathsome creatures, but we were concerned with two only, and of the
others I learnt nothing, either then or later.
As we had been told that the building in which they stored their weapons
during the night was left unguarded, I had determined to proceed there
first, and if I were able to enter it without detection I had resolved
to remain, while my companion went forward alone to the killing-pens,
and endeavoured to establish communication with her imprisoned Leader. I
calculated that she would be more easily able to do this than I, and the
distance separating us would not be too great for her to communicate
with me, so that I should know exactly what was occurring. If she were
disturbed, she could return to me more quickly than any Killer could
pursue her. If a diversion were necessary, I could easily make
sufficient noise to draw the investigation in my direction. For two to
go in the first instance would double the risk of detection, without any
compensating advantage. If my aid were desirable after the first
reconnoitre, and no alarm had been raised, I could easily join her. If
an alarm were raised, I supposed that they would make first for the
place in which their arms were stored, and in that case it was our only
hope of safety that someone should be there to bar the access.
So I reasoned, not entirely at ease in thinking that I had allotted her
a part which might prove the more perilous, but yet seeing that it would
be a double folly to reverse our undertakings, and content that she knew
my motives, and approved the plan.
I think, in her own way, she was as keen as myself that we should effect
the rescue before the Leaders came to interpose their own methods, or
take direction of those which we had already formulated. I know that it
was in a state of controlled excitement, which approached the ecstatic,
though it left her mind in its accustomed serenity, that she went with
me hand-in-hand across the moonlight space, which we did not cross till
we had reached a point at which the other buildings would hide us from
any watchers at the killing-pens, if such there were.
By this means we reached the arsenal in safety, and stood beneath thick
walls of some smooth hard substance, having a low flat roof, and a door
at one end which showed no handle or fastening of any kind upon the
outer side.
I still think that the plan I made was in itself the best that could
have been devised from the facts as I knew them, but I admit that I was
less cautious here than I had been at the outer gate. Perhaps the
silence, and the fact that we had advanced to this point so easily, had
given me a feeling of too great security. Anyway, I can only tell what
happened, and you must judge it as you will.
I passed my hand down the door, in the shadow of the jamb, feeling for a
catch which the light might be insufficient to show me, when it yielded
to the slight pressure I gave, and opened gently. Then I pushed it
wider, and we entered together. We stood for a moment in the entrance,
side by side, looking into the dark interior, which was only very
faintly lighted by two small windows at the sides of the door. The long
side-walls, the far end, and the roof, were without lighting entirely.
The moon shone through the two small windows, and patterned a bare floor
with the horizontal bars that crossed them.
We stood there for a moment, and then my comrade slipped quietly from
me, and vanished in the shadow of the darker side of the building.
Thinking to sample some of the weapons which I knew to be stored there,
I stepped inward, loosing the door as I did so. Smoothly and swiftly it
closed behind me, with a slight ominous sound, to which the night gave
full value. It had a menace of finality, and my heart paused as I heard
it.
The next moment I recalled my courage and stepped back to reopen it. My
foot sounded loudly in the stillness, and something moved in the dark
roof that was not more than three feet overhead. With nervous haste I
felt down the inside of the door, but, as upon the outside, there was no
indication of lock or latch or handle. I thought to prise it open with
the axe-blade, but it fitted so closely that I could only find the crack
with difficulty and to force the blade in was impossible.
Was I to be imprisoned here till the light came, and then hurried out to
such a fate as I had seen dealt to another of their captives? Or did the
stealthy movement above me imply an even nearer menace? I raised the
axe, and brought it down with all my force on the door, in the hope that
it would split beneath it, and careless of the noise I made. Noise there
was in the narrow chamber and beyond it also, as I was soon to learn;
but the door did not even shake to the blow. It was of so hard a
substance, whether of wood or metal, that I realised that it would be
the axe-edge only which would suffer should I continue.
The movements overhead were louder now, and I had the impression that
something was about to spring down from the darkness. The fear of the
unknown was upon me, which is of all fears the most dreadful.
CHAPTER XIX
THE DUEL IN THE NIGHT
I think we do less than justice to the alchemists of the dark ages of
Europe, and to their opponents also. We are accustomed to regard them as
charlatans, and to brand those as superstitious fools who burnt them.
There is a folly of credulity, but there is a folly of incredulity,
which is far greater.
If they asked their patrons for money which would enable them to turn
lead into gold, the scientist of to-day is approaching the same point of
research which they must have reached when the possibility dawned upon
them. Perhaps his own progress would have been more rapid had he been
readier to assume that their theories were deserving of as much respect
as his own. It is not many years since it was announced as a momentous
discovery that bubonic plague is distributed by rats. This was known to
the Egyptian priesthood, and the information was available in one of the
oldest books in the world for any one who cared to read it. But that was
a superstition only! No doubt there are other “superstitions” in the
same book which we shall believe when we have rediscovered them.
On the other hand, it was realised by those among whom the alchemists
practised that they were the repositories of an esoteric knowledge, the
extent and power of which could be only dimly imagined, and of which
there was no guarantee that it would be used beneficently. Even now, a
scientist will present his fellow-men with a more nutritious infants’
food, or a deadlier poison-gas, than has been previously invented, with
the same fatuous complacency. The evil eye may have been fact or
imagination. I do not know. It is no more inherently improbable than
wireless telegraphy.
But it is the unknown that terrifies. I do not suppose that the Killers
were exceptionally intelligent. All the evidence is against it. Yet this
episode of the closing door, because it was beyond my understanding, was
more daunting than would have been a far more urgent danger of a
familiar kind. I stood there in a panic fear which it shames me to
remember, feeling that I was surrounded by those who watched and mocked
in the darkness.
I think, also, that the increasing cold of the night, and the loss of my
companion’s vitality, may have assisted to depress me. Anyway, I stood
there for some time, afraid to move, in a terror more abject than
anything I had felt since I waited for the first dawn, on the mystery of
the opal pavement.
Nothing happened. The noises ceased in the roof. The moon clouded, and
the narrow windows darkened.
At last, I stepped up to one of them, and saw that a fine sleet was
falling without. For the first time, with a start of shame, I recalled
my companion. I had promised to keep my mind in touch with hers, and had
forgotten her entirely while I shrank from shadows.
The next moment we were in communication. She had been waiting to
report, and to hear from me, in a natural doubt as to the meaning of my
silence, but her thought showed no agitation, and learning that she was
in apparent security, and that her own report had no urgency, I first
explained what had happened. What she thought I cannot say, for her mind
closed for a moment. Then it answered quietly: “Shall I come back and
push it open again? Perhaps I had better tell you first what I have seen
and heard.
“First, there is the open tank, which was boiling, as when you saw it.
There are few bodies in it. I suppose it is kept boiling continually.
Beyond this are the killing-sheds. There are two of these. Each consists
of ten apartments. One is empty. The other is filled. Each compartment
consists of four walls of metal bars, and a roof of a very hard
material. Probably it is the same as the door that has shut you in. The
floors are of bars only. The boiling water extends beneath. Three days
before the feast the bars will be withdrawn, and the victims will fall
into the vat. I have spoken to my Leader, and this she told me. The
feast is four days from now. She will say nothing, as the Leaders have
decided it, but I think she has no desire to be rescued. The other nine
cells are filled by victims that the Dwellers have given them. She says
that these are creatures that have offended the Dwellers. They are like
my description of you, but with wings.
“There is one entrance only, from which the two sheds branch. It is at
the further end: an open archway. One of the archers guards it, with six
of the smaller Killers. They were all sleeping when I first approached,
but the noise you made woke one of them, and he roused the others. Four
of them have scattered now to search round the buildings. If one should
come to the arsenal it will be well that he find the door closed. If it
be pushed open, you will know that it is he, not I, and you can strike
quickly, if you wish to do so. The smaller Killers carry a
strangling-cord, and a short javelin. It is two feet long, and for a
third of its length it is sharpened on both sides. It is balanced for
throwing. The smaller Killers are without intellect. They have only
greed, and cunning, and ferocity. The archers are in every way more
dangerous. The smaller Killers obey them. They cannot communicate by
thought, but signal to each other by whistling noises, which they make
through their suckers.
“I am in no danger. I can move more quickly and silently than they can
search in the shadows. I am lying now in the steam of the vat, which is
dense on the side to which the wind moves it. They have searched here
already and will not....”
My mind broke in: “The door is opening. Wait.”
I stood with the axe lifted to strike, as the door moved softly.
The drift of sleet was over, and the moon shone again on the entrance.
Cautiously, as the door opened, a head came round it, about three feet
from the ground. I brought the axe down with all my force, but the
Killer dodged very swiftly, and avoided it, slipping past me into the
dark interior.
Losing its mark, the axe glanced off the edge of the door, barely
missing my foot, the side of the axe-head striking the ankle-bone so
sharply that I lost my footing and was on my knee for a moment. As I
slipped, I heard the whizz of the javelin that passed above me. The
Killer had turned and thrown it so quickly that it passed out over my
head, through the gap of the closing door.
As the door clicked, I sank lower, listening for a sound of my opponent
in the darkness, and thinking with a moment’s satisfaction that he had
now lost his weapon beyond recovery. Then, with fear, that he must be
surrounded by other weapons, of which he would know the positions, and
that any moment a javelin might transfix me.
I think it partly redeemed the dishonour of my previous cowardice, from
which all the trouble came, that I thought at this extremity to warn my
companion not to come into the same danger. I could not have imagined
that I should be saving my own life as I did so. Quick as a thought came
the answer: “I will wait as you wish. I have told my Leader. She says,
‘Do not move. Put your hand on your neck with the palm outward. He will
not think of other weapons until he has tried the strangling-cord. It is
forbidden to use the weapons of others, and his sense is small.’”
Deadly peril and quick thought are comrades ever. At the instant,
something soft and slimy flicked my face, and drew backward. It was
round my neck the next moment, but my hand was there already.
Soft and slimy, and very cold, it tightened, not with a steady pressure,
but by a succession of contractile spasms, through which I realised with
a new horror that the cord itself was as living as the arm that threw
it.
But for my hand, I should have been strangled instantly. As it was, my
utmost straining hardly sufficed for breathing, and I knew that I must
act quickly. The Killer, supposing that I must already be reduced to
impotence, was endeavouring to drag me toward him by the living rope he
held.
An idea came to me. I loosed the axe, and drawing out the clasp-knife, I
opened it with my teeth. Then, with a sudden wrench of the left hand, I
got space for a moment to thrust it up within the ring, so that as the
pressure came again it closed on the sharp blade and helped to cut
itself as it did so. I pressed the knife outward with all my strength
and the next instant the deadly noose had parted.
I snatched at the loathsome cord as it writhed backward, let the knife
drop, caught at the axe with my free hand, and allowed myself to be
dragged forward.
Simple in conception, I realised now that my idea was more difficult in
execution. My opponent no doubt considered me to be strangled and
insensible. My intention was to take him by surprise, and to strike him
down with a sudden blow. But where he stood was in absolute darkness,
and I did not know the length of the cord. If I rose too soon, in the
half-light of the central chamber, I should defeat my purpose, even if I
were not an easy mark for any weapon he had available. If I waited too
long it might be equally disastrous.
Fortune helped me. He moved his foot as the cord shortened. He was
within three feet of where I lay as he did so. I loosed the cord, so
that he staggered back as the weight left it. Then I leapt, and struck.
The blow must have caught him fairly on the side, but (as I knew
afterward) it did not break the skin. The body gave way before it, and
was flung against the wall, with a great rattling of the arms upon it. I
struck again, missing him, I think, but with a blow that swept the wall
and scattered the javelins.
Pandemonium followed. With a high whistling squeal he fled down the dark
hall and, knowing it to be my one chance to give him no time for
recovery, I followed blindly, with sweeping blows that got him more than
once, and raked the walls of their weapons. It drowned the rustling in
the roof, which had gone unheeded through the more urgent dangers, and
which had been accompanied at times by a plaintive chattering noise, by
no means formidable.
It is curious that it was while I chased him thus, in the height of the
uproar and physical exertion, that my mind found leisure to recall my
companion, and to tell her what was happening. She answered me with the
unhurried speed which was her characteristic in moments of crisis. “The
whole settlement is awake. I think they hear you. They are running
across the enclosure. The five here, which are armed, are also coming. I
cannot join you, even now, unless I run very swiftly. Shall I come?”
I answered, “If you will,” and knew that she was already running across
the open, at a pace no Killer could match for a moment.
It was just then that I really got him. My earlier blows had only thrown
him from side to side, buffeted but not broken, while he retaliated more
than once with a thrown javelin, not without result, as was shown by a
foot that limped, even in the midst of this urgency. But this time the
stroke caught his left leg with the wall behind it, and cut it cleanly
through. He fell on the floor, in a place where the moon still lighted
it. As he did so, I struck again, and the soft toughness of the elastic
body, which gave way so easily in a free space, burst when the blow came
with the hard floor beneath it. The contents ran out over the floor like
an over-ripe tomato, or so it seemed in the moonlight. It was an uglier
sight when the day found it.
The door was moved swiftly, and my companion was beside me.
CHAPTER XX
THE BOW
The next moment a rush of the Killers broke upon the door through which
she had slipped, but it did not yield. With far better sight than mine
in the darkness, and with a cool detachment of mind, which did not seem
to be affected by her ecstatic delight at the swift movement of the
adventure, she had noticed instantly that, though the door had no
fastening, there were slots in the wall--three each side--and heavy bars
propped against it to fit them.
Lightly lifted, the first bar fell into place as the rush of the Killers
reached the entrance.
As she placed the other bars she told me, “There is one of the great
bows, and a bundle of shafts on the wall behind you--You don’t see at
night as I do?--They’re about the only things that _are_ left on the
wall.” (Her mind smiled as she thought of it.) “Do you always make so
much commotion when you kill anything? The archer shot me as I ran. He
shot straight. I heard the shaft coming behind me. My mind became like
yours. I was uncertain what to do, and had no time to think thoroughly.
I did not know whether I had will-power enough to turn the shaft. I
leapt up. It passed between my thighs as I did so. It cut the fur of
one, but without breaking the skin.” “That isn’t serious,” my mind
interjected, with a thought on my own wounded foot. “It may be,” she
answered. “I should have bent aside. It’s absurd to be caught in such a
way, because my thought failed me. I never understood so clearly before
how you live and think. It must be all chance and guessing. The shaft
went on into the crowd of the Killers that were running from the
sleeping-places. They all whistled with fear. They are great cowards. I
could not see that it struck any of them.”
As our thoughts crossed, I had felt along the wall, and found the bow.
It was five feet in length or more, bent for use, and of such strength
that I doubted whether I could handle it. I found the shafts, and fixing
one on the cord, I stepped to the left-hand window, risking any missile
they might throw, but protected somewhat by the darkness behind me. It
was about four feet from the ground, and about four feet broad, but not
more than a foot high, and with two horizontal bars crossing it, about
four inches apart.
As the ordinary Killers were about three feet high, they were below its
level as they crowded round the door. There was an excited hubbub of
whistling and whining noises, their suckers waggling in every direction
as they all talked at once and found no listeners--or so I thought.
Then they were silenced by the higher note of the archer behind them.
Evidently he gave them an order to move aside, for they quickly cleared
on either hand, till the space was bare before him. With his five
supporters beside him, their javelins in readiness, he advanced, bow in
hand, toward the window.
I thought that I had better get my shot in first, if I wished to have
any further interest in the adventure. I noticed with a flicker of
amusement that my companion’s mind was of the same opinion. I thought
she was learning fast--or was she coming down to my level?
It was a very bow of Ulysses. I pulled it back with difficulty, and the
arrow leapt from the cord with little aiming. It rose high over the
heads of the advancing line, and--amazing fluke!--it struck the other
archer--(there were only two of these monsters who were adult and
vigorous)--who was coming up behind them, and whom I had not seen at all
till the shaft hit him.
He was not seriously hurt, as we learnt afterwards, but had that one
arrow ended half the pack the immediate result could not have been more
decisive. Right and left they scattered, with a discordant clamour of
whistling signals, till the whole space was empty before us.
I was feeling the relief natural to a timid nature at the withdrawal of
an instant danger, and an illogical satisfaction at the result of my
clumsy shot, when my mood was changed by the realisation of the laughing
gaiety of my companion’s mind.
If I were in a world of strange sights and chances, it was in many ways
more native to me than to her, and a condition of existence in which you
directed your body to do something within its capacity and it did quite
differently, had a weirdness beyond her experience or imagination.
“It seems to me,” she thought, still mirthfully, “that your life in any
world must be a succession of unexpected happenings, and I begin to
understand why you seem to me both so brave and so cowardly. I would
gladly give a hundred years of my life for a day in your company. But we
may give more than either of us wish, if we disregard what the Killers
are doing. You should judge their ways better than I, being more nearly
of their kind; do you think they will attack us again, and how?”
I answered, “They are not of my kind at all, but very loathsome vermin.
I don’t think they will attack us again very quickly. I suppose we have
most of their weapons here. Also, this place seems to be designed for
defence--though against what we have no means of knowing. The bars on
the inside show its intention. I suppose they kept their arms here
because they would retire here in any emergency. Then, we are in a world
which is not used to action in the night. They may feel the cold more
than we do. The fact that we have wounded or killed one of their leaders
at the first attempt will dispirit them. Unless there be another
entrance, which is our greatest danger, I think we shall be safe till
the light comes.”
She replied, “But shall we wait till dawn without action? How will that
help us? At least, if you are right, we shall have time for clearer
thinking. Let us go to the farther end.”
She led the way, for it seemed that her sight was little less in the
dark than in the daytime, telling me, as she did so, that she saw no
sign of any entrance, and we rested at the farther end.
Even if we decided to wait till dawn, the prospect was not pleasant. It
could not be a less space away than three nights of my familiar time. I
became aware that my left foot was very painful, and that the boot was
full of blood. I was hungry also, tired, and very thirsty. The night,
even in this shelter, was very cold. Outside, it was fine again, and the
moon still shone through the windows.
I knew that my companion felt no need of food or drink, and the thin
striped body seemed indifferent to heat or cold, and while I had held
her hand, and shared her vitality, the call for food had been dormant in
myself also. But I had fought out this last struggle unaided, and it was
long since I had eaten, though I had drunk deeply at a spring on the
hillside as the dusk was falling.
“Your foot is hurt,” she thought, “can we mend it?” I took off the
boot--what was left of it--and pulled away the remains of a clotted
sock, but it was too dark for me to see the wound. With a feeling of
relief unspeakable, I knew that the small webbed fingers were on it,
with a vitality that thudded through the whole of my exhausted body. She
said, “The javelin must have struck aslant, across the front of the
foot, and entered where the string held the boot together. It did not
cut deeply enough to keep its place, and must have fallen as the foot
moved. I think it will heal quite easily. I suppose you are of a kind
that grows again without difficulty. I know among the sea-creatures that
the lower the form of the body the more easily it unites or grows, if it
be torn or shredded. May I clean and close it?”
I know it was done very delicately, and the wound was trivial. A small
furred finger cleaned and searched it, so that it began to bleed
freshly. “I am going to tear a little skin from its sides, because it is
so unclean. Do you mind?” she asked. Of course, I assented. It felt to
me that it was more than a little. I think the vitality that her hand
gave made the pain greater.
“If you slept,” she suggested, “and I kept my hand here, I think it
would be well in a short time, and your body would be fit for use. It is
no good to us now.”
I have noticed among my kind, that there is nothing that draws us
together so intimately as the common sharing of any physical danger;
perhaps it was from this cause in part, perhaps in part that the method
of our communication established an intimacy of a kind of which--however
commonplace to her--I had no previous experience, perhaps, also, that
the very difference of our minds attracted me, but, from whatever cause,
I was aware of an attachment to this creature, who, I told myself, was
less like a man than a seal, and had no sex as we understand it, such as
I had never felt for any earthly woman.
As I lay there, at the gate of sleep, the slim webbed hand that pressed
my foot was the dearest thing that any world contained, and
half-a-million years had no power to divide us.
And then--for one incautious instant--she let me see her mind, and I
knew how she regarded me.
I remember once, at a call of urgency, I volunteered to assist a
shepherd who was ministering to some neglected sheep, which had been
bitten by blow-flies. The grubs had hatched in the wounds, and had
burrowed inward. The sores had festered, and some had become cavities
several inches deep, laying bare bone and flesh, or going down to the
vital organs themselves, and in them were a mass of grubs that burrowed
and fed.
Some of the sheep lay dying, others might be saved if prompt attention
were paid to the wounds.
I still remember acutely the repulsion with which I touched and
cleansed, and dressed them. Others might have felt it less, but from
such things I am constitutionally averse.
But the feeling was mild to the repulsion with which she regarded the
foot on which her fingers rested. It was different in quality, because
she had a mind which saw clearly what should be done, and a body that
did not dream of rebellion; but it remained that she regarded the foot
she touched as something more grotesque and repulsive than her familiar
fishes, which swam in the clean flood, and that she felt as I might have
done, had duty called me to minister to one of the Killers--to touch the
worm-pink sliminess of the loathsome body while it waved its sucker in a
whistling gratitude for my attentions.
She knew her error instantly. “I should not have shown you. All is well.
Sleep. I will think of it thoroughly. Besides, I must communicate with
our Leader.”
Then her mind closed entirely; and after a time I slept.
CHAPTER XXI
THE BAT-WINGS
When I waked, the long night was far spent, and the moonlight had left
the window. My companion’s hand was still laid closely upon the injured
foot, and as I stirred, her thought met me.
“I have much to tell. Lie still, and listen.
“First, of ourselves. It is true that your body is, to me, a thing both
absurd and repulsive. But should this divide us? My own body does not
wear out, and, if injured, in most cases can be repaired, though not
easily. I know that I exist independently of it, and that I am separate
from it, even though I am in it, perhaps, for ever.
“Your body is of little use, and you control it imperfectly. It needs
constant repair, and it is of a kind that wears out very rapidly. What
you do afterward, or whether you continue at all, is doubtful even to
yourself, though in that, I suppose, you are misled by your body’s
impermanence. Whether you could be provided with such a body as mine, or
whether you could use it, I do not know. My Leaders might, but in such
matters we have little knowledge. The Dwellers know much of these
things, as you will understand from what I am about to tell you. If you
have the courage to ask them, they can tell you much, if they will; but
they may destroy you at once, if they think it needful.
“Still, you have little to lose, for such a body cannot be of much
account, even to its owner, and it may be worth attempting. If you
should succeed, we could be companions for always, for it seems to me
that there are ways in which you are greater than I. If I dislike the
body in which you live, it should have no power to divide us. I may
dislike the killing-pens, but do I therefore dislike my Leader because
she is in them? I know that you dislike my body also, because it is
strange to you, though it is in all ways better made, and is perfect for
the uses for which I need it.”
I answered, “I do not think my body is of little account, and I have no
mind that the Dwellers should destroy it, till I have an assurance of
something better, which you cannot give. It is true that in some ways
you repel me, and that I know best how well I love you when we are both
in darkness. But what you say is right, and generous also. My foot feels
well, and I am refreshed and rested. Tell me what you have learnt, and
we will decide what can be done before morning finds us.”
She replied, “I have been told much by my Leader, and some of the things
are very strange. You may understand them better than I do. She is in no
fear for herself, and might have escaped before, had she been in haste
to do so. She was caught in a deep pit, the top of which was covered
over, in a way the Killers use to capture their prey. As she fell, she
found that many of the strangling-cords, of which you have had some
experience, closed round her. They are like living worms, having no
head, but with an instinct to bind anything which they strike, or which
strikes them. The Killers know how to carry them safely. It is from
these that we have most to fear, if we should be attacked again, or
should ourselves attack them. They all have these cords, which they keep
with them both night and day.
“She was not strangled, but was so tightly bound that she could not
escape when they found her a few minutes later. Had there been more time
for thought she would certainly have seen a way to escape them. She
found her will had no power whatever against the cords. They had no
minds that she could subject to hers. There is such life in the
oceans--too low for us to influence it. That is a mystery to us, but I
cannot talk of it now.
“When the Killers arrived, she confused them for a time by the serenity
of her mind, but, as more collected, and they became very eager to
capture her, as a strange prey for the coming feast, she found it
increasingly difficult to hold them back, and she determined to save her
power and to see what they would attempt.
“They then bound her with many ropes and removed the cords, (which relax
after a time, and are useless till their vigour returns), and carried
her to the pen, where she has remained ever since. As its only exit is
through the bars of the floor, and the vat beneath is flooded with the
boiling water, they left the ropes loose, so that she was soon able to
free herself. In this they showed their stupidity. Because the boiling
water would kill such things as themselves they supposed that it would
kill her. So she resolved to wait till the bars should be withdrawn, and
learn what she might of the strange world she had entered.”
“Do you mean,” I asked, “that the heat of fire or water has no power
over your bodies?”
“No,” she said, “of fire I know less, but water of such heat would
destroy us if we were to attempt to breathe it. There are boiling
springs beneath the ocean, and it was in one of these that the one
damaged her body beyond remedy, of whom I told you. But we often swim
those springs in safety. No water of any temperature can penetrate our
fur, nor can it be injured by such means. We have, therefore, to swim
with closed gills and eyes, and with other precautions. We cannot
breathe or see, nor dare we attempt either until we are quite sure that
we are in cooler water again.
“My Leader’s intention was not easy. It was to dive blindly into the
boiling water as soon as the bars were withdrawn; to swim to the nearest
side of the vat where it extends beyond the pens that are built above
it; to clamber out of it, and trust to her speed for safety. She had
considered every possibility, and had decided that she could do it, so
that it concerned her mind no further. Our coming has altered this.
“It was the thought that I may have to swim in such water, and shall be
injured, that caused me to blame my own folly when I allowed the arrow
to graze me. In such event the scars on my right arm would give me
trouble sufficient, though they are not as a fresh wound.
“Being in the pens, and having resolved on her own course of action, she
attempted to establish communication with the creatures which were in
the other compartments. She found, after a time, that she was able to do
so. She learnt that they are not creatures of this age at all, and they
are so like you in mind--(though in some ways baser)--that when I told
her of you she first supposed that another of their kind had escaped the
custody of the Dwellers.
“They told her this. In the interior where they live, the Dwellers have
captive specimens of the inhabitants of many bygone ages. These they
keep under such conditions as approximate to those from which they come,
so that they may study their habits and acquire their knowledge, if they
should have any which may be worth recording.
“Sometimes, part or all of a collection of these specimens are condemned
to destruction because they do something which the Dwellers regard as
intolerable, though it may be, to them, a natural action.
“The nine creatures now awaiting death have been condemned in this way.
My Leader tells me that they are not worth saving, as you will agree
when you hear their own account of their condemnation.
“They say that they were the controlling race on the earth’s surface
about 200,000 years ago. When I learnt this I remembered that you had
said that you came of a race 300,000 years more ancient, and I asked my
Leader to inquire whether the Dwellers had any specimens of your race
also.
“They replied that they did not know, as they had never left their own
reservation until this undeserved (as they considered) catastrophe had
fallen upon them, but from their own knowledge of the civilisations
which had preceded their own, they should think it unlikely. They said
that the time mentioned was one at which there was a race of men
existing for a short period, too transient and too barbarous for the
Dwellers to be likely to consider them worthy of any study. Of all the
myriad creations that the earth has known before and since, they were in
some ways the most abortive. Although they only occupied, at their most
numerous time, about one-half of the earth’s surface, they are believed
to have destroyed themselves for fear of their own fecundity. They
killed each other in many violent ways, and rewarded those who devised
fresh methods for their own destruction. The stench of their diseases
rose in the sky till the other planets protested, and there would
certainly have been a Divine intervention, had they not destroyed
themselves, as I have told you.
“All this may be true, or not. You can judge of that. The creatures that
tell it believe themselves to be much better, but are of a very filthy
kind. Their appearances may be better than yours, but their minds are
worse. I will show them to you, as my Leader has given them to me.”
She then gave me a picture which was as vivid in her thought as though I
stood at the side of the killing-pens, and looked through the steam at
those who were confined within them.
The first I saw was of the size and shape of a man, the body very
thickly and grossly formed, and of a dark sepia colour, irregularly
blotched with yellow, in some places as light as sulphur.
It sat cross-legged. It had a heavy head, which hung forward; the nose
was very large and horny, like a vulture’s beak. The natural impression
of the face was rapacious and cruel, but it had now an appearance of
abject and hopeless misery, which was almost comic, through all its
tragic reality.
It had large bat-wings, wide open on either side, and as it crouched
thus, with wings extended, it appeared to me as though it were seeking a
space beneath an umbrella which was not sufficient to cover it.
There were six more of these creatures--all males. There were two
others--one male, one female--alike, except that their faces, though
equally brutal, were less intelligent, and that their wings were closed
when I saw them.
My companion interpreted--“The seven were judges, and the two were
witnesses in a recent trial which has brought them all to this end, very
justly. The seven cannot close their wings, which are broken at birth in
recognition that they are of a high caste which does no work.” (I
thought of the finger-nails of a Chinese mandarin, but I was too much
interested in the tale which her Leader had obtained from them to break
her thought to discuss it.)
“The other two can use their wings, but they do not fly as a bird does.
They can use them only to flutter up to the perches on which they sleep.
It appears that there is some reason in their own land why they should
not sleep on the ground, but it was not explained.
“The two came before the judges with a complaint against a female of
their kind. She had been short of food, which, it seems, is divided
among them according to certain duties which they fulfil, which are
sometimes very difficult to complete, or from attempting which they
might even be forbidden by others who have more power than themselves.
“Lacking food, and knowing that these two had it in plenty, she asked
them for some, which they refused to give. She then took it, while they
were absent.
“The judges did not punish these two who had refused food to the one who
needed it, and who were not ashamed of the tale they told.
“They decided that the one who had taken the food she needed should be
beaten.
“They did not know that there was any world beyond that in which they
lived, or that the Dwellers existed.
“But the Dwellers had watched them, and it appears that they were
appalled at the wickedness of the creatures that they had caused to
continue, when nature would have destroyed them. They intended at first
to end the colony, thinking that they had no right to let such creatures
live, whatever they might learn by observing them, but in the end they
relented.
“They have removed these nine for the fate they merit, and have deputed
one of themselves to endeavour to teach the first decencies of existence
to the remainder of their kind.
“The Dwellers can be very merciful.”
I answered, “The tale is strange enough, but it contains some things
which are less so to me than they must be to you, for I have known of
such in my own time and race. But there is one thing that puzzles me.
When these creatures have fallen into the boiling tanks, and their
bodies have become sodden with heat, and the Killers have sucked them
in, it will be an end of their bodies surely, and the bodies of the
Killers (who may be no better, though, it is true, we know no such thing
of them, as you have told of these) will benefit.
“But that is their bodies only. If these creatures exist apart from
their bodies, what is gained?”
She said, “If you cannot answer that, neither can I. It is a thing of
which I have never thought till now, for all this is very new. The
Dwellers, who have many thoughts, and who do things, may know, but I
begin to suppose that, though they are so much greater than you, they
may sometimes change and blunder, as you do. I have also blundered since
I followed you in the doing of new things. They may know what you ask,
but, for me, it is too difficult.”
CHAPTER XXII
NIGHT IN THE ARSENAL
It was now very cold, and, had I been alone, I should have suffered
intensely. She asked me if any plan had formed while I rested, and I
replied that I had thought of many things, but that it was always
difficult for me to make up my mind quickly, unless circumstances were
urgent. The night was still young. We could unbar the door, if we would,
but, if we were not attacked again, we could not open it. This was a
difficulty that spoilt almost any plan for aggressive action. If her
Leader could really swim the boiling tank in safety, the time might come
when she could release us, if we should still require it, but this was
not yet possible unless she could also unbar the place which captured
her.
“I have no doubt you are right,” her mind answered. “If we cannot open
the door, it is best to let others open it for us. If there be a way to
open it, we can see it in the morning. You see so badly at night that we
should find it a great disadvantage. But I have really little fear of
the Killers.
“If my Leader could release herself now, they would see her as she ran
toward us. There would be less than nothing gained if she entered, for
there would be no-one left outside who could open later, if a chance
should favour us. Let us think of other things while the night passes.
Are there any in your own land who could be as base as those who wait
their end in the killing-sheds?”
I answered frankly, “I think there are, though it is difficult to
explain, without making them appear even worse than they may really be.
It is in our natures to act independently of one another. Each has his
own store of food, and of the things his life requires. There are often
those who depend upon him, and for whom he cares more than for his own
life. If all the wealth we have were divided equally, even if we would
then work equally to maintain it, we should become restless and
dissatisfied. Adventure, risk, and chance, are essential to our
contentment.
“Then, we grow old and die very quickly, and it is our nature that we
can learn little except by our own experience, so that it is always a
world of children.
“Living the life we do, we feel that we cannot dwell together at all,
unless we can trust each other not to take the things which are ours. We
could not keep any social order without judges who could punish those
who transgress it. These judges, even though they might be merciful and
forgiving in their private life, may feel that they have no right to be
so when complaint is made by another.”
She answered, “It seems to me that I have sight of a very terrible
world, which you could easily alter if you would, but you have not
really answered my question. In the case of which I told you, it appears
to me that the real wrongs are two. First, that they had such laws that
one of their kind could be short of food, and debarred from the means by
which she might obtain it. Second, that those who had it should have
refused to share. The first seems to me to condemn the whole race which
endures such conditions, for themselves or their neighbours. The second
condemns alike the two who refused, and the judges who failed to see
that the real wrong was there, and not in the theft which followed. But
I cannot think quickly of these things. They are too strange, and too
far below the lives of any of the creatures that the ocean holds.”
I replied again, still trying to be fair to all, though my own thought
was hers, and with a more vivid bitterness, having been in actual
contact with the life from which she revolted.
“I agree with all that you think, but there is, with us, another
trouble, which you could hardly imagine. I do not know how the food
which you say you take, in your own way, once in every year, may be
obtained, nor with what effort, but I suppose that there is plenty for
all, and it has become evident to me from what you have told me of the
lives you lead, that you have abundant freedom and leisure, and that
whatever communal duties each individual may have, they are not very
onerous. Our conditions are very different. Life is maintained by the
constant toil of the majority of our race--a toil often burdened by very
adverse conditions, and numerous perils to health or life. Even so,
there may be times when food fails, and some must go short.
“You will see that it would be unfair if some, avoiding this toil,
should take by trickery or theft that which is won by the exertions of
others.”
“It seems to me,” she replied, “that to condone one baseness you suggest
another, which is even more despicable. It seems to me, also, that you
may require many to judge wrong, because you have few who can lead
rightly.
“I think that there are two ways of life which are good. There is the
higher way, which is ours, in which all are united; and there is the
lower way, of the shark or the shell-fish, of freedom and violence,
which only greater violence can destroy, and which nothing can bring
into slavery. But the vision which you give me is of a state which is
lower than either of these, of blind servitudes and oppressions, to
which you yield without willingness.
“The more you tell me, the more easily do I understand the sudden
violences and crafts of your mind, and the disorders through which you
think. But has there been none who has pointed out to you either the
road of freedom, or the road of concord? Are you content with a social
state as uncontrolled as the bodies in which you live so briefly? Have
you no law-makers whom you can reverence, and whom you can obey with
serenity?”
I answered, “In the country in which I live, we have invented a very
curious state, in which we believe that we ourselves make all laws, for
ourselves or each other. When I consider it, I know that it is not true,
but it is a fact of many consequences that we believe it to be so.
“You must allow for the fact that if, in any part of our world, there
should arise a trusted ruler--and there have been such, who have been
followed gladly by its best men, and who have made such laws that their
race has prospered and increased--he will probably have lived most of
his life before he gain his position, and his body will quickly decay,
and there will be none to succeed him.
“In my own land we had, at one time, a custom that the son of a ruler
should be a ruler after him, whether he were fit or not. Some of them
did good, or at least attempted to do so. Few of them did great harm.
They took more than their share of the good things of the land, and they
gave to their friends. They sometimes made war when their people would
have been content to remain at peace. They sometimes--but less
often--prevented war, when their people desired it.
“They interfered little with the personal freedom of their subjects, so
long as their own pleasures were gratified. For their own sakes they
liked to be popular. Few laws were made, and if such as there were
should be considered oppressive, the people would unite to insist that
they should be reduced or altered. When the king and his subjects
differed, it was always that they wanted less law, and there was
confusion, and sometimes violence, till they succeeded in their desire.
“They objected particularly to having their goods or money taken by
taxation, and their kings did not dare to tax them heavily. To enforce
many laws requires the employment of many men, and great expenditure of
treasure, from which a king gets no benefit. Had the king made many
laws, he would have had no money to administer them, even had he wished
to do so.
“But even so, men were not satisfied. There is an old tale with us of a
colony of frogs in a river, which had no king, and thinking that it
would increase their importance to have one, they petitioned their
Creator, and he, being kindly, showed them a dead log in the stream, and
told them that their king was there. But when they found that this king
was inactive, they complained again, and he, being angered at their
folly, gave them a stork, who chased and ate them as often as hunger
moved him. The tale says that they were no more pleased than before, but
that they complained in vain, for their Creator would hear them no
further. We, having tried kings of both qualities, the predatory and the
inactive, and being no more satisfied than the frogs, have devised an
imagination which has conquered those who conceived it. Even though we
recognise the incubus which is upon us, and that it is of our own
devising, we cannot hereby perceive any way to remove it.
“The fact is this. Our ancestors of a previous century, believing that
they had discovered a way to freedom, devised a plan by which the people
of each locality should choose one of their number, and these men,
meeting together, should have power to frame laws, and to make
impositions upon them. Every few years a new choice should be made, so
that they could replace any with whose actions they were dissatisfied.
“This procedure has now been followed for many years, with a variety of
unforeseen consequences, all of which I could not explain without a
previous understanding of the whole social order--or disorder--in which
it is rooted.
“But one sequel is simple. These men, being appointed to make laws, have
proceeded to do so for many years with uninterrupted diligence, and
there is no power to stop them.
“How can they be stopped, but by a law of their own making? And that is
the last law which they would consider.
“The result is that we are oppressed by a weight of laws, to which we
render a partial and bewildered obedience, aware that there are many of
which we have not even heard; and every year hundreds of thousands of
us, most of whom have no intention of law-breaking--are indeed nervously
anxious to avoid it--are insulted and plundered by the innumerable
officials through whom these laws are administered, and whom we toil to
support for our own undoing.”
I went on to show her pictures of the life from which I came, so that
she should realise the existence which was possible under such
conditions, where personal freedom had disappeared beyond anything which
our planet had previously known, or is ever likely to experience again;
where you might not even die in peace, except under the penalty that
your body would afterwards be seized and cut open, to ascertain how you
had contrived to do it.
Horror, pity, curiosity, disgust, contempt, and wonder chased themselves
across the surface of my companion’s mind as the nature of this life
became visualised before her. With these there was a satisfaction that I
had escaped, by whatever channel, from conditions of such barbarity, and
a certain admiration or respect for myself, such as we may feel for one
whom we recognise to have lived through some unusual tragedy, beyond the
common experience of mankind. Then there was a desire to see for herself
the strange and alien life which I showed her, and I knew that, were it
not an impossibility for her to enter a past to which she did not
belong, she would gladly have adventured it with me. I thought, with
curiosity, of how she would encounter such an existence, could I have
translated her to a mortal body and the conditions of life with which I
was myself familiar, and I had a moment’s doubt of one who, I felt, had
experienced only the pleasures of existence without its pain, but my
final thought was that the serenity of her mind was a spiritual quality
too fundamental for any servitude to subdue it.
She asked me whether our world had always lacked a leader to propose any
rule of life other than this state which lacked either individual
freedom or a rational mutuality, and I replied that there had been an
event of two millenniums earlier than my own life, which was commonly
regarded as a revelation from Heaven. Its Exponent had announced a
series of paradoxical aphorisms for the conduct of life, which were of
an unforgettable kind, and were still highly respected. If they were
obeyed, life would be fundamentally different, but the common opinion
was that they were quite impracticable. Each of these aphorisms
prescribed a line of conduct and foretold its result. It might seem
difficult to honour the Teacher, and reject His wisdom so absolutely.
But it was contrived very simply. The consequences which had been
ascribed to the course of life which He taught were allocated to a vague
existence which was to follow at a distant time, and in another sphere.
Meanwhile, if they were obeyed at all, it was regarded as an act of
self-sacrifice, no one supposing for a moment that the results which He
foretold would actually follow. I admitted that I knew of no
authenticated instance of anyone obeying these precepts with results
unsatisfactory to himself or others.
As the long night passed I went on, in response to a curiosity which
seemed insatiable in its desire of exploration, to describe many phases
of the social and economic chaos which we call civilisation, often
illuminating my own mind as I did so.
I noticed that she was particularly impressed by the precarious tenure
on which we hold the houses which our defective bodies require, and the
uncertainty of many of us in obtaining a regular and sufficient supply
of the very necessities of life itself and the consequent bitterness
with which we regard a stranger who lays hands on anything to which we
consider we have a prior claim.
Realising this, she began to understand how those among us of the baser
sort, who have more than sufficient for their own comfort, may yet
persecute any who attempt to share it, without incurring the contempt or
punishment of their fellows.
Joined to this bitter resentment at any private theft, I had to exhibit
the docility with which we allow ourselves to be robbed by legal
process, and the immunity and respect enjoyed by those who are the
instruments and beneficiaries of these extortions; and, as I showed it,
I had to realise the fantastic inequity with which these impositions are
levied, as, for instance, that a man who prefers salt shall pay less
than one who eats sugar, or that one who keeps a dog shall pay more than
one who keeps a pet of another species, or--an idea almost devilish in
its lunacy--that a man shall pay more heavily because he provides a
larger home, with the increase of young children who are dependent upon
him.
I reverted to the explanation that, while no king could have imposed
this burden of taxation upon us, we were bewildered by the belief that
it was of our own doing, and that this conviction acted as a
paralysis....
The shaft struck the wall sharply, and rebounded to the floor beside us.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE ESCAPE
It is the habit of mankind to depreciate the appliances of its
ancestors, when it has superseded them with other contrivances. In our
time, bows and arrows have become symbolic of futility among engines of
war. Yet, before the introduction of gunpowder, the longbow was
considered a weapon sufficiently formidable to threaten the whole order
of feudalism, and it is at least doubtful whether stupidity alone, or a
deliberate purpose, exposed the archers at Bannockburn, without the
usual support of pikemen, to the charge of the Scottish horse.
It is certainly true that a company of Crécy archers would have quickly
cleared more than one of the Flanders trenches, which were too near for
comfort, yet too far for a grenade to reach them, and too deep for the
trajectory of a bullet.
We had talked and slept and talked again as the long night continued,
and had not noticed the first faint light that came slowly from a sun
that rose to so prolonged a dawn, till the arrow fell rattling on the
floor beside us.
My companion laughed as it fell--not with her lips, that only opening
slightly for a breathing which it seemed no haste could quicken, nor
with her eyes, to my knowing, for it was too dark to see them, though
they must have been alight with the joy of unfamiliar action, but with
her mind, through which the laughter and its cause were conveyed
together, and by which means mirth, though amid a crowd of others, could
be private to those who shared it.
Our thought was single that we should go back to our first station
beneath the door, where we supposed we should be safe from the arrows.
She rose lightly--another shaft striking the place where she had lain,
as she left it--and slowly and stiffly, from my long vigil, I followed
her. She was becoming used to the frequent evidences of the
imperfections of my physical existence, but this exhibition stirred her
to a fresh wonder. “Didn’t it know,” she asked, “that you wanted to get
up quickly? Is it insubordinate, or entirely stupid?” I defended it as I
could, “I think it does its best for me, in its own way. I have used it
very hardly of late, and it needs repair; within a few minutes, when it
understands that it must work again, it will be ready. Did it never
protest, I should use it beyond its capacity, and soon destroy it. But
perhaps if you had come to my world, you would have found your own body
less perfectly adapted to more strange conditions than you find here.”
She answered frankly, “It is likely enough. Though I should at least
know what was happening. You seem to me to live in yours like a
stranger, without control or confidence, and not knowing what goes on
within it.
“But I agree with you the more easily because I am already feeling the
need of the water in which I most naturally live, and I am also
conscious of the loss of the energy I have given you, which, in about
two months from now, should it continue at the same rate, would exhaust
me entirely.”
As this thought reached me, we were moving down the centre of the hall,
she in front, because she was confident that her will could turn a shaft
if it were coming directly at her. Suddenly I saw her bulk more broadly
in the dim light, and was sharply startled, till her thought assisted my
eyes to explain it. She had lifted and shaken loose her fur, which was
of a surprising length, and then drawn it down again more closely than
ever, so that its surface was as smooth and shining as a serpent’s skin.
I had an impulse to lay my hand on the glossy back, but dare not break
the barrier of her physical difference and aloofness. It was as though
an unapproachable virginity surrounded her. I vaguely realised the power
by which she could control the fiercest creatures of the deep, and how
they felt as they cowered before her.
If she understood my thought, she gave no sign, but went on to tell me,
“In the ocean are many springs, some that are hot, and some that are
very cold, where we can lie with lifted fur, and let the water go
through it. Here I can only shake it loose, and every hair is too
sensitive to rest content if any speck of dust be upon it, especially of
organic origin, for they dread corruption in any form.”
We were two-thirds down the floor by now, and she was stepping
delicately to avoid the body of the Killer, which had spilled across it,
when an arrow passed us, and the next moment I was struck sharply behind
the shoulder so that I staggered and recovered myself with difficulty.
“I’ve got it now,” I thought, for there was a dull pain under my
shoulder-blade, and I was aware of a feathered shaft that projected
behind me, but her mind only laughed in answer.
“It isn’t easy to tell where your body begins or ends, but I don’t think
that arrow’s hurt you.”
She was right. It had entered the knapsack in a downward direction,
pierced a variety of its contents, and then been deflected by a
burning-glass which I had brought in case my small stock of matches
should be exhausted--but so far I had had no occasion to use it. Now it
projected three inches from the lower corner of the knapsack, a narrow,
steel-like, unbarbed head, of razor sharpness.
But how had it struck me there?
We crouched with our backs to the barred door, and watched and
understood.
The walls and ceiling were of the same substance as the door that had
turned my axe-edge, and the shafts that struck them fairly rebounded,
but they were shooting now so that the shafts glanced from the roof, and
then did diabolic turns, like the wizardry of billiard balls when a
master guides them. Whether there were any quality of an unfamiliar kind
in shaft or ceiling I cannot say, but such shooting I had never seen, or
imagined.
Fortunately for us the side walls were still hung with enough weapons to
make such jugglery difficult upon them--(the end was bare like the
ceiling)--and the floor was scattered with those I had brought down in
my chase of the Killer.
“Unless you have something better to suggest than sitting here, we shall
probably be in the stewing-vats before sunset,” my comrade considered
judicially, as a shaft slanted across us at about two feet distance.
“I am of the same mind,” I answered amiably, “but what can we do? I
might send one arrow from the window. I should probably aim too hastily
to hit anyone. I should not be likely to send a second. We can unbar the
door, but we cannot open it. We could ask your Leader to do so, if she
can escape from her present confinement, but the moment seems
inopportune. Can you get in touch with her, and learn what is happening
outside?”
In response to this suggestion she established communication almost at
once, and was soon passing on the report to me.
“There are two archers shooting. The one you hit is hurt in the head,
but only slightly. The smaller Killers have gone to the farther side,
and are out of view. The very old, the diseased, and the young, are
congregated together at the far end of the enclosure. The infirm archer
is with them, but he was consulted by the others, and it seemed that he
gave them the plan of attack which they are following.
“There is a young one of the larger kind who is turning somersaults in
excitement, because he hopes that the older may be killed, and he will
be able to obtain a bow.
“They suppose that the arrows have destroyed you already, but they are
cautious, and will continue to shoot till their ammunition is ended. The
smaller Killers, who have gone round to the side, are well provided with
strangling-cords, and have also many javelins. They have fetched a
quantity from one of the other buildings. They are elaborately made, and
have red shafts. Probably they were of a sacred or ornamental character,
and have been acquired for fighting purposes only in this emergency.
“The javelins are not dangerous to you at present, as they turn in the
air when thrown, and the window bars are too narrow for them to pass.
“There is no guard here now, and the bat-winged victims are greatly
excited by the hope of escape, but they appear to have no means of
releasing themselves.... I think the arrows are ended.”
We thought so too, for they had now ceased to enter. If our enemies
hoped or supposed that we had been disabled, they must advance to
investigate, and I had the sense of relief which comes when you can at
last strike back, after being exposed to an attack which there is no
means of resisting. I had a moment’s inclination to unbar the door, and
rush out upon them when they pushed it open, with such axe-blows as
might scatter them, and win our freedom at a moment.
I had the thought that if the archers could be cut down, the rest would
be panic-stricken to see it, and that without their bows they might not
be very formidable, but the recollection of the strangling-cords was
enough to check this impulse effectually.
Then I thought that if they expected that they had killed us, they would
not suppose that the door had been unbarred, and how would they
endeavour to enter?
The light had increased now, so that the whole extent of the hall was
visible. It showed nothing that we had not already seen or imagined,
except that in the roof there were slits of an oblong shape, and of a
regular occurrence, and over the sides of these we saw the heads of
small lizard-like creatures protruding--bright yellow, snout-like heads,
with small emerald eyes, that watched us fearfully, but with an
impression of malevolence, and of an intelligence that gave me a feeling
of actual discomfort as I gazed, so that I looked elsewhere, and then
remembered how an animal will turn uneasily from a man’s eyes, and was
ashamed, and looked back, and found my gaze was reluctant.
My comrade followed my thought, and surveyed them with her usual
coolness. “They are more intelligent than the Killers, of whom they are
not afraid. The Killers serve them. They must have built that roof for
their dwelling. They fear us, and therefore hate us. It might be well if
you sent an arrow to frighten them.”
But as the thought came, the yellow heads shot back, and the openings
were quiet and vacant.
“I thought so,” she smiled, “they can read our thoughts, while they
watch us. They are dangerous and might do us mischief, but I think the
Killers are too stupid to use them.”
Meanwhile, I had again secured the bow, which I had used the night
before with such unmerited success.
When I had drawn it once or twice, and felt that I could control it to
some purpose, though it was almost beyond my strength to handle, I
stepped to one of the windows on a sudden impulse, and saw the ground
before me was pink with advancing Killers. Swiftly and silently they
came, having appeared again from the side which had hidden them from the
sight of our Leader. There was no whistling from the suckers, but they
were waving them from right to left, and tossing them in the air in
their excitement, as does an elephant when he trumpets. Many of them had
the red-stemmed javelins. All had their strangling-cords in readiness.
The archers moved beside them, one on each flank, bow in hand, but I saw
that there were no arrows on the strings.
There was no need to aim. I bent the bow to my strength’s limit, and
sent the long shaft into the hideous crowd that confronted me. I think
that it might only have dented the slimy bladder-like skin of the first
it struck, without puncturing it, had it been able to throw him back
without striking any solid substance behind him, but--perhaps because
they were advancing so closely--it went through him and two others
before it spent its force, and left them heaped and squealing. In a
moment the whistling cries arose to a point which I cannot hope to tell,
for I lack words for any possible comparison. Right and left ran the
Killers, the archers first in flight, and in a few seconds were beyond
my range and seeing, beneath the side walls of the arsenal that was at
once our jail and our safety.
My comrade, looking from the other window, gazed at the stricken,
struggling heap with eyes that danced in triumph. Her age-long wandering
in the ocean ways had familiarised her to death and cruelty in a hundred
forms. Her repugnance had been to doing things herself which she
regarded as natural only to a lower order of creation. I suppose in all
her life she had never knowingly done harm to any sentient thing. But
she loved adventure as a child loves it.
Then her eyes clouded to an instant’s blankness, and turned to me again,
and this was the thought she gave.
“My Leader says, ‘Tell that animal not to shoot again, and if it does
so, leave it entirely. We are not Killers, nor do we practise their
ways. Besides, it may cause trouble with the Dwellers, of which we have
prepared sufficient already.’”
I answered in anger at such perversity. “Tell her that if she is not a
Killer, neither am I an Amphibian, and I shall play this game in my own
way.”
“But she is a Leader----”
“She is not mine. Tell her I have the authority of five Leaders, and she
had better do as she is told herself.”
“She says that she has already loosed a bar from the floor, and is
coming herself to take direction.”
“Tell her that if we open the door to let her in we shall have to keep
it open, and how then shall we resist them? If we close it, who will be
left outside to open it, when we are ready? Tell her to stay where she
is.”
“Be quiet, please. She has dived in the boiling tank. We must not divert
her mind. She dare not look nor breathe. Now she has reached the outer
tank. It is worse than she expected, and she is very nearly exhausted.
She has risen to the surface and is looking through the steam for a
place to land. There are Killers on that side. She will dive again, and
swim under the killing-sheds so that she may reach the farther side
before they can run round. You must help her with such will as you have.
She has risen. But it is too soon. There’s a floor above her head, in
the water. She is swimming on. She has struck something under water. It
is one of the boiling bodies. It is a Frog-mouth. It is not quite dead.
It has seized her with its teeth. Now she has willed herself free. She
has risen to the surface. She can breathe, but she can only swim very
slowly. She is exhausted, and she is holding one arm out of the water.
It has been burnt by the water where she was bitten. She is at the edge
now, but the Killers are there also. There are only three yet, and their
wills are not strong enough to resist her. They are confused and
frightened in mind. One has tried to push her back, striking with a
javelin. She has caught it in her hand. He has fallen into the water. I
have not heard one of them squeal quite like that before. She has pulled
him out again, but he is still squealing. I think he will die. More
Killers are coming. She is running here. She says, ‘Have the door
unbarred.’”
I lifted the bars down, though I was far from sure of the wisdom of
opening. Then I went to the window. She was already in view, running at
a great pace, but with an ease and coolness that gave no impression of
being hunted, but rather of one who constrained others to follow. I
cannot easily convey the feeling that came to my mind as I watched her.
They were too far behind to throw to any good purpose.
But round the side of the building from which I watched came another
crowd, forgetful of arrows in their excitement, and were between her and
the door in a moment.
“She says, do not shoot. She will draw them off, and then return to the
door, and I must be ready to run out with her. They will then try to cut
us off from the gate, but we shall make for the cliff behind, and climb
it, and go to meet our companions. She says I can bring you if I will,
and if you can climb.”
I answered, “I cannot climb that cliff. No man could.”
“She says, we must go that way. It is necessary. The animals can go on
killing each other if they will. She will have none of it.”
I said, “Tell her I did not come here for my own pleasure, but to help
her. If she does not need my help she can go her own way, and you can
choose for yourself also. I am not going to lose the chance of giving
these brutes another lesson.”
All these thoughts exchanged in less time than it will take to read
them, and even while my comrade answered, with a troubled mind, “She is
a Leader. She will do right. Do not shoot.” I had already sent a shaft
among them which found its victim, and this I followed with another
which went weakly astray as they turned and fled to safety.
The Amphibian, who had first taken a sideward leap to avoid their rush,
was already moving away to draw them off the door, but seeing the effect
of my shot she ran swiftly forward and pushed it open, and entered.
She stood there, holding the door open with her right hand--the left
arm, which had been bitten and then scalded in the water, hanging
loosely beside her--with a quiet dignity, which I could not but respect,
however much I might resent her attitude to myself. She did not turn her
eyes to me, nor give me a thought--she never did this from first to
last--and I was conscious that there was no anger in her mind. I was too
far beneath her.
She looked at the inside of the door for a moment, and then I was aware
that their minds were in contact. Thought is swift, but it seemed a long
time that we stood there. I was conscious that my comrade was fighting
for her own will, and was, in a way, defying her Leader, if defiance it
could be called, where I knew that both minds retained their poise and
coolness, and the one that heard was both aloof and judicial.
At last she asked me, “Are you content that I go with her, and can you
escape by the way we came?”
I replied, “You must make your own choice,” and closed my mind very
quickly. I was angered at the course that events had taken, and in no
mood to let her know that I was at an extremity of exhaustion. As I drew
the bow the second time I knew that it was my own giddiness that made
the shaft go wrong. I was standing upright with difficulty, and knew
that if we separated there was not one chance in a thousand that I
should escape the handling of those nauseous suckers.
Her mind fought for a moment to pierce the blankness with which I met
it. Then it recognised its failure. “Wait,” she answered. “I have a
thought,” and again she turned to her Leader, and a longer silence
followed.
At last she turned to me, and relief of some kind gave light to the
serenity of her eyes. “She goes. I stay with you. How long depends on
yourself. But it is a condition that I must not explain.”
I was so gladdened by this decision that I was disposed to be generous.
“I am very glad,” I answered, “unless it will expose you to greater
danger than you would otherwise meet. But I hope I have not been the
cause of any difference between you and your Leader, who so plainly
dislikes me.”
She answered coldly, “I am in no danger that I fear to meet. We are not
animals such as you are. Nor do we differ among ourselves. Our Leaders
are always right.”
As she gave me this thought, her Leader looked at me for the first time.
I thought there was inquiry in her glance, but it passed me dumbly. She
threw a thought to my companion, “You should watch the floor,” and
turned and went out, and the door closed behind her, with the click
which had sounded so ominously in the night when I first heard it.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FIGHT IN THE ARSENAL
When the door closed I was very glad to sit down with my back against
it, as we had done before, and my companion was quick to perceive my
exhaustion. Again I felt the small life-giving hand in mine, and, for
the time at least, the effects of thirst and starvation, and the long
night-hours, were overcome by the reserves of her vitality.
She was very quiet at first, and indisposed for conversing.
At length I asked her, “I know how I must appear to you in many ways,
but why was your Leader so contemptuous of me, beyond anything I have
met among your people previously?”
She answered, “She was not contemptuous. She did not regard you at all.
Why should she? She had more serious things of which to think. Besides,
you think of our Leaders as one, because their decisions are always
unanimous. But this is wrong. Each is different. There is none like this
one in all practical issues, and in control of material things. That is
why it was she who came to seek the first one, when she did not return.
I think she regards the whole expedition as a mistake, and that she
should have been left to her own ways. But such things are not for me.
They are for themselves only.
“She taught me much while we talked together. When I am with you only, I
think myself superior in many ways. Your body breaks so easily, and you
are never sure when it will fail you. Your mind is confused, and
inconsequent. It is only when I think of yourself as of a Leader whose
followers are mostly treacherous or disloyal, but who still endeavours
without loss of courage to fulfil his purpose, that I respect you at
all. But when my Leader showed my stupidity I felt that there is little
difference between us.
“She showed me, among other things, that I accept your conclusions
without thought, and that I do not even take notice of what is beneath
me.
“You are used to opening doors in certain ways, and so you assumed that
this could not be opened at all from the inside, and I believed you
without reason. The Killers must have been preparing an attack from
beneath our feet, and were only interrupted when they ran out to waylay
my Leader, and I did not hear it. I know that your senses are
rudimentary, but do you not hear it now?”
No--I heard nothing. But she said that they were moving busily under our
feet, so that we must be prepared for an attack at any moment. She
showed me what her Leader had known at a glance, that if we pressed the
hinge the door would open.
I said, “If there be a cavity beneath us, there is probably a trap-door
from it to this hall. In that case, I wonder they haven’t used it
earlier. Let us see what we can discover.”
We examined the floor from end to end. It was of the same hard smooth
substance as the walls. It was laid in squares, about a yard each way,
so finely morticed that the divisions were scarcely perceptible. But
there was one in the middle of the hall that attracted our attention.
It was set as close as the others, even more so, but there was no
appearance of mortar between it and those adjoining. I cleaned the dust
from the floor with my ragged sleeve, and the difference became more
evident.
As we bent above it, there was a slight sound overhead, and looking up
suddenly I saw a row of yellow heads that were regarding our movements
with interest. “I wish I could kill those creatures. They will harm us
yet,” I thought, and my companion answered, “They wish us evil, but you
will do us injury if you fear them. They know every thought they cause
you. But tell me what plans you have. Our Leader is rescued--if any
rescue were needed. We can open the door when we will, and there is
nothing to keep us here, if we have courage to venture out. But perhaps
it would be better to defend this sheltered place, till our friends come
in the evening?”
I answered, “I think we can go free together when we will, though I
could not have done so singly, for I shall have no strength of my own
till I come on food of some kind; but we shall need to know where we are
going, and to what purpose.
“I suppose that at any moment this stone may move, and there will be a
rush of enemies upon us. Yet if we wait till that moment we lose
nothing, for they could not come up quickly through such an opening, and
the more of our enemies that are congregated beneath the building when
the door is opened, the better it will be. But you are right that we
should have a plan as to where we are going, and why we do it, either
together or separately.
“When I came here, it was with the object of finding two of my friends
who had preceded me. Almost at once I involved myself in another
obligation. It seemed to me that the one might help the other, and apart
from that I had no guidance as to where to search, nor hope that any
creature would aid me.
“So far, I have not found them, though I have seen evidence that one has
been near here. I think it is most probable, if they live at all, which
I greatly doubt, that they are in the hands of the Dwellers, and it is
there that I should seek them.
“I have no wish to do this. It is very perilous, and not hopeful. Also,
I do not wish to part from you, and I know you cannot come there.
“But if I should return with you, I suppose that there is no way by
which I could live in your own element.
“If you will help me to get clear of this danger, and back to where food
and water are possible, I think I ought to leave you, and by doing this
I shall also relieve your Leaders of a difficulty with the Dwellers,
which they have indicated already.”
She replied, “I think we shall not part so soon, if we escape the vats
of the Killers. I have something to tell you. When my Leader wished me
to go with her, and leave you here, I objected. Then I told her my
reasons--as our custom is--knowing that she would judge them fairly, and
more capably than I could do myself. She found that they were not good.
She showed me that you are yourself of the kind of the Killers, that you
have little faculty of reason or self-control, that you are violent and
untrustworthy, and (she thought) untamable. If that should prove to be
so, we could not even make you as one of the sea-dogs. Also, you could
only live on the roof of our island, where you would probably die when
the first storms swept over it.
“First or last, you would have to go to the Dwellers.
“She has seen that, every day, as the sun sets, one or more of them will
come over the mountains, and disappear to seaward. She supposes that it
is a regular patrol, and that they come out at some inland spot during
the earlier day, and retire down one of the passages which you have
seen.
“When they pass, the Killers are afraid, and hide in the wall.
“She proposed that we should leave you here, where you could defend
yourself till the evening, and you could then go out and give yourself
up to the Dwellers, or escape entirely, while the Killers will be
hiding, if you should prefer to do so. She thought it best that you
should give yourself up, as they would deal with you as you deserve, and
would not kill you unless it should be desirable, as she thought likely.
“At first I could not answer this; but then I had a new thought. I
replied that now she was safe we had still to rescue the body of our
Leader which was left in the tunnel, if that should be possible. I
should be willing to go to seek it, if you were with me, but not
otherwise. It is plain that we cannot take it by force from the
Dwellers, even though we should all go together. If we go secretly, we
must be few. In many ways you might help me there, for you are more
nearly of their kind, and you do not fear them as you do smaller things.
Even if the body be destroyed it is necessary that we should know.
“She did not like my plan. I thought that she would refuse it, and I
held to it with all the force I had, which was little. Then she closed
her mind from me. I knew she had many thoughts which she would not show
me. At last she decided, ‘You may do this, if you can. But you must not
ask this animal to go down to the Dwellers to aid you. If he offer to do
so, you may take him with you. But he must make his own plan before he
hear of yours, and to that he must keep. You must be in hiding before
the sun goes down. If we should return this way, and should meet with
the Dwellers, you may watch us meet, but you must hold your minds blank
and closed, so that neither they nor we can perceive you, unless we
ourselves should signal to you. You must not release the Bat-winged men,
nor allow their escape. They must die, as the Dwellers have willed.’
That is all she told me, but there is none like her for foresight, even
of the Seven, or for plans that are so made that they can change as the
chances alter, and still reach to where they will. She saw me foolish,
but she decided to make a plan which used my folly. I am glad that we
shall go together, and shall see the homes of the Dwellers.”
I answered, “I am glad also. I cannot say that if I had no search to
make I should give myself to the Dwellers, as your Leader advised so
kindly. They might decide my fate with great wisdom, but I prefer to do
that for myself. As she said, I am not easily tamable. Besides, if I
once get clear of this place, I think I might find means both to hide
and to live in this new world, and I should well like to explore it. It
is already apparent to me that it is full of beauty and of strange
wonders, of which I have yet seen very little--and the tunnels of the
Dwellers seem the more perilous way. But we both have good reasons for
the choice we have made, and I think we may do better together than
either could do separately. But why should we not attempt escape
immediately? Why should we not return to the lower way while there is
still daylight to guide us, and before the Dwellers appear, to add a new
peril to the road we take?”
“I am not certain which is best, and I think, as you do, that we might
escape at any time with no great risk, if we were sudden and rapid in
the attempt; but I think that she wished us to remain to see whether my
friends will still come by this way, and are allowed to pass in safety.
There is also this to think, that if the Dwellers always return to the
interior when the night comes, and they travel more rapidly than we
should do, they might overtake us if we enter one of the tunnels
earlier, while, if we follow behind them, we may do so in safety, with
little fear that they will know of our coming till we have passed the
tunnel and arrive at that which lies beneath it.”
So we agreed to wait, and as we thought that the loose stone in the
floor was now the point that threatened us, we sat closely round it. I
kept the bow beside me, thinking to send a shaft through any opening
that might appear, but as the time passed without movement I loosed my
knapsack, and finding thread and a strong needle, I commenced to repair
my rags as best I was able, my companion watching, half in amusement and
half in sympathy, and wondering why the creatures of my race never tried
to train their skins to utility.
Then for some time she was silent, her head rested on her updrawn knees,
and when at last she moved again she told me, “I suppose you think of us
as all being alike, as we live the same lives, just as I should think of
your kind, if I were among them, while to you they are widely different
by character and appearance and occupation. But we are not so. I have a
vice which I cannot break, which is shared by one only among all our
thousands. Our Leaders have considered it, and showed us that it comes
only when our minds are tired by new things, and desire rest when we do
not will to take it.
“Then our thoughts change to sleep of themselves, and on a note which is
not of our own choosing.
“There was a distant time when I was very foolish, and I went into a
part of the ocean where there was much depth and great darkness. There I
found a pressure which came upon me so that I could not release myself.
I was held there very long, with a horror which you may have some power
to imagine.
“When the time came at which our nation assembles, and my absence was
noticed, the Leader whose body we are now seeking, and who is like
myself in the love of strange and difficult ways, though of a much
higher capacity to traverse them successfully, undertook to search for
me, and knowing the direction which I had been seen to go, she at last
discovered and released me, by methods which would be beyond your
comprehension, if I should attempt to tell them. In doing this she
risked her own life, and lost so much of her vitality that she rested
afterwards for many years till her strength returned, and did not even
take part in the Councils of the Seven.
“Now, when I wished to gain my own way, I looked for every argument that
would support me, and I recalled this to my Leader’s mind, as a reason
why I should go, if someone must be risked to seek her. Then, as we sat
here, the horror of that place came back to me, and in a moment I was
asleep and within it. But it has left me now, and, I hope, for ever....
“It is in my mind that there will be fighting when that stone moves, and
that I am pledged to help you.”
She picked up one of the short javelins from the floor, and balanced it
thoughtfully on an outstretched finger. When she had turned it over, and
looked at it carefully for some time, she threw it against the wall,
watching its flight very closely. It turned once in the air, failed in
its balance, and struck the wall with a slanting feeble stroke.
Unperturbed, she collected six others, and threw them one by one, so
quickly that the next was in the air before the first had fallen. Of
these the two last struck the wall at the same spot, and with the full
force of the throw.
“I think I can play that game if they should ask it,” she laughed in her
mind, and collected others to her hand.
“Could you hit the same spot twice in succession?” I asked.
“Surely,” she answered, “even you could not forget so quickly. But I
myself forget that your body is not as mine. I understand that yours may
do your will with exactness on one occasion, and on the next, though you
have the same will, and it be equally capable, it may fail entirely. All
the games of which you told me, in which your body is used, are based on
this quality. But with us it is different. I know now that I can hit any
spot at which I can aim, and as often as I attempt it. I will show you
with these.”
She picked up two of the javelins, and sent the first against the
farther wall--but the second did not follow it. At the moment her hand
was lifted, the stone beside us disappeared from sight, leaving a
yard-wide gap, and as swift as thought itself her javelin was flung into
the open pit beneath us.
An outburst of whistling screams told us that it had carried no welcome
message, but the next second we had our own troubles to deal with. Back
into its place the stone shot upward, and with such force that certain
things which had been placed upon it were thrown to the roof and fell
scattering upon us. Four of them there were--four eight-foot lengths of
living, writhing rope--but to me, at least, they seemed forty.
I suppose that my companion, of cooler mind, and of quicker hands also,
made no such error.
I know that while I was struggling with one that had caught my leg and
was thrusting upward for a more deadly grip, her mind reached mine with
the quiet quickness of thought and buoyant gaiety of spirit that
physical danger always waked within her. I had a feeling that the idea
that she should be threatened by hostile violence always came to her as
an absurdity, to be met with laughter.
“We must watch the stone. Put your foot on its end. Jump to the left, or
the other one will get you.” So she called to me, while she ripped one
which had fallen round her own waist with a javelin point till it loosed
her and fell squirming, and as it did so she flung the javelin, not at
the next of them, though it was round her feet already, nor at the gap
which showed again where the stone had left it, but at the lizard-forms,
that were now twittering with excitement above us.
It struck one of them fairly on the outstretched head, and down it came,
a bright yellow snake-like form, turning head-under-heels as it came--or
under tail, to be literal--and falling in the open gap, at which there
rose a chorus of such consternation from the unseen Killers beneath us,
that it was evident that to them a lizard must be a very dreaded or a
very sacred thing.
“Two each,” she laughed, as she caught the still restless portions of
the living cords on an arrow’s point, and threw them back into the gap
beneath us. “Did you notice that they became almost harmless after I had
struck one of the lizards, and the others bolted? I believe it was their
minds that guided them to attack us. It was to reach them, if the need
came, that I first tried the javelins, but I dare not tell you, nor let
the thought make growth in my own mind, lest they should know it. I fear
them, but I do not fear the Killers at all.” And just then the Killers
came.
I think the falling of the lizard must have produced a confusion that
delayed their attack, but that this was succeeded by such a tide of fury
as swept away the natural cowardice that underlay their ferocity, and
caused them to forget the caution with which they had approached us
previously.
They came leaping upward, with their hands on the edge of the gap, and
the first fell back with a javelin in the throat, and a second I knocked
back with a sidesweep of the axe, and from the third I sliced off the
sucker at its root, and stopped his whistling. But the crowd pushed up,
and flung him sprawling outward.
They had no cords--perhaps they thought them useless after the way we
returned the four they sent us; perhaps they would have been too
dangerous to themselves in that crowded rush--and they had little time
or space to use their javelins before the axe was on them. I struck, and
struck, with steady sweeping strokes, at the pushing crowd that rose
against me, the tough skins denting to the blade, and bursting as they
felt the pressure behind them.
And always, if they rose too fast, or one should dodge my stroke, a
javelin found it, from where my comrade had stepped back to the wall to
reach them down as she needed them. Once I thought I had failed, as the
pressure spued up two or three at once, too quickly for the axe to take
them, but her mind reached me serenely. “Keep the others down--and leave
these to me,” and was vaguely conscious that she was avoiding their
weapons with a cool celerity, while her own bore them her message that
their hours were over.
And then amid an up-rush of damaged bodies which he was using for his
own protection I saw the red-brown malignant head of one of the archers,
and struck with all my strength a straight-down cleaving blow, and was
conscious that the attack had collapsed before me, and the gap was
empty.
With a sudden dizziness I looked on the shambles that now surrounded the
opening. I have told something of the outward repulsiveness of the
Killers, with their worm-pink skins that were both tough and slimy, but
of the interiors of these foul bodies I cannot write. An axe-stroke has
no reticence.
I thought it was from that nauseous sight that a sudden faintness
threatened, and I struggled against it, stepping back, and leaning on
the axe, and turning to my companion for her to snare my triumph.
She stood very still, her eyes bright and watchful, her mind beginning
to question her for the thing she had done--which was, no doubt, outside
the experience not only of herself, but of all her kind--but her will
meeting it confidently. Then she looked at me, and her thought changed.
I made an effort to reassure her that I was uninjured, and was aware
that I was falling.
I don’t think I was unconscious for long, and I believe that she neither
helped nor hindered, but watched quietly beside a phenomenon which was
beyond her experience.
When my senses returned, she was alert and near, and her mind was quick
to reach me.
“You can rest while you will. I think your last stroke was enough to
still them. You made it work that time!” She always spoke of my body
thus, as something separate from myself, as we might praise a friend who
carved well with a blunted chisel. “I am sorry that I failed you. The
Killer rose on your farther side, and I could not reach it till it had
made its throw. I have much yet to learn of the ways of fighting--do you
not understand me? Did you not know that your body was broken
again?--does it tell you nothing?--look under your right arm.”
I looked, and understood. The excitement of the fight, in which my life
had literally depended upon the speed and force with which I could
strike, and recover, and strike again, and then the utter exhaustion
that had followed, and now the dizzy weakness that possessed me--each in
turn had left me unaware that a javelin had found its mark. Thrown
straight upward, and probably with no great force, in the pushing crowd
that gave scant space for free movement, it had struck me in the armpit
as the axe was lifted--no depth of wound, but one that bled very freely.
It was evident that I must rest for a time at least, and so I lay there,
while she sat beside me and watched the empty gap before us, conquering
once again the repugnance she felt at touching my body, so that the
smooth furred fingers should close the wound, and the soft palm should
give its strength to heal me.
“I am ashamed,” I thought, “that I should be so incapable from so slight
a wound. You regard me as a creature of violence, yet I break down at
every conflict, where you come through with a clearer victory. I think I
am more an encumbrance than a help, even in such ways as these.”
She answered, “It was I who failed you. I should have stood nearer, and
it need not have happened. I held them too lightly, and you, who took
the harder part, have been hurt through my folly.”
My mind protested, but as the thought formed I was sleeping.
CHAPTER XXV
THE FORBIDDEN THING
There have been those, from the Egyptian civilisation to our own times,
who have believed a dream to be in the nature of an occult visitation,
from which future events can be foretold or avoided. But even they would
admit that a dream must be remembered on waking if it is to be of any
utility, and that is just where so few dreams are entirely satisfactory.
When I waked I recollected vividly that I had dreamed of the making of a
fire a short distance outside the door, which had stood open while I
made it. I had built up a pile of wood, which I had cut from the javelin
shafts, and set the burning-glass in their midst, and I had sat and
watched the smoke of the heated wood curl upward, till a blaze showed
faintly in the sunlight.
So far I remembered clearly, and I supposed that the incident when the
arrow had struck the glass might have brought it into my dreaming mind,
but I knew that the dream went further, and was of a very exciting
character. I had a feeling that it was very urgent that I should recall
it, but I tried in vain to do so.
I was on the point of telling my trouble to my companion, but the
feeling that it might only increase her contempt or pity for the
internal anarchy in which I existed, deterred me. Had I done so she
would have given me a convincing reason why no fire should be attempted,
and our adventure must have had a widely different sequel.
As it was, I rose, and with my left hand--for my other arm was stiff at
the shoulder, and likely to be of little use to me for some time to
come--I picked up one of the javelins, to ascertain whether it were
suitable to the purpose for which my dream had used it.
For one-third of its length it was of metal, pointed and with double
knife-like edges, but the remainder was of a dark and very resinous
wood, such as would take fire readily. Here, at least, my dream had made
no error.
It seemed to me that, as my arm would be of little use for further
axe-work if they should attempt to rush us again, a fire, which could be
lighted safely on the stone floor beside the opening, would be our best
protection, as it could be instantly swept down upon them, and could
scarcely fail to be sufficiently disconcerting to give time for my
companion’s javelins to operate.
I was elated in mind that I should be able to demonstrate my practical
genius in this way, recalling in some wonder that I had as yet seen no
evidence of fire in all my wanderings, unless the heated water supplied
it. But I would say nothing until I had proved the success of my
project, and the fire was blazing.
I wondered for one foolish moment why I had dreamed that the fire was
lighted on the open ground, till I noticed that the sun, which was now
past its noon, was no longer visible from the windows, and that, within
the hall, the glass on which I relied would be useless. Here again, the
dream was wiser than my waking thought, and its reality impressed me
proportionately.
I told my companion that I would demonstrate a new method of fighting,
as my arm was useless, and I made a heap of javelins upon the very edge
of the pit, while she regarded my work with an observant curiosity.
Then, using the clasp-knife with the left hand as best I could, I
shredded some of the wooden shafts into such splinters as should take
fire very easily, and asking her to watch the hole for a moment, and
giving an assurance that I should not go far from the door, I opened it,
and stepped into the brighter light without.
The space around me was bare, as far as sight could reach it, except
that a group of Killers, probably the infirm and young, showed at the
far end of the enclosure, but I knew that there might come a rush of
them from round the side of the building at any moment, and very
watchfully therefore I arranged the splinters with the glass in the
midst of them. It was a very short time before a rising smoke changed
into the uncoloured flame of a noonday fire, and, picking up two or
three of the longer splinters by their outer ends, I went back into the
hall. My companion did not turn as I approached, but told me, “There is
something that has frightened the lizards. They have thrown themselves
from the roof into the pit beneath us. If they have read your mind, your
new way of fighting must be very terrible.” With the thought she looked
round, and her mind waked to a swift insistent protest--“_No! It is the
Forbidden Thing!_”--but at the same moment I had thrust the splinters
into the pile I had prepared to receive them.
For a few seconds our minds fought strenuously. “Do not let it burn. We
know little of the ways of the Dwellers, but all the world knows that.
It is the one thing they will not endure.” “I am not bound to the
Dwellers. To us it may be a weapon of safety.” “But I am; and to my
Leaders it would be unforgivable.” “We can keep a watch for the
Dwellers, and put it out if they approach.” “The mere knowledge that it
had been lit might destroy us all.” “The responsibility is mine only.”
“If I am with you I share it.” “It can be put out in a moment, if it be
scattered on the stones.” “I know nothing of that; but I know that for
many centuries it has not been seen on the surface of this
continent--not since it was used in the great war, before the barrier
had been planted.” “Do they use it under the surface for themselves? How
are the tanks heated?” “I do not know; but I think that there may be
other ways. Please put it out if you can do so. It threatens war to my
nation.” “I think you fly from a shadow, and that it would save your
life, not destroy; but, as you wish it, I will.”
I felt a resentment which I could hardly restrain at the folly of this
objection, and the unexpected reception of my successful experiment.
Apart from this, I had felt a real relief from the added security it
would give us, for I knew that I was in no fit condition to face a
second attack, if they should resolve to make it. But to such a plea
only one answer was possible.
The swift exchange of thought was of a moment’s duration only, but
already the dry wood was crackling, as I kicked it apart, and commenced
to stamp upon it. And then a fresh fact met me. The hard cold stony
smoothness of the floor, which looked less inflammable than asbestos,
was more so than celluloid. As I tried to stamp them out the flames did
not appear to bite into it, but played over its surface with a slight
clear hissing noise. It was only for a second that the event was
doubtful. Then I leapt back from the flames that were all around me. The
next I was flying down the hall, with the flames licking their way as
fast behind me.
A second sooner than myself my comrade had judged the issue, and was at
the door before me, and held it open. But for that I do not think it
possible that I could have escaped alive from that swift inferno.
As we turned to look back at the building we had left, a flame crept out
of the right-hand window, and spread swiftly in all directions. As we
gazed, my companion’s mind turned to me with unruffled gravity. “For
your part, I know that you meant well, and I think that you did rightly.
I see also that you have powers of which the limits are beyond my sight.
But I think also that the world I have known is ended.”
Above that gravity, a dancing light of adventure crossed her eyes for a
moment, and beneath was a fortitude which I knew would face what came
without flinching.
I answered more hopefully, “The flames appear to move over the surface
only. The building is of such material as will not burn at all in the
world I come from. I think that it must be covered with some protecting
varnish, which is inflammable. That will burn itself out very quickly,
and it will be as though nothing had happened.”
“No,” she said, “the building burns,” and even with the thought the
increasing heat drove us farther away, and the flames, which burned with
a hissing sound, rose higher.
“In any case,” I continued, “the fault is mine, and if we meet the
Dwellers, I will tell them.”
“The act was yours, but the cause was ours,” she answered--“and the
Dwellers will soon be here, that is a very certain thing, and it is our
part to decide how we shall meet them.”
By now the building rose a solid oblong of bright flame in a windless
air, and the heat was terrible.
On our right hand as we faced it, we saw six other buildings of a
similar type, and on our left was the steaming vat, with the
killing-pens built over it.
I thought, “The next building is catching.”
“Yes,” she answered, “they will all go.”
On the farther edge of the enclosure we saw the Killers, a pink crescent
standing outside the doors of the inner wall. They were quite silent,
and very still.
A yellow blotch on the sand, the wiser lizards made their way to the
open gate.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE TRIAL
As the heat increased we again moved backward, and stood there in a
pause of indecision; at least my own mind hesitated, and hers had
closed, as it would when she sought decision from a too-difficult
complexity.
At last I asked her, “Had we not better follow the example which the
lizards set so promptly? There is nothing here to do, and the Killers
seem too appalled for movement. As the fires die, their consternation
may give place to fury. I have lost my axe, and my knapsack, and all it
held. The bow is burnt, and were it not so, my right arm is useless. I
think we should make a sudden rush for the gate, for it is only speed
which will save us.”
She had a javelin in her hand, and she spun it in the air, and caught it
lightly as it fell, before she answered.
“Should the Killers try again, there is one that will sorrow. But I
think differently. It is with the Dwellers only that this game is played
from now onward. Perhaps it may be well to go. It is hard to say. But
you have not thought of the Bat-wings.”
No, I had not thought of the Bat-wings. It was not clear why I should.
It seemed to me that if we thought of ourselves we were sufficiently
occupied for the moment.
But I could not avoid the thought when she raised it, for they were
making a clamour which the hissing roar of the fire itself could not
entirely silence.
“I don’t see that they concern us,” I answered, “unless you think that
we should release them before we leave. They are not very attractive
animals, but I don’t know that I want them to be burnt to death. Still,
your Leader said they ought to die.”
“That is just the point,” she replied, “it was the order that they
should die, and I am of no mind to go, and leave them living.”
“I suppose your Leader meant that if we drove off the Killers, we should
do wrong to release them, and I have no wish to do so. But the Killers
are still here to boil them, if the fire should prove more merciful.
Surely that is sufficient. I did not think you so bloodthirsty. Besides,
the circumstances are different from anything that your Leader could
have foreseen.”
“Yes, the circumstances are certainly different. I think, where you are
concerned, they always are,” she answered drily, “but it is in my mind
that the Killers will not be here much longer. I think, also, that my
Leaders see very far, and that when we have gone a different way we have
not found it a good one. It seems to me that it is a thing that we
cannot leave to the chance that the Killers will remain, or of the
flames falling. We have this to think. We are in the land of the
Dwellers, where we have no right to be. They had judged these Bat-wings,
which were theirs, and they had given them to be used at a Feast which
will very surely not be held, through our doing. They had not judged
them to burn. I think we should see that their will is done, if we are
able.”
I saw that she regarded the fate of the Bat-wings no more than that of a
shoal of cod that she might guide to the fish-tanks--or, indeed, less,
if she compared them, for the cod would be innocent of anything worse
than feeding when hunger urged them--but that her feeling was as that of
one who has unavoidably trampled his neighbour’s garden, and would
smooth it over, as best he may, before leaving.
I said, “I see your view, and for you it may be right. But though you
regard me as a lower creature than yourself, and addicted to violence, I
am not willing to throw wretches into the boiling tank--which seems your
purpose--for faults which I have not judged, and the guilt of which I am
unable to estimate. Neither am I willing to release them, lest they
might do us mischief, or desire our company. Nor do I think the fire
will reach them, for the steam will quench it.”
She answered equably, “Of steam and fire I know something, though not on
the earth’s surface, and this is not the time for the telling. But I
think that the killing-pens will burn to the water’s edge as the heat
increases. As to the Bat-wings, I have lived for many centuries, and I
did not know that creatures of such baseness are, or had been. I care
nothing for them, except that they should cease to be, and it seems best
to me that it should be done quickly. I know that my Leader’s mind is
more far-seeing than mine, and that she thought so also. But I think
that we have done so much harm that it might not be easy to increase it.
I can see that we cannot go on together unless we find some reconciling
way when our thoughts differ. Let us do this. We will go to them, and
they shall say for themselves what they can say, to which one of us
shall answer, and the other shall judge their fate. Which is to
question, and which to decide, shall be their own choice; and we will
both agree to take the judgment of the other, which we know will be
fairly given.”
I said, “Come quickly, for the fire increases,” and we ran together.
We went round to the entrance, where the sound of my axe-stroke had
roused the sleeping guard, the night--it seemed so long!--before, and
finding none there to stay us, we climbed some stairs to a
platform-grating which extended between the pens. There were five
a-side. The floors of them were of loose bars only, and were somewhat
higher than the grating on which we stood, so that the Killers could
pull out the bars without stooping. The water steamed and bubbled
beneath them, and we looked down and saw it below the grating on which
we stood. Beyond the pens we saw the open tank extending on every side
but that by which we entered. At the farther end was the stone pier
which I had seen previously, reaching far out into the deep water.
Four of the pens on the left hand were occupied. In each was one of the
judges. They crouched dismally on the bars, with wings extended. The
heavy dark bald heads, with their cruel horny beaks, were drooping
hopelessly forward. Their eyes followed us with an intelligence that
seemed afraid to hope, but begged for pity.
On the other side, there were three like them, and then two others that
could move their wings, and these two were not still, but flopped
unceasingly from side to side, sometimes almost reaching to the roof,
and then coming down with clumsy flappings.
My companion addressed the one with the largest beak, and reached her
point very promptly. “My Leader told me of you. It appears from your own
tale that you are unfit for life. Do you agree?”
He answered, “She was very treacherous, for she let us tell all before
she gave any sign that she had a Dweller’s mind.”
“I also may have a Dweller’s mind,” she answered coldly, “but listen,
for your lives are balanced on the choice I give you. There is one with
me who is not as I. You may think him more of your kind. I do not know.
I think that you should die quickly, but he is less willing.
“Neither of us has heard your defence, and we will do so fairly. Your
choice is this. One of us will question you to show that you should be
in the tank below, and you shall reply as best you may. The other shall
judge, and all shall accept the issue. It is yours to choose the one
that shall judge you. You can also choose the one that shall speak for
the rest, but it must be one only, except that the two who were the
accusers can speak separately, if they will.”
Then the nine closed their minds from us, and disputed for a long time
(as thought is counted) among themselves. Then the one to whom we had
spoken told us, “We are all agreed that we shall argue this thing, and
accept your verdict. The two wish to speak separately. We are not agreed
on who shall speak for the seven, nor which shall judge us.”
My companion answered with patience, “It is necessary that you should
agree quickly, but we cannot make you do so. In two minutes from now, if
you should still be in this difficulty, we will drop one of you into the
tank, and perhaps you will find that six agree more easily. If not, we
will make further reductions as long as this assistance is needed.”
He looked at us with eyes that were naturally hard and cruel, but were
now flaccid with misery, and a cunning gleam was in them, as he tried to
probe our minds to find which would be the first to be sentenced, but my
companion baffled him.
It was but a few seconds later that he answered, “I am to speak for the
seven. You will argue against me, and the Prehistoric will judge us. So
we have decided by a majority, for fools are many.”
“You may be right in that,” my companion answered, “but I think that it
will make no difference.”
CHAPTER XXVII
THE VERDICT
My companion commenced her examination immediately. I have thought since
that it might be a model in many ways for the conduct of a prosecuting
counsel in our own courts.
I knew that she considered the accused unfit to live, and that they had
been competently tried and condemned already. Yet, now that the decision
had been placed with me, and it was her part to accuse them, her
questions were direct and fair, without subtlety or dissimulation,
seeking the truth without favour, and equally ready to develop a point,
whether it were against or for them.
The fact that the spokesman of the accused was accustomed to legal
argument, (which she certainly was not), and was of an acute and
vigorous mentality, gave additional interest to the quick exchange of
thoughts by which their lives were decided.
“We have been told that you are judges among your own kind?”
“Yes.”
“Is it necessary that you should be unanimous, or do you decide by a
majority?”
“By a majority.”
“A female was brought before you for stealing food, and was condemned to
be beaten?”
“Yes.”
“Were you unanimous in this case?”
“Yes. I should explain. She was first brought before two only. She was
condemned, and appealed. The appeal was heard by five, who confirmed the
verdict.”
“Did the appeal relate to her guilt only, or to her sentence also?”
“To both.”
“Was the sentence altered at the appeal?”
“It was increased. But that was because the accused attempted escape,
while the appeal was pending.”
“What were the two sentences?”
“Eight strokes were to be given under the wings with a five-thonged
scourge for the theft, and sixteen similar strokes for attempt to break
her prison.”
“Then two of the judges are not responsible for the larger part of the
sentence?”
“We are all responsible. It is our law that if a sentence be increased,
or an additional one given, by an appeal court, it must be approved by
the court below. The power of the appeal court being to confirm, reduce,
or cancel.”
“Tell us, in your own way, of what this female was charged, on what
evidence she was condemned, why you considered her action worthy of
punishment, and defend the sentences.”
“She was charged with the theft of a neighbour’s food. She confessed her
guilt. We consider theft deserves punishment, and that the safety of the
community requires it. But we do not make the laws. It is our duty to
administer them. The responsibility rests with the whole community. We
considered the sentence to be fair and moderate, and such as is
necessary to prevent the spread of dishonesty among the class of
population to which the accused belonged. We have ourselves been
condemned with greater severity, for a fault which we do not recognise
or understand, by a tribunal of which we were previously ignorant, and
under a code of conduct of which we had not even heard, and under which
our civilisation could not be maintained for a week.”
“You have not defended the second sentence.”
“I did not suppose that any defence were needed. She had been condemned
as guilty, and was in custody, pending appeal against the sentence she
had received. To attempt to escape under such circumstances was a
defiance of the laws under which we live, and it would be impossible to
maintain order or discipline if such incidents should pass unpunished.”
“I understand your arguments, though they may not convince me. The
injustice of inflicting further penalties for an attempt to escape those
already threatened is too obvious for serious argument, and I notice
that you do not attempt to assert it, but prefer to rely upon the
argument of expediency only. It is not reasonable to suppose that the
victim of such a sentence as you had imposed should be a consenting
party thereto, and in this instance you knew that she was not, for she
had appealed against it. You could not suppose that she would submit to
the sentence, if she could avoid it successfully. By keeping her in
custody while the appeal was pending, you admitted this to be so. This
duty (if such it were) was performed inefficiently, or the opportunity
to escape could not have arisen. For this fault of your own servants you
condemned her to a penalty even heavier than that which had been
inflicted originally.
“The argument of necessity could have been used with greater force in
her own defence as against the first accusation than by you in this
connection, and additionally so because the rights of the community, if
it be justly organised, must always be subordinate to those of the
individuals who compose it. For the rest, I propose to explain exactly
why I think the decision of the Dwellers is right, and that your lives
should not be continued. You will then be better able to reply in such a
way as may be convincing to the one you have chosen to judge you. But
there are a few points of fact on which I am ignorant, which may
possibly help you, and these I will ask you first. You complain that you
yourselves have been condemned under a law of which you had not known,
and to which you had not consented. You said also that she had confessed
her guilt, and you said later that she appealed both against the verdict
and the sentence. This requires explanation. I think you should answer
here very carefully, for I think we are confronted with that which
threatens the foundation of the strongest of the defences which you have
set up.”
For the first time there was a pause of some seconds before his mind
took up the challenge. I think he was quick to recognise her meaning,
and the danger of which she warned him. I think he also appreciated for
the first time the keenness of the intellect which confronted him.
“The explanation is simple. We were dealing with a female of exceptional
obstinacy. She was charged with theft. She admitted the theft. That is a
plea of guilty according to the custom of our courts. She appealed on
the ground that the theft was justified. There is no such thing as a
justified theft in the code of any civilised state. Her appeal had no
possibility of succeeding. She was in the position of having pleaded
guilty, yet of declining to admit that she had done so.”
“Then, when you said that she admitted her guilt, you meant only that
she admitted the accuracy of the statements made by those who complained
against her. You also admit the facts on which your own condemnation is
founded. To that extent you have pleaded guilty also. How can you assert
the authority of your own tribunal over this female, and deny that of
the Dwellers who condemned you?”
“Very easily. She was a female of our nation, and was under the
authority of our laws.”
“Do you contend that she was under the authority of your laws simply
because she was a female of your species, or had she herself consented
to them?”
“It is necessary in any civilised state to assume the assent, or, in any
case, the liability, of individuals to the laws of those among whom they
live, and to impose penalties should they fail to obey them.”
“Let us be clear upon our facts before we argue upon them. She had not
consented?”
“To obtain individual consent to every law is obviously impossible.”
“She had not consented?”
“Not in that way; but she knew that she must obey the laws of the
country in which she lived.”
“That cannot be so, because in fact she refused to do so.”
“She knew that she must submit to the laws of her people, or render
herself liable to the penalties provided.”
“But such knowledge--if she had it--did not imply consent?”
“Not necessarily, but, as I have said, the individual must be
subordinate to the state, or no civilised community could continue.”
“It is not self-evident that every civilised community should continue.
But your contention is clearly not that she consented, but that such
consent is not necessary. By whom were you appointed a judge, and under
what compulsion, if any?”
“I belong to the class from which judges are chosen, after certain tests
have been passed.”
“Would there have been any penalty, had you declined to act in that
capacity?”
“No; but I had no reason to do so. It is regarded as a position of
honour among us.”
“Do you regard all the laws of your country as just and good?”
“They are not perfect, but they are well adapted for the needs of those
for whom they are made, and they are being improved continually.”
“They cannot be very good, or continual improvement would be impossible.
What course do you, or your fellow-judges, take when confronted with a
bad law?”
“It is not our duty to consider whether a law be good or bad, but to
administer it. The responsibility of the law is not on us, but on the
whole nation. Ours is to administer it accurately and impartially.”
“The responsibility for a law cannot be upon a whole nation, unless it
be agreed unanimously. It is upon those who make or support it. This
responsibility must rest in the largest degree upon those who directly
enforce it.”
The rapid interchange paused for a moment, and thinking that my
companion was about to formulate her accusation, I interposed a
suggestion. The swift duel of thought which I have translated into
written words as best I can, had taken a few minutes only, but the heat
already seemed greater than when we entered the building. Through the
open bars of the pens we could see the towering pinnacle of fire, where
the seven buildings were now burning together. A wind moved occasionally
in our direction, and the high flames swayed toward us.
I said, “If we are not speedy, we shall all burn together. I understand
that you wish to set out their guilt as it appears to you, now that you
have heard their explanations, to which the horny-beaked orator will
make reply, and then I am to judge the issue. Will it not save time if
we interrogate the other two before these speeches are made?”
She agreed at once, but added, “I think you should question them. I am
conscious that their world is less strange to you than to myself, and
you might discover circumstances in their favour which I should fail to
do.”
I assented, and we walked down to where the two whose complaint had
originated the trouble were flapping with impatience to pour out their
wrongs.
I think it was well that I had taken on the interrogation. Here was no
keen argument, cool when at its deadliest, but a confused clamour from
two vulgarities that exposed themselves without shame, or appreciation
of their effect upon the minds that heard them.
I cannot translate the mental invectives, vituperations, recriminations,
and contradictions they poured upon us, but the facts came out with
unmistakable clearness.
Their tale was this. Through the vague impression of a complex and
highly-organised civilisation, there stood out clearly a group of
dwellings, inhabited by members of a trading class, of one of which
these two were occupants, and (apparently) owners.
As was customary, they did not use the ground floor, on account of a
plague of white slugs which rose from the ground at certain seasons and
crawled into the houses. The higher floors were gained through circular
openings in the ceilings, to which they flew from perches in the rooms
below. This left much of their domestic economy unexplained, but I did
not pursue a subject that was only indirectly material to the inquiry. I
gained an impression that the higher floors were in some way immune from
these slugs, which were a serious danger or annoyance, and of which no
method had been discovered by which to keep the ground floor entirely
free. For this reason it was usual to allow an industrial worker of the
poorer kind to occupy it in return for certain menial services. These
sub-tenants were not allowed to fly into the upper stories under any
circumstances.
Until a few weeks earlier, the present couple had lived prosperously.
Trade was good, and they had only been detected in cheating once in
every moon as the law permitted. They had been fortunate enough to breed
a daughter with a bright yellow blotch on either shoulder, which they
had been able to sell for a large sum.
The ground floor had been occupied by a female who had been employed in
some industrial process by which the wings were liable to become
damaged, and had lost the use of hers, so that the ring on which she
perched at night had to be hanged within a few feet of the ground. A
beneficent law provided that those who suffered in this way could take
certain pickings from the main roads, by the sale of which life could be
maintained. She had, however, complained of a growing blindness, which
prevented her from snatching her due share of this bounty, and when the
time of the spring meal approached had caused annoyance by waylaying her
employers as they went in and out of the house, and petitioning that
they would provide food for her. They declined a request so
unreasonable, and had advised her kindly of the methods of suicide best
adapted to her condition, and when they saw that their advice was not
taken, they even went the length of recommending her to a medical
practitioner who would destroy her without a fee, in return for an
opportunity of investigating the diseases from which she suffered.
Unfortunately, they did not kill her themselves, which they could have
done for a slight penalty, for their laws are, in this instance, more
just than ours, the penalty of murder being in proportion to the
expectation of the victim’s life, and its estimated value to him. Then
they might have committed the murder jointly, and halved the penalty
between them, for in this also their law is more equitable than ours,
and if two or three people unite to commit a crime they can each be
punished for one-half or one-third of the crime, or for their fair
proportion only.
But the time passed without decisive action being taken, till the week
of the summer meal approached, and the wretch, being blinder than
before, and weak from six months’ fasting, had failed to gain the right
to a meal for herself, and had again resorted to begging them to supply
her need.
On the eve of the feast they had collected their food in an upper room,
and had gone out to barter a ring-eared monkey, very quaintly tattooed,
for the wing-powder which they would need after the second day’s eating,
and on coming back they had found her sitting on the edge of the
aperture above the room she occupied, afraid to flutter down, owing to
the condition of her wings. They found a savoury mess of pomegranates
and pig’s liver, (such as is eaten on the first day before sustaining
food is taken), had been entirely consumed, and two of the food-balls
also. She would give no explanation of how she climbed into the room,
and it was supposed that she must have had an accomplice, who should
have helped her down also, but who had become alarmed, and fled. She
admitted that she had eaten the food, but claimed that she was obliged
to do so, and that there was an abundance remaining for their own
necessities.
The two judges before whom she was taken had treated her with great
consideration. They had sentenced her to eight strokes, which she would
almost certainly have survived, in view of the food that she had
swallowed, and they had ordered that the sentence should not be executed
for three days, during which she should be placed in a cell designed for
such cases, where she could release herself from her troubles without
further difficulty.
The cell had a deep well, in which she could have drowned herself very
easily had she had sufficient sense to do so. A kindly regulation had
provided that the sides of the well, above the water, should be deep and
smooth, as there had been distressing instances of prisoners who had
changed their minds when half-drowned and had clambered out, so that all
their misery was repeated. There were also weights which she could have
tied to her feet, had she wished to do so.
Instead, however, of following these suggestions, she had contumaciously
appealed against the sentence she had received, which had delayed its
execution, and entailed a two-days’ journey into the Upper City for her
accusers. The food she had taken appeared to have renewed her youth, or
rather her energy, (for she was not old), so that she had attempted to
escape her confinement, and had almost succeeded; and when rebuked by
the Superior Judges for not availing herself of the provision for her
comfort which the cell provided, she had actually uncrossed her legs,
and shaken the damaged wings derisively, asking if she were likely to
commit suicide with three months’ food in her body.
I endeavoured to put such questions as might have elicited any
extenuating circumstance which had bearing on the main incident, such as
a past kindness, or a past ingratitude, but I obtained nothing that was
helpful.
Their replies were inconsequent, and their minds worked round
continually to self-reproaches that they had not killed her themselves,
and to a choking indignation at the thought that it was the stolen food
in her body which had supplied her with strength to contest the issue.
We went back to where the Chief Justice crouched unmoving, but with eyes
that had watched the scene with sombre keenness.
My companion commenced immediately--“I have thought of all that you
said, and of much that your thoughts implied, though it was not stated.
The conditions of life which you showed me are beneath anything I had
imagined previously, though I have heard strange and dark things from
the friend beside me. It may be that your own state is no worse than
that to which he is native, but that it appears different to him because
he is of a different kind. For when I heard how that half-blinded
creature, whom you had condemned to wretchedness, and would have
persuaded to destruction, shook derisive wings at your inability to
subdue her, it came to me that even in these dark and dreadful worlds
there may be fair ways to tread for such spirits as are sufficient in
themselves to find them. It seemed to me for a moment that our spirits
are the only reality, and all the rest illusion. Yet, if that be so,
round spirits of what kind can so dark a dream have gathered as that
which has brought you here? It is a thought which I cannot grasp in a
moment, but to which I may give much time when occasion allows it.
Meanwhile, my inclination is changed. I still think that you should die,
and my Leader, who is wiser than I, was of the same mind, as were the
Dwellers who condemned you. But I am less sure than I was, and I will
say nothing more to urge it. You have chosen another judge, and I am
content for him to decide it.”
When she ceased he looked at her in silence for a few seconds. I think
he was regretting again the choice of judge which the majority had
forced upon him. Then he accepted the position, and seeing that I was
waiting to consider the defence which he would set up, he opened his
mind toward me.
“You are of a world different from ours,” he began, “but sufficiently
like it to understand how necessary are the laws which regulate the
possession of property, and that any law without penalty would be no
deterrent. You know also that the function of a judge is different from
that of a legislator, and that it would be grotesque to punish a judge
for a defect in the law which he dispenses. We have fallen into strange
hands, of whom we knew nothing previously, and it is by the mercy of
circumstance that we are able to lay our case before you. I can do this
confidently because I know that you will understand our position, and I
am assured that you are not in yourself either unjust or merciless. I
will not weary you with many thoughts, for I know that you are in haste,
and we would ourselves very gladly be free from the increasing heat and
danger. Our defence is threefold, and I submit that each point is in
itself sufficient: (1) We think that the sentence was fair; (2) if it
were harsh, which we deny, it was in accordance with the laws of our
country, which we were sworn to administer; (3) if these two pleas
should fail,--which is beyond my imagination,--it would still remain
that for any possible fault we have been tortured and punished already
beyond our deserving. Consider that it is in the name of mercy that this
fate has been threatened! We are accused of brutality, but we have never
sentenced any of our people to be boiled alive, even for the foulest
crimes. It may be that the Dwellers did not intend that such a horror
should happen. I think it more likely that they proposed to alarm us
only, and foresaw your coming, and that you would release us, so that we
can go back to our duties, knowing their wishes, and introducing their
methods into our country, with consequences which they will no doubt
themselves direct to a satisfactory issue.”
I replied, “I will not torture your minds with a long judgment, though
the issues which you have raised invite it. I will tell you at once that
the first two pleas fail. The sentence was not fair, and on hearing the
evidence you should rather have addressed your minds to the inequity of
the social conditions which it revealed, and to exhort the prosecutors
to observe a higher standard of social morality in future. Having heard
them, however, I think your arguments would have been wasted. They, at
least, are unfit to exist, and as I do not wish to prolong their agony,
after they have heard this decision, I propose to deal with them before
I complete my judgment.”
I then went with my companion to the two pens which contained them, and
drew out the bars on which they rested. As we thought the male culprit
was slightly the less repulsive of the two, we soused him first, that
his trouble should be the sooner over.
As we commenced to draw the bars, their cries became deafening in
volume, and the female, in a frenzy of fear and vituperation, commenced
spitting in our direction.
As the last bar withdrew, the male leapt to the uprights at the side,
but found that they were made of a material too smooth for his grasp to
hold, and he fell backward into the water which bubbled beneath him.
Having disposed of the female in the same way, I resumed my verdict.
“The second point, as I have said, is of no more avail than the first,
because it appears to me to be a very evil thing that legislators or
judges should attempt to exalt the laws they dispense as being higher
than the essential justice which they are intended to demonstrate. It
should be the greatest difficulty in putting an unjust law into
operation that no judges of good character should be found who would
consent to enforce it. A judge who solemnly administers a law which he
knows in his heart to be unjust is baser than one who takes bribes from
a litigant. In the one case he is bribed by an individual to do
injustice at some risk to his own position; in the other he is bribed by
the State to do injustice, with an assurance that it can be perpetrated
with impunity.
“But your third point is of a different quality. To consider it fully
would take more time than is now available, and we might all be involved
in a common fate the while I should do so. It appears to me that there
is force in your contention that the fate to which you have been
condemned has an even greater severity than the harshness of your own
laws, for which they have condemned you. I am not sure that this is so,
but it is at least a plausible and confusing argument. I have
endeavoured to consider it from their standpoint, and I think that their
reply would be that there is no point in the comparison, because they
have acted from different motives, and with different intentions. Your
laws are designed to produce certain courses of conduct in your
individual citizens, to repress tendencies which might be subversive of
the State as it is organised, and as you were content to continue it;
you endeavoured (we may hope) to use no more harshness than you
considered that these objects required. They have no such objects in
view. They do not make you examples to others, nor design to coerce you
into observing any rules of future conduct. They regard you as having a
mentality so base that it should be destroyed entirely. But you say that
they may not have intended that this fate should fall upon you. I think
that this is less than possible, for, having heard your arguments, I
accept their decision very heartily.”
Saying this I commenced to withdraw the bars, and my companion helped me
in silence.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE FATE OF THE KILLERS
The horny beak must have been softening in the boiling tank before my
mind could free itself from the fierce despairing cry, “The fools, the
fools!” with which the chief of the culprits had splashed down to his
allotted end. It confirmed my opinion that there would have been a
different choice of judge if his advice had been taken.
But we had no time for thought, where action was urgent. With a sense of
good work done, we passed out from a building on which the fire was
already falling. The wind had risen, and as the buildings burned, not
down but inwards--I mean that the outside of the walls was burnt off
evenly to a core of somewhat different quality--burning flakes, almost
as light as air, began to float on the wind, and sometimes would have
driven against us, so that we avoided them with difficulty.
It was to withdraw from these that we moved away from the boiling tank,
which my companion left with reluctance, so much did the sight of any
water allure her, and but for the fact that it was in the condition of a
thin soup from the many bodies which had been boiled within it, and
indescribably repulsive, I doubt whether the heat would have been
sufficient to deter her from the swim she needed. For myself, my thirst
was such that only this new danger was sufficient to force me from it.
But my cup was gone, with all my other possessions, excepting only what
my pockets held. So I had no means of cooling the water, if I could have
persuaded myself to drink it; and of boiling water I had just had a
sufficient experience. For the Chief Justice, as he plunged, had
contrived a kick which sent a swirl of water over the grating on which I
stood as I pulled at the last bar, and though I jumped very quickly I
had not escaped entirely, and to a stiff right arm I now added the
infirmity of a left foot that limped and blistered.
I scarcely grudged him his revenge,--he was a good fighter, and perhaps
fate had used him hardly,--but I felt an increased doubt of how we could
hope to escape from the surrounding Killers that grouped beneath the
crescent wall that enclosed us.
My companion was not troubled in that direction. “There is water near,”
she told me jubilantly, and the next moment we were standing beside a
large pool that sparkled clear and cool in the sunlight. A stream came
in at one end from the cliff-side, and was drained away through a sluice
at the other, so that it was fresh continually. Weeds grew in a clear
depth, but did not reach the surface.
She dropped the javelin, and dived.
I had seen seals swim, and many graceful forms to which the water is
native, but I had seen nothing like I saw then.
The legs did not move separately, but the appendages of which I have
told held them together as one limb. The double tail, which was carried
on land in such a way that it was barely visible, now came out, and with
the tiny monkey hands at each extremity, may have done much, both in
steering and propulsion. But the whole body seemed to move without
effort. A curve, a twist and it shot the pool’s length and back, without
evidence of any further directing motion.
I have always loved the water and (having drunk all I would) I was
already taking off my damaged rags to join her, when I noticed that she
was motionless above the weeds and looking intently at or through them.
I marvelled how she could maintain her position, and paused a moment to
watch her. The next, she had looked up, and must have recognised what I
was doing, for her thought was urgent against it. I was not instantly
willing to give up my intention, and while she still pressed me to
desist, there came a movement under the weeds that caused the whole
surface to tremble. The next second she had shot upward, and leapt out
beside me.
“Water-snakes,” she answered. “They do not know us here, as do those of
the ocean. Under the weeds, it is deep beyond seeing. I do not think I
could have saved you, if you had come in. But I have taught those snakes
that such as I am are not for a meal for their larder.”
I did not reply, for I had looked up, and seen that the living-wall was
ablaze for all its length from cliff to cliff.
She saw it also, but more coolly. “Did you not foresee that it must be?
I only thought that the Dwellers would be here sooner. It is a place of
hiding that we need; but the water drew me.”
“I do not see where we can hide on this plateau.”
“I think there is only one place, and that I have seen it already.”
She led me toward the southern corner, where the cliff was met by the
blazing wall. The Killers had left it at this point, for they were all
thronging wildly to the gateway, and pouring out through the narrow neck
between the burning of the open gates.
When we were about fifty yards from the wall, we turned to the
cliff-side, and looking up saw a fault in the rock, it could scarcely be
called a cave, but there was a shallow horizontal gap, about two feet
high at one end, and about ten feet wide, narrowing to a point at the
farther side, and about eight feet from the ground. I don’t think I
could easily have climbed even that height in the condition in which I
was, but she led the way, and wriggled easily, feet first, into the gap,
and helped me till I was lying there beside her.
In the shadow, with the sun already descending toward the hills behind
us, they would be good eyes indeed which would have detected us from any
distance, while we had a wide view of the whole plateau, of the cliff on
the left hand where it curved slightly forward, and of the whole stretch
of the lower country beneath us.
“It is to our left,” she told me, as we watched and waited, “that our
people will descend the cliff if they continue in that purpose. It is
only there that it is possible to climb it.”
It looked impossible to me, even there, but I did not question it.
“The Dwellers come,” she said, “we are none too soon. If you make your
mind blank and observe only, I do not think they will detect us.
Everything may depend on that. Avoid thought. Do not communicate with my
kind either, if they should appear.”
Then she closed her mind, and I was alone beside her.
* * * * *
When the Killers ran out from the blazing gateway, they had scattered
aimlessly about the plateau, as ants do when their nest is broken, and
for some time they remained in restless tumult, moving continually
without direction or purpose, but this was changed in a moment to the
frantic desperate rushes of rats when the dogs are among them, and they
can find no outlet.
The Dwellers came up the hillside in no appearance of haste, and what
they thought or knew of the events we had occasioned they gave no sign
to indicate.
There were three of them side by side, taking cliffs in their stride
round which our path had wound, and approaching from the only point at
which the sides were not too precipitous and deep, even for their
attempting.
Arriving on the level ground they consulted for a moment, and then one
of them came forward alone. The wall was still blazing in places, or I
think he would have stepped over it without change of pace, but, as it
was, he leapt easily, and then proceeded systematically to investigate
the smouldering ruins of the settlement. The killing-pens, which had
caught fire last, were still blazing, and he approached them with
caution, but I think that ivory-yellow skin, on which I had seen the
teeth of the Frog-mouths bite in vain, must have been insensitive to
fire also, so closely was he standing, as he looked down to observe the
victims that boiled beneath it.
He stood there for a long while, as though he found difficulty--as well
he might--in understanding all that had happened. I tried to avoid
thought, as I had been directed, but the idea crossed me that had the
Bat-wings lived, they would not have failed to disclose the whole tale
of the imprisoned Leader, and of my companion’s presence, if they had
thought that they could have gained anything by so doing. Had it been in
that Leader’s mind when she had directed us to destroy them? I thought
it likely; but at least the minds of my companion and myself had been
free from any such consideration, and the deed itself had been a good
one.
With a heavy thoughtfulness he went back to his companions.
Meanwhile, they had not been idle.
It is probable that it had not been the mere coming of the Dwellers, so
much as the sight of the things they carried, which had produced so
sudden a panic among the Killers who saw them. For they had now shaken
out a net, with which they were sweeping the ground from end to end till
the whole of the Killers were a kicking, whistling confusion within its
ample meshes. One of them then sat on the ground, and taking the basket
from his back, he abstracted from it a lidded vessel or cup, which he
set open before him.
One by one he pulled the frantic victims loose from the net that held
them, and after a glance of inspection, squeezed them in his hand over
the cup, so that their blood drained into it.
When he had squeezed sufficiently, he threw the empty carcase with a
careless aim, high into the air, to fall far off in the boiling tank,
from which its own meals had been so often taken.
This went on for about an hour, during which he dealt with some hundreds
in this way, and also selected about two dozen which he inspected more
carefully, and then passed to his companion, who also looked over them,
and either handed them back to take their turn at the squeezing, or
dropped them into his basket.
I supposed that they had decided to destroy this colony, and to found a
new one with the few which they had saved for that purpose, but I
reflected that this could not have been their intention when they handed
over the Bat-wings for destruction, at a feast which would never be
held, and if they had now come prepared to take that course, it implied
a foresight or knowledge of what was passing, which was sufficiently
disconcerting.
I could not resolve that problem, but it soon became evident that the
occasion was of some further importance, for one by one they were joined
by others, until I had counted fourteen of these giants that were
assembled on the plateau.
More than once their words came over to us as the wind helped them, but
to me they bore no meaning. Whether they conversed among themselves by
other means, as they were able to do with the Amphibians, I could not
tell, but they spoke little outwardly, and mainly monosyllables. They
seemed to be waiting for an event impending.
Thus they waited, till the twilight was nearing. As I saw them on the
plateau, their huge bulks dwarfed by the proportions of the scenery
around them, I thought of them again as Titans of an earlier world, and
of a size the most natural to the background against which they moved.
I was conscious not only of my own insignificance, but of a vulgarity
also, which was not personal to myself, but belonging to the race from
which I came.
I clothed them in imagination with the garments to which I was
accustomed, and their significance and their dignity at once departed.
But for what were they delaying? As the time passed I was increasingly
convinced that they were aware of the Amphibians, and were awaiting
their arrival; and as this conviction grew, there came with it an
increasing fear that I was watching the prelude of a tragedy, for which
the great sweep of the wooded valleys beneath us, and the amphitheatre
of mighty hills, were a setting of appropriate grandeur.
The thought impressed me with an awe which left no space for
consideration of my own relation to the shadow which I believed to be
falling, nor do I think the fear I had was influenced by the expectation
of any personal consequence.
But when this depression was at its worst, and the strain of uncertainty
was becoming unendurable, I was suddenly aware of the influence of a
bolder and more confident spirit, and into my mind there came a music,
such as I had felt when I first watched the Amphibians approach across
the seaward bridge:
From the force that withstands shall we falter or flee,
Who have bent in our hands the untamable sea?
From the cloud that is close ...
Surely the Amphibians were approaching over the cliffs behind us.
From the nights that have been, from the midnights to be,
There shall dawns intervene, there shall ...
My companion’s mind spoke once only, but very urgently. “It may be the
end of all, if you cannot isolate yourself from that which is near us.”
I closed my thoughts as best I could from everything but a passive
photography of that which was developing before me.
The Dwellers had risen, and were standing in a group of no regular
order, upon the side of the plateau from which descent was possible.
They were looking silently toward the cliffs above us.
Next, on my left hand, I saw the Amphibians descending. The six Leaders
came first. They climbed down as easily as a fly walks on a wall. I
think the long centre toe gripped the rock more firmly and easily than a
human foot could do, and the appendages of the legs helped also, the
little hands grasping and steadying, but there was an ease of balance,
and a certainty in every movement for which these differences were less
than explanation. After them came the whole regiment of the Amphibians.
They formed up below, with the six Leaders in the front. I think their
song was still continued, but I would not hear it. They took no notice
of the smoking ruins, or of the steaming tank, which was now covered
with the floating husks of the bodies which had designed it.
Straight forward went the Amphibians to the spot where the Dwellers
blocked their passage. They did not hesitate, nor did the Dwellers give
way before them.
What would have happened I can only guess, had there not come an
unexpected incident.
From I know not where, there appeared the group of yellow lizards that
had fled from the burning arsenal.
A small bright yellow patch they showed on the sandy soil, and the
Amphibians stopped, and the Dwellers grouped to look down upon them.
I have thought since that they must have timed their appearance,
intending to give such information to the Dwellers as would win favour
to themselves, and bring destruction on others.
Whether they knew of our hiding-place I could not tell, nor whether they
were aware of the confinement of the Leader who had escaped--but of what
use is conjecture?--all I know is what I saw from my hiding-place.
There were long seconds of silence, which seemed minutes as I watched,
and then one of the Dwellers stepped forward and put his foot firmly
down upon the spot of bright yellow malignity. When he lifted it the
colour was gone, and there was nothing left that showed at that
distance.
He stepped back, and the protagonists remained facing one another in a
continued silence.
Then, at last, the Dwellers stepped wide of the path on either hand, and
the Amphibians moved quietly forward between them, filing through till
the last had passed. I noticed that three of the Leaders had remained
aside, and supposed that they might be retained as hostages or culprits,
by surrendering whom the rest had won to safety, but as the last file
passed I saw them fall in behind it, and the Dwellers made no motion
till they had disappeared into the narrow trench which we had traversed
on the night before.
Then they also turned, and departed.
The dusk was already falling over the valley, as my companion’s mind
laughed its relief, and the tension ended.
“I think,” she said, “that this is the beginning of the next adventure.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Book II
THE WORLD BELOW
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I
COUNSEL
The night had fallen to blackness while we still lay in the rock-cleft.
The ashes of the central buildings glowed with a pale blue light, and an
occasional flame would rise up and lick across them like a ghostly
tongue.
The long curve of the living-wall had fallen in from end to end, but the
ashes were burning still, with a paler flame, so that it showed like a
white bow in the darkness.
There were no stars; the night had clouded while we slept,--for I lay
long in a sleep of utter weariness and exhaustion, both of mind and
body; and so, I think, in her own way, did my companion.
But I waked at length, with a dim sense of peril ended, and the short
pause of security which is so precious to those who walk in dangerous
ways, but conscious also of thirst and hunger, and of the shadow of
great events, of which the significance was beyond my knowing.
I lay for some time in silence, pondering the strange things I had seen;
reviewing--not without some mental discords--my judgment of the
Bat-wings, and the fate to which it had cast them, and wondering vainly
what new marvels or terrors might be before us, when we should penetrate
the subterranean world of which we were about equally ignorant.
As I lay I became aware that the night was chilly, though, being cloudy,
it was less so than we had experienced previously. But I was suffering
from a lowered vitality, and though my wounds were trivial I was
conscious of the throbbing of my scalded foot, and that my right
shoulder was both stiff and painful.
I then fell into a mood of depression, in which I saw very vividly the
folly of the adventure which we had undertaken. How could we hope to
penetrate undetected into the domain of the Dwellers? There was no
sanity in the supposition. If I wished to live till the year of my exile
were over, should I not endeavour to find some crevice in the
surface-world, of which I already knew something, where I might hope
that my insignificance would save me?
If those whom I had come to seek survived at all, was I not more likely
to discover them under such conditions, than among those whom I had seen
squeezing the juice from the living bodies of the Killers, as casually
as a cook stones raisins?
While I thought thus, my companion’s mind gave no sign, nor had I heard
any movement from her. With a sudden start of terror I imagined that she
were no longer beside me. It was in that panic fear that I realised how
greatly I had come to depend upon her: alike upon her body for its
vigour, and upon her mind for its counsel. And beyond this I knew that
there was a spiritual quality in our intimacy, through which I was able
to face the shadows of the unknown with something of her own serenity.
It was a simple action to reach out to feel where she lay beside me, and
yet my hand delayed it.
Partly I may have been deterred by the atmosphere of aloof virginity
which always made me diffident of any physical contact, partly it was
that I dreaded to test my fear, as a man with a coward’s mind may leave
a letter unopened, knowing that it may hold the news of his ruin.
At last, I felt across the narrow space which had divided us as we lay
and watched the concluding drama of our adventure, and with a sense of
measureless relief my hand touched lightly for a moment on the
smoothness of the soft warm fur.
Her mind opened instantly, realised the mood I showed her, and crossed
it with the dancing gaiety with which she ever faced the thought of
peril. Then,--with the subtle distinction which she always drew between
myself and the body in which I lived,--she asked me, “Is it more trouble
than usual? Has it no gratitude for the rest you have given it?”
I answered, “It is rested by sleep, but has gone without food long
beyond its accustomed time. It can do this while it shares your
vitality, but afterwards the need re-asserts itself with increased
urgency. It is cold also, and, as you know, it has suffered recent
damage, which it needs rest to repair.”
She replied, “I can give you strength, if you need it, and if you think
it wise; but consider.
“We have resolved on an adventure of which we do not know the length or
the end. Of myself, I should continue in the ordinary course without
food for about four months, after which I should require a time of rest
and nourishment, before I should be fit for another year. If necessary,
I could continue living, and in some measure of activity, for a much
longer period. But I have been giving you of my own energy so freely
that, if we continue in this way, I shall be exhausted in a much shorter
time. Then I must return to my own place and people, as the food on
which you rely--and the Dwellers also--is of no use to me. I ask
this,--is it better that we should continue to share the strength I
have, or should we find food for your body, and so regulate our
movements in future that we can make it self-supporting?”
I answered, though my body ached for the vitality on which it had learnt
to rely, “I think that it will be wiser for us to conserve the strength
you have, which we may need in days to come, when there may be no means
of renewal. But it will make important differences, for which there must
be allowance in the plans we form. I am used to sleeping at short
intervals, because my accustomed day is only about a quarter the length
of that which you now have; and even though I obtain regular and
suitable food, I shall still be incapable of the rapid and prolonged
exertions which I have endured with the stimulus of your hand to help
me.
“It appears to me that we must commence our enterprise by penetrating
one of the tunnels that open on to the opal pavement. It is true that
there must be other means of access inland, by which the Dwellers emerge
in the daytime, but there are two reasons against attempting to use
them. One is that we do not know their location, and though they may be
nearer, it is equally possible that they may be more distant. The other
is more serious. We are told that the Dwellers come up through the
inland passages, and descend by those which are on the lower level. By
choosing the latter, and following behind them when the night has
fallen, we may reasonably hope that we shall be able to enter their
abodes without encountering any who are coming in the opposite
direction. In addition to these reasons, it occurs to me that the
country inland is of an extremely forbidding and mountainous formation,
and though the Dwellers are able to traverse it, it might be absolutely
impossible for us to do so.”
My companion answered with her usual equanimity, “It is a choice which
must be made, and your decision contents me. But I notice a quality in
your reasoning which must, I suppose, introduce the adventure of your
life to many avoidable difficulties. I think the arguments which you
gave me were good, but they did not cover all the considerations which
might influence such a decision, and of which I feel sure you could have
thought, had you wished to do so.
“It appears to me that you first elect your own preference, and then
call upon your mind to furnish arguments to support it. It is not bound
to do this, and it knows that you rely upon it to suggest any serious
danger or difficulty which might impel you to alter your decision, but,
no less, it understands your wish, and that if there be any sufficient
arguments to justify your choice it is expected to find them. Like your
body, it is separate from yourself, and may even work without your own
awareness, but it is of a readier loyalty.
“I think, had you for any reason desired to adventure into the
mountains, that your mind would have been quick to suggest that you
could travel in greater security on the surface if you should avoid the
paths which you have traversed already, where the Dwellers would be most
likely to seek you. It would have used the argument of the unknown
distance in an exactly contrary way, and it would not have failed to
remind you that the tunnel which you have already explored contained no
possible hiding-place, so that an alternative passage could not be
worse, and might be better. It would have recalled that the whole length
of the opal pavement is without any possible cover: that the bridge
would be difficult for you to traverse in the darkness, while the
Frog-mouths would be dangerous in the day: and that you have already
been discovered once in the tunnel, so that it is at least possible that
a watch has been set to take you there, should you again invade it.
“I could give you many more arguments of the same kind, but I am not
resisting your plan. I am only interested in a method of decision which
has, at least, the merit that it can operate more speedily than mine is
easily able to do.”
I had not thought her to be slow of decision when the need was urgent,
but I felt that she had more to tell me, and I kept my mind open and
receptive.
“You slept very long,” her thought continued, “and I considered these
things, after my own method. I first collected in my mind all that I
have known of the Dwellers from the beginning, and of the things you
have told me. I added that which I know of your own character and
capacities. From these facts I endeavoured to deduce a method by which
we could succeed in our objects, if we be not already too late. I made
little progress, for the facts are few and insufficient. But I made
progress to this extent, that I realised that we are supposing some
things which we do not know.
“In particular, you have shown me your mind, and I have seen that you
visualise an end to these tunnels which opens into a hall, a chamber, or
a large passage, or at least some public space, populated by the
Dwellers, and where concealment for ourselves would be difficult, if not
impossible. Your imagination may be correct, and it is a possibility for
which we must be prepared. But in your mind it is less a possibility
than an expectation, for which there is no sufficient ground whatever.
Yet you had imagined it so confidently that I had difficulty in
separating it from the facts you had shown me.
“I thought of this very long, and I see that your life is so brief, and
so confusingly occupied, that you are obliged to proceed through a
labyrinth of assumptions by which you hope to reach the thing you wish
more rapidly than would otherwise be possible. But in this case, I
cannot see that the assumption has any basis of probability.
“I know, from what you have shown me already, that you come of a race
which has lived only on the earth’s surface, and any cave or tunnel by
which you enter it implies the approach to a confined and narrow space,
so that when you attempt to visualise the condition of a race which
lives under the surface, your imagination is of a cave, and not of a
country.
“Now if the interior of the earth be completely solid, or nearly so,
this imagination may be quite accurate. But is it? Neither of us knows.
We do know from your own experience that the tunnels go down for many
miles, though we do not know their ultimate depth. That suggests that
there must be some reason for so deep a penetration. To make such
tunnels must have been a great labour. To descend and ascend them
continually must be an unceasing toil. There must be some compensating
advantage in the depth which is reached. The hollowness of the interior
would supply it. But there might be quite different reasons. We know
that there are areas of great heat that lie closely under the surface.
There are parts of the ocean floor where this heat causes eruptions.
Such areas may be of great extent. They may render it difficult or
impossible to live under the surface till a greater depth is reached.
True, the tunnels must penetrate this region, on this supposition, and
it must therefore have been found possible to render them heat-proof.
“We have one other fact. The Dwellers reach the surface at very distant
points. But this has no certain significance.”
I answered, “I see the point you make, and I agree that I was inclined
to a too-hasty assumption. Also, it enters my mind that if the earth be
indeed hollow at a depth of a few hundred miles, and an inner surface be
land only, it must be of far greater extent, not merely than this
continent, but than the whole of the solid land of the earth’s surface
as I knew it, and as it appears to be to-day. It is also possible to
imagine tiers of hollowed space in which such areas might be many times
repeated, but the artificial creation of such tiers would require an
amount of labour which appears stupendous and the dumping on the earth’s
surface of excavated material to an incredible volume.”
She responded, “All that you think appears reasonable, and part is new
to my mind. It would help us greatly if we knew whether the Dwellers are
a numerous race, but of this I am able to tell you little.
“Before the time of the Great War, we believe that they dwelt on the
surface only, or, at least, until a comparatively short period before
it. Up to that time, for reasons into which I must not now enter, being
irrelevant, we knew little of them, or they of us. That was about eleven
thousand years ago.
“We know that they are bi-sexual, like the race from which you come. We
suspect that their bodies age and decay, and are replaced by others, but
of this we have no certain knowledge.
“In all the time I mention I cannot recall having seen more than two
hundred of their men and three of their women. We do not suppose that
they exist in these proportions. Our observation of the sea-creatures is
that they cannot dwell in peace together unless their females are at
least equally numerous, but we have seen those only who first negotiated
the treaty with our Leaders, of which you have been told, and such as
have been in attendance at the fish-tanks. Of these I mention, I cannot
recall that more than thirty have been seen at any one period. As the
centuries have passed, there has been a gradual change. But this might
only mean that they have exchanged to other duties. I have never seen
one that showed signs of age, nor that was less than full-grown. The
eight which we saw last night I had not seen previously.”
I answered, “But, even in the absence of more direct evidence, the works
which we have seen suggest that they are a numerous race.
“The protective belt which surrounds the continent cannot be less than
five thousand miles in length, and it was twelve miles in breadth at the
point at which we crossed it. Even for giants such as they, it would be
an impossible task for a small community. Then we see that they patrol
the coast, which must be the work of many.”
She replied, “That is also probable, though not certain. We do not know
that they patrol the whole coast. This region may be their headquarters,
as I believe it to be. The work you mention is great, but so are their
skill and knowledge. Their methods may be beyond our imagination. Or
they may have worked through the agency of subject creatures.
“It seems that we have little certainty. Our safety must be in assuming
nothing, so that we may understand the true significance of the facts
that meet us.
“But our first purpose must be to gain the entrance of the tunnel by
which we propose to descend. To do this we may retrace the path we came.
But is this necessary?
“Our Leaders wished to recover the body which we are now seeking, and
for that reason they had to go as far north as the second tunnel.
“They may have had other reasons, but, if so, I do not know them. If we
choose to explore the one by which you descended, the distance must be
much shorter across the wide valley which lies beneath us, and the way
does not appear impracticable. The crossing of the further hills, and
the descent of the cliffs, may be difficult, and in this strange world
there may be dangers in a new way of which we can have no foresight. It
is certainly shorter. It will avoid the long transit of the opal path
which is perilous if they be watching to take us. But I do not pretend
that I think it the safer way. It is the doubt that calls me.”
I answered, “I do not think it the safer way either. I have lost the axe
on which you have seen that I relied for any defence I could make
against the creatures which threatened me. I have also lost my knapsack,
and with it all the necessities I carried, except such small things as
my pockets held. I have a damaged arm, and a lame foot. I think that I
shall be unable to move more than slowly, however urgent the call. But
if you are not afraid to venture with one so useless beside you, it is
the doubt of the unknown way that calls me also.”
She answered generously, “You are too good for the body in which you
live. I have the javelin still, and, as I said before, we will pass in
peace, or there will be one that will sorrow.”
CHAPTER II
THE UNKNOWN WAY
I did not ask, for I remembered our compact, and I closed my mind
securely against her doubt of my welfare, but there are times, with
thought as with the spoken word, when silence is of an equal
significance.
“It is in my mind,” she told me, “that the intention which we have
formed to feed your body when next we may, will give it no strength
beforehand. It is in my mind, also, that the food of the Killers would
hardly please you, if we could find it amid the ashes.
“Beyond this, I think that the Dwellers may return very early to resume
their investigation of events which (I hope) are still of some mystery
to them, and that it is well that we should be clear of this place
before the darkness leaves us.”
Again I felt the silk-soft palm in mine, and the slim webbed fingers
closing, and again the current of her finer life possessed and thrilled
me.
It was a reluctant pleasure, since I had realised the concealed
repugnance with which she touched me, but my need was too great, and the
wisdom of her action, in our common interest, too evident for me to
refuse.
“I am stronger now,” I replied, after a time, “shall we start?” and side
by side we let ourselves down into the darkness.
Clear of the shelter which had protected us, I was conscious of a thin
cold rain, and of a chilling wind from the north, which penetrated the
leather rags that I had no longer the means of stitching together, and
made me glad to move my stiffened limbs as rapidly as I could, while we
crossed the enclosure, to where the still-smouldering ruins gave a dim,
unearthly light from both before and behind us.
I drank again at the pool-side, while my companion dived for a moment in
the cool darkness. We passed near enough to the great tank for her to
see that there was no longer any water within it. To this end, the
Dwellers must have taken some action while the fire still burned, for
our vice of curiosity led us backward to view it, and she showed me that
the bodies which it contained were charred beyond recognition.
Then we made for the gap in the barrier of the burning ashes where the
gate had been, and left that desolation behind us for ever.
As we passed out, our steps were lighted for some distance by the glow
from the line of smouldering ashes beside us, but the darkness became
denser at every yard as we turned from it to cross the plateau. Yet she
went on swiftly, and, in the confidence that her hand supplied, I found
no difficulty while the level ground continued. When the path fell
roughly I held back to a slower pace, and even then I stumbled
frequently. “Can you not see at all?” she asked, “for if we can do no
better than this our plan must be altered. We have eighty miles to cover
before the dawn, if we are to reach the valley woods while the
night-time cloaks us.”
I answered, “I cannot see when the darkness is absolute, and you go
forward as though the day were round you. I suppose that other creatures
are like me in this, or how would the darkness aid us? Can your eyes see
when there is no light whatever?”
She replied, “When there is no light whatever, I can see nothing that is
more than a few yards away, but within that space it is not my eyes
only, it is my whole body that perceives what is around it. I do not
see, but I know. My body is too much alive to walk into any tree that
confronts it. But we must do something. If you would keep your mind
blank and ready, I think I could show you always for a few steps before
us.”
This we tried, and for many hours we went forward with the way visible
to me for about three yards ahead, and, beyond that, blackness. It was
difficult, and very tiring, for neither of us could think at all, but we
made good progress. Steadily she kept me aware of things before me, but
more than once my own mind wavered, and in a moment I was stumbling in
the darkness. And the darkness did not lift at all. There came a cold
and steady rain, without wind, which descended straightly upon us. My
rags were quickly drenched, and for the most part of the remaining night
this rain continued pitilessly.
Our way was often very rough, and in the darkness we could not choose
it. We could only go forward directly, and take what came. For the most
part we descended, but not regularly. The ground we crossed was not
cultivated in any evident way, nor was it enclosed or protected--or not
till we had crossed the lake, and that was later.
At times we walked on a prickly growth of some kind that was too close
and stiff for our feet to break it. Often we walked, or, I might say,
waded, through herbage such as we had encountered on the previous day,
making our progress slow and heavy, but always her buoyant vitality
sustained me.
Once we found the ground falling precipitously before us, and discovered
that we were on the bank of a river. We could not tell its width, and my
companion’s suggestion that we should swim it found me unwilling.
Bearing leftward, we continued beside it for some miles, and then found
it had left us. It was about here that we began to feel touches as of
light hands on the face, in a place where trees were frequent. I was
frightened at first, till I realised that they were only trailing
leaves,--creepers, I thought, but they were really of the trees
themselves, as we saw when the daylight came.
But the real horror of the night was at the last. For some time the
ground had been flat and bare, soft from the rain, which had now ceased,
but easy to traverse, so that we increased our pace, and were making
good progress, when we found our feet sinking in a shaking bog, from
which we pulled them with difficulty. Then it was firmer again, and then
softer at times, till we were in a swamp which became worse as we went
forward. For a moment we stopped, and I found myself in darkness, as my
companion’s mind asked me, “Shall we not go back, if we can? If we sink
deeply in such slime we cannot swim or live. Nor can either of us think
clearly while I show you the way. If we move from the straight line
ahead we should remember our turns. Shall I lead you only?”
I agreed, and we turned back, as we thought, with exactness. Indeed, it
must have been so at first, for she saw the marks we had left, but it
was unexpectedly difficult. I was in darkness now, following the
guidance of her hand, and content to think that her own sight and
thought were concentrated on getting us clear of the swamp, when I
suddenly felt her sinking beside me.
Cool, but urgent, her mind called me, “I have no footing: pull.” I was
up to my ankles in the slime, and found my left foot slipping from
beneath me as I leant away from her. (For I had been at her left hand
previously, but when we turned back we had changed hands, not positions,
and I was now on her right). A step ahead, it was firmer ground. A
struggle to the right, and she had footing once more. Then I went in
deeply. After that we moved as best we might. One only at a time, and
feeling each step carefully. I lost sense of direction entirely. And it
was there--or nearly there--that the dawn found us.
But that was after,--well, I cannot hope to describe it, but I must tell
it as best I can.
It was fortunate that our minds were in closest touch at the moment, or
the second’s interchange of thought might have been a half-second later,
and there my life would, I suppose, have ended.
Her own mind was alert to give me the indications that her sight
supplied, when it suddenly changed to a great doubt, paused on the brink
of consternation, recovered to the high gaiety with which it was
accustomed to encounter peril, shot me a thought-swift warning, reverted
to its poised serenity, and closed from me entirely; and, in the slow
process of words the warning that she gave was this,--
“We come here of good right, fearing none, and we mean no harm to any.
Therefore we move in security. Our minds are serene and friendly, and we
walk at peace with all things. If you doubt or fear we are both lost
entirely. As your body fought the Killers with the axe for both of us,
so my mind fights for both now. You must help now, as I helped then. I
have passed you the javelin, for there is no use for weapons here, and I
must not hold it. All is well. Be quite sure to believe it. Step as I
guide you. Jump when I call on you, I will tell you just how far.
Separate now.”
The whole thought was instant, and in the same moment I knew that that
on which we walked was swaying beneath us. Her hand pulled me quickly to
the left, and we ran up something that moved from under us like a
treadmill,--if we had been on the outside of the wheel,--jumped at last,
landed on something smooth and slippery, like that which we had left,
and having--the thought crossed me--a living softness. Then I caught my
foot, stumbled, recovered, jumped again, clambered a few yards of rising
ground, slimy enough, but firm also, and felt the soft touch on my cheek
that I had felt before, and knew that trees were round us.
We went on for a hundred yards, while the ground sloped upward. Then it
commenced to fall away, and we stopped at once. There we stayed, and
there, at last, the dawn found us, still distant from the cover which we
had aimed to reach in the darkness.
We were on a narrow twisting tongue of land, perhaps fifty yards broad
by two-hundred long, the conformation of which had betrayed us to the
swamp in the darkness. On the left hand it merged into bog and water,
with occasional islands of verdure, and scattered trees. On the right
hand was the deep water of the great lake that we had seen from the
mountains two days before.
The sun had not yet appeared above the ridge of higher ground that ran
between us and the sea, but the faint light of dawn was sufficient to
show us a mile-width of still water, and beyond it a level woodland of
great trees, the extent of which, from the low ground on which we stood,
we could not determine.
The few trees that surrounded us were of a different character. Most of
them were of the kind that had touched us in the night so weirdly. They
had trunks of a livid white, not more than eight feet high, from the top
of which a cluster of rising boughs rayed outward. On the length of
these there were no leaves, but large flowers of a very brilliant
scarlet only, while at the end of every bough grew a cluster of long
ribbon-like leaves of a bright green, that hung downward, almost to the
ground in the still air, or fluttered very lightly when the wind stirred
them. I was not sure whether I thought them beautiful, or strange only.
I had an unreasonable feeling that they were unfriendly.
In the hollow of one of these tree-tops, where the branches rose, there
sat a duck-billed bird, of a halcyon blue colour, and of the size, and
somewhat of the shape of a partridge. As the dawn widened, it rose and
flew outward, not crossing the lake, but going up the mid-water, to the
right, where it extended for many miles, gradually widening as it did
so.
“It does not fear us at all,” I remarked to my companion, before it rose
to leave us.
“I made peace in the night with all things,” she answered, “come and
see. You will know that it was needful.”
I walked with her to the end of the tongue of land on which we stood,
and, where the lake and swamp were mingling, there were huge shapes that
wallowed in the mud like gigantic tadpoles, but with two forelimbs,
short and thick, and ending in a row of claws of great length. A
hippopotamus would have been small beside them. The most part of the
head was a large-toothed mouth, flat and shallow, with one down-curving
tusk, growing like a hook from the centre of the upper jaw. There were
two large circular eyes, on the top of the flat head.
“They were lying closely,” she told me, “in the deeper mud. We were
walking on, or slipping between them for some time before I knew they
were living.
“It was only as one of them waked to consciousness of us, and began to
roll over, that I became aware of that on which we were walking.
“I knew that he had already decided to spill us in the mud, so that he
should reach us the more easily, and that if the others should combine
against us we should be helpless. They are the Dwellers’ creatures, not
of the sea, and for a moment I almost had the doubt which would have
destroyed us. But I think I have not ruled the monsters that the oceans
hold for so long, to lose my body at last in such talons. Also, you did
well.
“A javelin, such as this, is a cunning weapon, and I had joy when I used
it, but I think that our ways of peace are greater than those which you
are designed to practise.
“You see the monster that still has his tusk hooked on to that
projecting root, to steady him while he slept in the shallow? It was in
the edge of his eye-socket that your foot caught when you stumbled.”
CHAPTER III
THE PERIL OF THE LAKE
We watched for some minutes while the giant leviathans lazily moved
themselves from the mud-shallows to the deeper water. They seemed
half-asleep, and very slow, and somewhat clumsy, as they did so, with no
life in the flat unlustred eyes, and a thought crossed me as to whether
they were really as formidable as my companion had supposed them, when I
noticed that one of them, who had moved out a short distance, had sunk
his head, and raised his tail, as a duck does when he feeds under water.
Suddenly his tail waggled in an uncontrolled excitement, and in an
instant a dozen of these huge creatures had flung themselves at the
spot.
Those that were already in the deeper water drove like huge torpedoes
toward it.
Those that were still in the shallows propelled themselves at almost
equal speed with huge claw-grips and flapping tails through mud and
water.
So great was the converging rush that the spot at which they aimed was
splashed bare for an instant, and we saw that tusks and claws were
tearing up the muddy bottom in chase of something that was burrowing
deeply to avoid them. The next moment something of a dirty-white colour,
and of the size of a small cow--but we could not see clearly--was
dragged out and torn to pieces.
Then with contented grunts, and a switching of great tails, they swam
out phalanx shape into the deep water, where they dived together, and
the still lake gave no sign of their presence.
It was after this that my companion closed her mind from me, as she
would do when a doubt came which she could not quickly answer.
At last she told me, “It is in my mind that we have done wrongly to come
this way. The morning is here, and we have not reached the forest which
should be our immediate safety. Between us and it the swamp is extending
far on the left, and the lake for many miles on the right. If we try to
go round on either hand, I have little doubt that we shall be observed
from the heights behind us, where the Dwellers will be patrolling.
“If we hide through the day, we shall have a long way to go over the low
land, which we have proved to be an evil path in the darkness, and to
cross the hills beyond may be still more difficult. Beside that, the
delay is misfortunate, for we should not arrive at the tunnel-entrance
at the beginning of the night, as we had planned to do.”
I replied, “Can we not swim the lake?” and surprised a thought of relief
and wonder in the mind that heard me.
She answered, “I could, of course, do so very easily. I should swim
under the water, and land beneath the cover of the trees upon the
farther bank. But I supposed that you could only swim on the surface, if
at all, and that in any case the distance would be beyond your power.”
The answer annoyed me, for her contempt of my physical capacity was
always hurtful, friendly and entirely reasonable though I knew it to be,
and I had always accounted myself an accomplished swimmer.
I said, “I have swum longer distances. I can swim under water for a
short time, if necessary; but one of us swimming on the surface will be
far less conspicuous than two walking on the bank, and we shall be out
of sight very much sooner. Beside that, if we are seen and chased, we
shall have a far better opportunity of escaping.”
I do not think my reply quite satisfied her. I saw that she thought I
was illustrating the habit of collecting all the available arguments for
a course that I had pre-chosen, of which she had already accused me, but
after a moment she answered equably, “It is far best, if you are sure
that you can do it; and for myself it is far pleasanter. If we are going
that way, it is foolish to stand here longer, where we may be observed
easily.
“But can you swim in those rags, or will you not at last discard them?”
I think that most people would have hesitated, as I did. I could not
swim such a distance encumbered by the clothes I was wearing. I could
make them into a bundle in such a way that they would not impede me too
greatly. All my instincts were against their abandonment. There were
still a few things in the pockets which I greatly valued--my
clasp-knife,--some matches--some cord--a note book (but I had made no
use of this, so far)--some small scissors--a razor, and a quantity of
spare blades. But I knew that the rags I wore in this new world exposed
me to the contempt of every eye that beheld them. To be modest is to be
inconspicuous. It is to follow the mode. By that test my present clothes
reached the last extreme of indecency.
I had no means of stitching them further, and the rough usage they had
received had already caused such damage that they would dispense with
me, if I did not dispense with them very promptly.
I considered temperature, but the sun was already gaining power, and I
knew how warm it became on the lower levels in the daytime.
Under the surface I knew that I had found the tunnel to be of a
comfortable warmth.
I took off my boots, and knew that the operation was final. A sole
already tied with string on the previous day, was now entirely loose.
The other was scarcely better. The uppers were leaving me by successive
details. My socks--what was left of them--were clotted with dirt and
blood.
My companion watched the gradual revelation with amused and lively eyes,
but she hid her thoughts from me as it proceeded.
In the end, public opinion was too strong for me. All my life I had made
myself grotesque in the ugliest garments by which the human form can be
hidden, because my fellow-men required it.
Here I was conscious of a different verdict, and the slave crouched
instinctively to the crack of a new whip. On a sudden impulse, I
resolved to leave them.
I wrapped my small possessions in my waistcoat, which was still a fairly
sound garment. I tied it securely. Then I threaded a piece of cord
through the button-holes, which I fastened round my waist, so that the
little parcel could be easily carried behind me.
I made of the boots and other garments a bundle which I resolved to sink
in the lake, so that there should be no sign left of our presence, and
we dived into the water together.
The lake was smooth, and the water was not too cold to be pleasant. It
became clear and very deep as we left the bank behind us. I swam
strongly at first, rejoicing in the morning freshness of sun and air and
water, and buoyed by the exhilaration of my companion’s mind. But a time
came when I looked with doubt at the distance of the wooded headland
which we had agreed to make our objective. The shore was far off, but
yet I seemed to have made no progress to the one before us.
My comrade swam beneath, but not closely. In the delight of her
recovered element she dived and rose, and swam beneath and round me,
with a speed and ease that did nothing to encourage me to satisfaction
with my clumsier efforts.
I had a strong desire to call on her for the vitality of which I was
learning to rely too absolutely, but against this I fought with a
stubborn wish to show her that I was not entirely incapable, even in an
unfamiliar element.
For a moment she stayed quietly beside me, sliding through the water at
the same pace as myself, but without apparent effort, while she rose
sufficiently to view the scene around her.
“Look back,” she suggested suddenly, and I changed a stroke which was
becoming wearier than I was willing to recognise, so that I might turn
my eyes to the distant heights behind us.
I searched them, but could see nothing of a new interest. Once I thought
that there was a flicker of flame on the hillside, but it was too minute
and far off for any certainty, and the next moment I had lost it
entirely.
“I’m afraid your sight is not much use, even in daylight,” she
considered, “but please swim as low as you are able, for the Dwellers
may not be equally deficient.
“There is one who has scraped together all the ash and litter of the
burning, and it has flamed up afresh.”
I changed to the breast-stroke, and she sank to three feet under the
surface, as I answered, “I suppose they will make an end of it entirely.
Is it because of the Forbidden Thing, and do they, I wonder, wrongly
blame the Killers for using it?
“I cannot understand why they should object to fire so strongly. In the
world from which I come there are so many inventions less useful and
with greater potentialities of mischief; and their own works show that
their engineering skill and practice is advanced beyond the knowledge of
my contemporaries.”
She answered, “Perhaps it is only that they do not wish the creatures
that they allow to live on the surface to develop knowledge. I can only
guess, as you can. But we are likely to learn many things before the
next dawn comes, though we shall not see it.”
I did not answer, for a trailing growth of water-weed had caught my left
leg, and I kicked free with difficulty. The next moment I was surrounded
by the floating growth, and I was some moments under water before I
could release myself sufficiently to continue.
My companion regarded me with the merriment which my bodily difficulties
always prompted, only now it was more irrepressible, because she was
intoxicated by the joyous freedom that the water gave her, after so long
an absence.
“Is it really so,” she asked, “that if you were below the surface for
more than a few moments your body would become useless beyond repair,
and you would die out of it entirely? and did you know this when you
offered to swim so far across the surface?”
“It is true enough,” I answered, “but I have no intention of drowning.
In my world, we live dangerously in many ways, and when there is
sufficient necessity we take such risks as we must, and we have contempt
for those who will not take them.”
“It is very well,” she replied, with a mocking gaiety of mind which
would not quieten, “but the contempt of your fellow-men is a somewhat
distant eventuality; and as I desire your company when we invade the
tunnel of the Dwellers, I hope you may decide that the risk will still
be sufficient if you swim in some other direction.”
I replied, “I am swimming to the nearest point at which we can land, and
at the best pace I can. I do not know what better I can do, unless I am
to sink to the bottom. But if you can give me any reason why I should
not swim in this direction I shall be glad to have it.”
She said, “I can give you two, and they are both rather good ones. Let
me show you them as I see them.”
She then gave me a most unwelcome vision of a mass of floating weed
through which to swim would be hopeless, and downward, through clear
water below it--for it was not rooted--to where our acquaintances of the
morning lay scattered on the lake-floor, with wide unwinking eyes
looking upward, doubtless for the capture of any prey which might be
caught in the green snare above them. I do not think it needs excuse
that the sight appalled me. We were in the very middle of the lake, and
I was tired already.
“How far do the weeds extend?” I asked.
“I cannot say. It is farther than I can see. If you will turn and rest
for a minute, I will find out which way we can best attempt to go round
them. But swim quietly backward, for you will not wish to rouse our
friends below while I am absent. I know that when you meet any strange
thing your first thought is to fear, and then to fight it, but as your
axe is gone, and you would not find it easy to reach your clasp-knife, I
suggest that you should not rouse them.”
I agreed very heartily, although I knew that she mocked me, and, indeed,
the idea of using an axe in the water to defend myself from such an
attack was sufficiently comic, as she visualised it to me.
The fact was that now she was in her natural element the idea of any
living thing within it provoking either fear or hostility had regained
its normal absurdity. Had she been alone, I knew that she would have
dived beneath the weeds at once, without a second glance or thought for
the creatures that lay below her.
She had left now, and I swam back for a short distance, and then turned
on my back, and floated on the sunny water, glad of the rest, but
becoming increasingly frightened as I reflected that at any moment I
might find myself in the grip of those wide flat jaws. I understood why
these beasts had their eyes so flatly placed, as I recalled that
unwelcome vision. How far could their sight extend to the surface of the
lake above them? Were they resting oblivious of such small things as I,
that might be swimming in the water, or did they watch there, as a
kestrel hovers, ready to rush upward at the first sight of their
expected prey?
I was somewhat reassured, as the moments lapsed, by a shoal of silvery
fish which passed me. They were as long as salmon, but much slimmer, and
they swam in a long line two or three broad, straight toward the place
of danger which I was avoiding. They, at least, had no cause for fear,
unless they were too stupid to know, or sufficiently agile to avoid it.
And then she was again beside me:
“It is not very far round on the left, and there is clear water for a
long way forward. There is a cold spring at the bottom when we have
rounded the weed. The water there is purer than the lake itself, and I
am desirous to bathe in it. If you swim on, I shall catch you up very
quickly. But we will stay together till we are clear of this place.”
We swam on, side by side, in silence. I was already aware that I must
conserve my strength to the utmost, if I were to reach the shore
unaided. After a short distance, the weed receded so that we were able
to approach the shore obliquely, and then it disappeared from before us,
and again we could head straight forward.
It was here that my companion left me. I know that she was in some doubt
as she did so, for she asked me whether I would not prefer to float
only, till she could rejoin me. But I was anxious to get forward while
my strength lasted, and I had caught a glimpse of her mind, from which I
knew how keenly she desired and needed her intended pleasure, so I
answered only, “I will go on. You will catch me easily. The farther I
leave the beasts behind us, the better pleased I am. But you will keep
your mind open, in case there should be anything to let you know.”
“Surely,” she answered, and the next instant had left me.
The headland was nearer now, and it was with the hope that the struggle
would soon be over that I settled down to swim the remaining distance.
Once I called to my companion, and she gave me a sight of herself as she
lay with lifted fur on the lake-floor, and let the cold stream go
through it. But, for the most part, I tried to think of distant or
abstract things, to turn my mind from the weariness which now made every
stroke an effort.
Then a swell came from the left hand, as though a large boat were
passing at no great distance.
I looked round in wonder, but for a moment I could see nothing to cause
it.
Then a huge black body rose from the water, like an enormous porpoise,
and turned a somersault which sent a heavier swell across the level
surface of the lake.
My stroke quickened without conscious effort as I beheld it. But at the
first moment I was not greatly frightened. It was evident that it did
not pursue me, and my course was not toward it. Fortunately, I called my
companion, and the answer, “I am coming now,” was unperturbed in its
promptness. I had an instant’s vision of her, as the loose fur
contracted, and the slim swift body shot forward.
But the next minute was rapid in thought and action.
My mind called urgently, “There is another one that has risen nearer.”
“They may not see you while they are on the surface. Their eyes look
upward only.”
“They may do so, as they roll in their gambols--I think they have done
so now. They are both coming.”
“I am coming quickly.”
“It is useless. What can you do against them?”
The two huge brutes were racing over the surface in their competition to
secure me, with a speed which would have left a motor-boat behind very
quickly. I could not doubt that in twenty seconds they would be
quarrelling over my divided body.
My terror warned her only to avoid the danger which must destroy me.
“Refuse fear,” she called back, “it is that which gives them power to
destroy you.”
But fear I must, and as she realised it, I think--though I am not
sure--that there was a second during which her own mind faltered. But if
so, it was for an instant only. Then she realised the full peril of the
moment, and her courage rose to meet it.
Cool and swift, and very urgent, she thrust forward the full force of
her mind to overcome the panic which had possessed me. “I shall be
first. Swim on. Listen. You are safe if you hear me. You must stop
thinking. Give your mind to mine, and I can save you. Do not think at
all, but believe it. It is everything that you do this.”
The rest is a dream only.
I was dimly conscious that the first of the rushing beasts was upon me,
and that it dived slightly as it came, so that it should snap at me from
below. I saw the wide flat shovel-jaws opened to take me, and then two
things happened. Almost into the mouth of the gaping jaws she came
between us--she had swum at least three times the distance that our
opponents had covered--and at the same instant the second monster
charged sideways into its rival in its eagerness to get a share of the
expected dainty.
They were afraid of her, clearly. They both recoiled for a moment.
But it was clear also that they regarded me as a prey of which she had
no right to deprive them.
On they came again from different sides, and into their very teeth she
swam to thwart them.
Even so, had they been capable of concerted action, I do not see how she
could have saved me. But she was cooler, swifter, more agile, with a
mind that mocked them and bewildered. Nor was she content with defensive
movements only, but as either would draw back for a moment, she followed
the retreated mouth as though she dared it to harm her, as no doubt she
did.
How it would have ended I cannot say, but at that moment fate interposed
to help us. We were still a hundred yards from the shore, when the
ground beneath us shallowed, and they pursued us no further.
We climbed out into a place of shade and of mossy softness, but I was
too exhausted to regard it. Where I sank I lay. Perhaps, she was
exhausted also. Anyway she gave me no thought, but remained in silence
beside me.
After a time I slept.
CHAPTER IV
THE SILENCE IN THE WOOD
When I waked, she was sitting looking into the water with brooding eyes
in which amusement flickered more than once as I watched them, but which
seemed, for the most part, to be puzzled by some thoughts for which she
could find no solving.
She looked at me at last, and saw that I was awake, and offered me her
mind in a moment.
“I am glad,” she thought, “that I saved you, and I think that the
Leaders will approve it; but of this I cannot be as certain as I gladly
would be.
“As we were made companions in this enterprise, it seemed that it was
right to do so. But it is a law of our kind that, as no creatures in all
the oceans will dare to harm us, so we do not interfere between them.
Were we to withhold their prey from them, I cannot say that our immunity
would continue. It is a thing so fundamental that from the beginning I
have never known it attempted. We cannot be as one of themselves, and
above them also. It comes to me again, as I have thought before, that
you are like a seed of death to the world I know, and the end is beyond
my dreaming.”
I answered, “I owe you the debt of my life, and I cannot tell at how
great a risk you have saved it. But I do not wish you to do things for
me of which the consequences may be beyond our understanding.
“I thought to show you that I could cross the lake unaided, and I have
only made my weakness more evident. I think it may be right that I
should go alone in future; for when you called upon me first not to
fear, I am aware that I failed you, and I suppose it was from that that
the danger became so imminent.”
She answered, “That is true; and by my code it may be right to say that
you failed me, where it was beyond the power of your body (which is
truly contemptible) to do otherwise. But I have thought, and see that by
your own code I failed you for my pleasure only, for which I have no
excuse of weakness to offer. I do not think another man would have left
you, as I did. You think I showed courage because I interposed to save
you, at some risk to myself.
“Whether there were risk I do not know; nor how great it may have been;
but I think you showed a greater courage, being what you are, to go
forward alone, and that, not to save my life, but to give me a needless
pleasure, against which you might have protested reasonably.
“But we have still a long way to go before evening, and we shall do well
to face the remainder of the journey, the difficulties of which we
cannot tell till we meet them.”
While we conversed in this way, I had been observing the scene around
me. We had landed upon the edge of a forest of a more varied luxuriance
than that in which we had rested upon the higher land two nights before.
Here, as elsewhere, I saw no sign of grass, nor of any similar
straight-bladed growth, but the ground was covered by mosses, very deep
and soft, and close-creeping herbage of other kinds in many shades of
green and yellow. The trees were of many beautiful and unfamiliar forms,
some of great size and height, but not too crowded to show their
contours, nor the sky between them. Their foliage was of shades that
varied from the palest yellow to the deepest gold, with infrequent hints
of red, and there was one broad-spreading bush which was entirely of a
beetroot crimson.
It was very still--for the coming storms of which I had been told might
bring rain in the night, but did not yet disturb the peace of the
daytime--and of a beauty at which my breath paused for a moment, and of
which I cannot hope to tell you.
But I was not looking for beauty. The need for beauty is continual, and
for food is intermittent only. Yet the last is the more urgent while it
remains unsatisfied.
It is true that man cannot live by bread alone, but it is equally so
that he cannot live long without it. I remembered our compact that I
should be self-supporting in future. I knew the swiftness with which my
companion considered it natural to travel. I was aware of the
importance, not merely of reaching the tunnel-entrance by nightfall, but
of doing so in such condition that we should be prepared at once to
explore it. I looked round in a natural anxiety to discover some means
of nourishment.
I saw nothing to encourage hope, except that there was a curious
fruit-like formation upon the hanging branches of a tree behind us.
The leaves of this tree were very long and narrow, and of so light a
yellow as to give an effect of whiteness, like the palest petals of the
Californian poppy. At the root of many of the leaves there was a
smooth-skinned tawny fruit, of the size of a loganberry. Opening it, I
found that it was a fruit very certainly, containing a juicy pulp, and
in the midst a single slender seed, of the size and shape of that of a
lettuce. I tasted it cautiously, and found it delicious. My companion
watched me with a friendly but unconcealed amusement.
After a time, she gave the glance by which I knew that she wished our
minds to communicate.
“You have really no means of knowing,” she asked, “whether they may
assist or kill you? Is this because you are in a world of strangeness,
or are you accustomed to this exciting uncertainty?”
I replied, “I have senses of taste and scent, which warn me that many
things are unfit for eating, but they are not entirely reliable. The
creatures of my kind depend largely upon tradition, as their own lives
are too short to acquire much knowledge--and as, even were it otherwise,
they would doubtless die in the experimental stages of obtaining it--and
we eat such things as our ancestors have eaten before us.
“Here, my only method is to choose such substances as appear most like
to those which I have known to be wholesome, and eat a small portion. If
the taste be good, and no ill consequence follow, in a few hours I can
eat more freely.”
“Your lives may be short,” she said, “but, at least, they lack dullness.
How shall you go bad, if it should chance to be a wrong thing that you
are now eating?”
I controlled an impulse of irritation before I answered, “I shall not go
bad, for I am testing the food very carefully. But I shall be the more
careful because of the thoughts you have, and I may keep you here in
consequence till you are tired of waiting. There are many ways of going
bad for those who eat the wrong things, and none of them is pleasant.”
“If your kind can avoid such poisons through their traditions, how do
you know of the effects of many?” she asked me.
It was ever so, when we commenced exchange of thought upon the world
which I had left, that the starting-point was quickly out of sight
behind us.
“There are a variety of very poisonous substances, either vegetable or
mineral abstracts, which can be mixed with food or drink without easy
detection. As our bodies frequently break down through defective
construction, or our own misuses, or from unavoidable hardships, before
their final dissolution, we employ men to repair them, and they make use
of these poisons in minute quantities, and in the honest belief that we
benefit from them.
“It follows that these poisons are prepared in great quantities, and are
readily procurable.
“There is a custom among us of mixing one or other of these poisons in
the food or drink of an acquaintance or relation whose life might be
terminated to our advantage. Probably this custom is not very general,
but that is difficult to judge, as it is practised very quietly, owing
to a law which provides that the neck of a successful poisoner shall be
broken, after an interval of some weeks, during which they are kept
alive in great mental agony.” (“Do you mean that an unsuccessful
poisoner would be treated with comparative leniency?” her mind
interpolated. “Yes,” I replied, “our laws always encourage
incompetence). However many of these cases may escape notice, it is
usual to detect a few every year.”
“The one who is considered to be the most likely to have committed the
crime is then arrested, and all the available evidence is so arranged as
(if possible) to prove his guilt. But strict proof is not necessary for
a conviction in such cases, the practice being that the degree of proof
required is in an inverse ratio to the repellent nature of the crime
committed.
“I suppose that the great majority of those who are convicted are
guilty, although, owing to the way in which these trials are conducted,
and the nature of the evidence which is accepted as conclusive, it would
be a very simple matter for anyone of average intelligence to poison
another in such a way that suspicion would fall upon some other member
of the household, and it is not reasonable to suppose that this is never
attempted successfully.
“But my mind wanders.
“At these trials it is usual to announce in public the nature of the
poison used, the quantities required, the methods by which they may be
procured, their effects, and the ease or difficulty with which they may
afterwards be detected, and these particulars are distributed throughout
the nation, so that anyone desiring to poison another need not be
hindered by ignorance of such essential details.
“There is also, every year, a large number of people who destroy their
own bodies, although we have (grotesquely enough) a law prohibiting this
practice,--and here, at least, we discourage incompetence, for we can
only punish those who fail, the rest being beyond the reach of our
cruelties,--and a proportion of these people use poisons to effect their
purpose, so that you will see that there is no difficulty in obtaining
knowledge of the effect of such substances.”
“I think” she replied, “that my Leader showed the accuracy of her
judgment when she classified you as of the Batwing Kind, though your
race is, at least collectively, of a stupidity which it must be hard to
rival throughout the ages.
“But tell me this. You have shown me already that there are many other
species of animals which dwell in your world, and which you consider to
be inferior, because you have the power to destroy them,--Surely no
conclusive reason!--Do they also suffer from the same disability, or are
they better able to select their appropriate foods?”
I answered, conscious of the derision which laughed within her, and not
entirely without a flicker of satisfaction, as I recognised that the
ellipses of my thought confused her.
“It is true that for one species to have the power of destruction over
another is a practical supremacy, and I may have impressed my thought
upon you in that way without careful differentiation. To admit it
absolutely would be to place the germ of a disease which we might be
unable to conquer as beside or above us.
“We do consider that we are supreme of earthly creatures, but we could
assert this supremacy on widely different grounds....
“As to your first question, the physical senses of the lower animals are
more acute than our own, because they depend entirely upon them.
“Those that are allowed to live wildly, through our indifference, or in
parts of the earth which we have not yet populated, appear to avoid
unwholesome food without difficulty. But if they cause us any annoyance
we are able to show our superiority by cunningly mixing poison with some
attractive substance, by eating which they die very miserably.”
“I am glad to think,” she answered, “that there are some parts of your
earth which are still clean,” and then she received my thought in
silence as it continued.
“But I must qualify my thought to this extent. There are numerous
species of animals which we have subdued to our own purposes, and that
we confine around us, either that they may do work on our behalf, or
that we may eat their bodies, or both, and there is a diminished ability
to avoid poisonous substances among these creatures, as their lives
approximate more nearly to the condition of those who keep them.--But
this touches on much which would be long to explain, and I see that you
do not understand fairly, if I give you the facts only.”
She answered, “It is a wonderful world, and a very hideous. But I have
much to ask concerning these creatures that dwell with you, and that you
eat when they die. For the time, let us leave it.”
While we had conversed in this way, I had been occupied in opening the
small parcel of my remaining possessions, and drying them as well as I
was able, their importance to me being too great for my mind to be
seriously affected by the knowledge that she regarded them as a humorous
evidence of my inferiority to every other created thing, though she
admitted very frankly that the Dwellers were not entirely exempt from a
corresponding necessity.
Now I made up my bundle again, and having eaten freely of the strange
fruit, I expressed my readiness to explore the golden lights and shadows
of the forest that lay before us.
We had agreed that I should now depend upon my own vitality, even though
our progress must necessarily be slower in consequence, but I rose and
went forward very buoyantly, and though I knew that she was restraining
her natural pace to keep beside me, I was well content to feel that I
was moving with a lightness and energy which she could not have expected
from any previous experience. There may have been some exhilarating
quality in the food which I had just eaten, but, apart from that
possibility, I had rested well, the air was pleasantly warm, and I had a
sense of unaccustomed freedom from the rags which I had discarded.
Had there been a hard surface beneath us, I might have regretted the
impulse on which I had left my boots,--though it would have been equally
correct to say they had left me,--but the moss was soft and deep, and
though it gave a curious tingling sensation (which I forgot
subsequently) it was otherwise a very soft and pleasant carpet on which
to tread.
The wood which we were now entering must have stretched (as I
calculated) for about forty miles along the great valley which lay
within the ridge of coast-wise hills which we had to reach and cross to
gain our objective. It was probably about ten miles wide at the point at
which we were attempting to pass it.
We had gone about half-a-mile at a very quick walk, the trees not being
sufficiently close to obstruct us seriously, when my companion asked me
if there were nothing that occurred to me as unusual in the scene around
us.
I had not thought of anything. I had been occupied by the beauty and
variety of the trees which we were passing, but as she asked I felt it,
and shuddered.
“Yes,” I said, “it is the silence.”
She answered, “Silence is good; but it is the cause of the silence. The
trees live, but they do not move. I think that wind is forbidden.
Besides the trees and the moss, it seems that we are the only creatures
that live.”
And I knew, as her thought reached me, that she was right. There was no
moving life in the trees, nor in the air, nor in the moss beneath us. I
searched, and if I could have found the smallest insect, I think it
would have broken the spell which oppressed me, as I realised the
isolation in which we moved.
I stood, and hesitated. I was ashamed of my thought, but at last I gave
it. “I do not want to go farther.”
“Do you feel it?” she answered, “I felt it sooner.”
“It is not that I fear,” I answered, “there seems no cause to fear in so
great a peace, but I find it hard to go forward.”
“Yes,” she said, “the Dwellers may not be here, but I think that they
have left their wills to protect it. It is a new thing to me. Shall we
yield, and turn, or resist it?”
I hesitated for a moment, for I felt a curious disinclination to go
farther, beneath which there was a stubborn unwillingness to turn back
with so little of reason to justify it.
“It must be a long way round,” I thought at last, “and it might be even
more perilous. You shall decide.”
She answered readily, “Then we will go forward. I will go first, if you
will, because I am the more sensitive to the power against which we
shall be contending, and I may also be more resolute to resist it.
“I know that you were trying to decide in this way, though you found it
hard to do so.
“My own decision is not because it is a long way round, which is of
little moment, nor because it may be more dangerous to take that way,
for it may be less so, which is more probable. But I think that these
were not your reasons. They were only those which your mind supplied, as
best it might, to support your preference.
“You know, as I do, that there may be great danger if we go forward,
though you cannot understand what it may be. Therefore you fear it. But
you have within you a spirit which has been trained to conflict by the
conditions of your life, and which is reluctant to turn aside from a
chosen path, and especially so when the danger is not immediately
evident, nor physically apparent.
“My own reason is different. I feel that these woods are held by a power
which will turn us back, if it be sufficient to do so. I suppose this
power to derive from the Dwellers, because I know them to be supreme in
these regions, and I cannot think that there could be any other whose
wills could contend against my own so stubbornly. But it is in my
thought that if we accept defeat here we may as well abandon our attempt
at once. It is your nature to depend upon weapons for your protection,
and you have none. It is mine to depend upon the assertion of my own
will, and if, at the first challenge, we confess defeat without effort,
in what confidence may we continue? We have this to think also. The
Dwellers have much knowledge which is not ours, and many powers, but of
the issue of such a conflict neither we nor they have had any
experience.
“I supposed that the meeting of last night would resolve it, for I
believed that my own people had determined to go straight forward, and
that the Dwellers were resolute not to move aside to allow it. But the
appearance of the lizards between them caused my people to halt of their
own will, and the issue was not contested in that way.”
Then she went forward, and I followed closely behind her. Peace was
round us, and a dream-like beauty, golden-green, and deep blue sky where
the trees showed it. The stillness could be felt.
As the body feels when a great wind meets it, so that, though it stoop
against it, it can make no headway, so was the pressure against my mind
to hold me backward.
My companion gave me no thought, and I saw her go on slowly, but with no
sign of effort.
As the pressure increased against me, my heart began to beat very
violently. I became sick with terror. I forced each limb forward with
difficulty, as though there were a weight that dragged it backward. I
concentrated my thought on the fear that if she should leave me I should
be lost entirely, and strove with a despairing energy to lessen the gap
between us, as it threatened to widen. And then, suddenly, I knew that
the pressure ceased, and she looked back with laughing eyes, and a mind
which was elate with victory.
The trees here became very dense, so that we could not see far ahead,
and there were many of the fruit-bearing bushes, such as that on which I
had fed before, that grew between them. I had a sense of great
exhaustion, which I think she shared also, and we sat down and rested.
I saw that she was elate that we had not been turned by this obstacle,
but I found myself less responsive to her mood than usual. I felt that
we were confronted by powers which were entirely beyond our calculation,
and against which we could make no effectual provision. I even doubted
our present success.
“Suppose,” I suggested suddenly, “that while we think we are victors, we
are caught in a trap which we cannot break? Suppose a new danger were to
confront us, how could we flee backward through the stubborn wall we
have passed? Suppose that it is a circle through which return may be
more difficult than the entrance?”
“We may suppose what we will,” she answered happily, “and we may be
right one time in a hundred, but what use is there in that? And such
thoughts seem to me to be of a great folly, for by such means you make
those against whom you should contend the more formidable. You defeat
yourself. You are frightened by a new thing. It is new to me also, but
it is no more wonderful than are many of the invisible powers of which
you have told me, which are known to your own kind, and of which even
the Dwellers--for all I know--may be ignorant.”
I answered, though still unable to rise to her own mood, “I know that
you are right when you say that I defeat myself, for it is the weakness
of my kind to do so. Even in our wars, it is only rarely that a battle
is fought out to the extremity of either side, but a moment comes when
the spirit of confidence dies in one side or the other, and it retires
or surrenders. Often, it is found afterwards that its opponents were
dispirited also, and that the defeated could have been the victors had
they endured for a short time longer.
“But your comparison with the powers of my own world gives me little
encouragement. In our last war it was considered necessary to prevent
people from crossing from one country to another. To effect this a wire
fence was erected along the boundary. It looked harmless, and easy to
pass. Those who touched it died instantly, as by lightning. To an
earlier generation it would have seemed incredible. How can we tell by
what incredible-seeming horrors the Dwellers may be able to protect
their territories?”
She answered buoyantly, “I agree with what you think, though not with
the mood it induces. You are exactly right that we cannot tell, and it
is useless to speculate. But the moment is ours, and I am content to
have a mind untroubled.
“Why is it that your mind and body are alike in this, that they will
fear when there is no cause, or a doubt only, but will rise above it
when a cause confronts them? You are at least clear from the barbarisms
of your own time, which appear to be such by your own telling that it is
a marvel that any of you remain alive to endure them. And you can take
courage from the thought that the Dwellers are not of your kind.”
I did not answer further, for I was now rested, and had eaten freely,
and with the physical comfort the mood was passing, but I had less
confidence than she in the Dwellers, and a greater fear than I had felt
before.
CHAPTER V
THE TEMPLE
Now the trees were thinner again, and of a changing character. They
appeared to be a larger variety of those which we had encountered during
the previous night. Light and graceful they rose around us, with a crown
of spreading boughs from which long ribbon-leaves fell thickly. These
leaves were many yards in length, of the width of a finger, and of an
almost incredible lightness. The air was quiet, but not with the
unreasonable stillness of the area of that forbidding will, and when a
light wind moved, the leaves were lifted like a woman’s hair, and blown
aside, so that the straight slim trunks showed nakedly between them.
Always these light leaves murmured with a stealthy whispering sound, so
like to speech that I had a feeling that there were words which I almost
heard, which I should catch if I should listen more carefully. I began
to imagine that they were urgent to warn or threaten.
I turned to my companion’s mind to break the spell they were casting,
and found her receiving it with a like pleasure to that with which she
bathed in the cold springs of the lake-floor.
Her mind paused reluctantly from its enjoyment to answer me when I
queried in wonder how she should find a delight which approached to
ecstasy in such a way, when I had understood that the sounds of speech,
and (I supposed) all noise, were a barbarism that repelled her.
She answered, “You confuse things the most opposite. Is the beauty of
bird or beast increased if it be torn open? The sea is full of sound,
and like the wind it has many voices, which it contains within itself,
as the air contains them. These voices are as the very basis of life to
every sea-born thing. Even a dead shell cannot forget them. The unending
murmur of these leaves soothes me with delight, while it arouses longing
to return to the ocean-depths where there is neither noise nor
stillness. Do you not hear that it is at once monotonous and many-toned,
as all sound should be? Would not even such as you are shrink to violate
it with the intolerable noises of the speech you practise?”
I did not answer, for her mind left me as it ceased its protest, and we
went forward in silence, soothed to drowsiness of thought by this
monotony of multitudinous sounds, till the trees ceased, and I was
suddenly conscious that my companion was left behind, and that her
thought was urgent to call me.
Thoughts that pass from mind to mind are swifter than speech, a thousand
times, and more luminous. So it was that we had mutually realised in a
moment that which would have been beyond the ready apprehension of human
intercourse.
She stood back because she was confronted by a wall of blackness, where
I saw sunlight, and a level lawn. It was not darkness that she saw, as
that of night, but a blackness as of a curtain, gross and palpable.
When she knew that the way was clear to me, and that it held no visible
menace, she decided instantly to go forward. “We will hold our purpose
of boldness, as the better hope both of success and of safety. I will
see with your mind, as you saw with mine in the night-time.”
I agreed, and we joined hands, and went on together.
Now, as we had found before, it is the disadvantage of this method of
helping another mind that it hinders thought, so that I went on with my
will fixed on conveying that which I saw to my companion, and could not
reflect, or even wonder, without some blurring of the vision which I was
transmitting.
The forest which we had left swept a wide forward curve on either hand
around a level plain, on which was a circular building which must have
been more than a mile in diameter. It consisted of a series of
platforms, each receding from the one below. There were many of these,
each about four feet higher than the last, and the central elevation
must have been considerable, though the extent of the building dwarfed
it. In colour it was opalescent, reminding me of the pavement which I
had first encountered, but it was of such extent and such beauty that
the comparison is one of kind only.
So far as I could see from that position, it was crowned by a level
platform. It was entirely silent: no life moved nor was visible.
All this I showed to my companion, who received it without interruption
as we paused for me to view it, but when the survey was completed, and I
would have continued our advance, I found her slow to follow, and it was
only after an interval of irresolution that at last she told me. “I am
afraid. I have doubted whether we should go forward. There is a mystery
here which awes me, whereas the unknown, or the perilous, has allured me
always. I have thought backward as far as mind will reach, and the
feeling is new. But, after this, I thought that we have taken a new road
with minds aware of its danger. We may come through harmless, or with
broken bodies, or, for all we know, we may be destroyed by forces which
are beyond experience or imagination. But there is one thing that
remains to our own wills, that if we fail we may do so conscious either
of a bold or of a craven failure. Having lived so long, I have no will
to perish with shame in my thoughts. You have walked where your sight
failed, and I can surely do so. We will go forward together, and you can
give me the sight I need, unless a greater urgency should require you.
It may be that the darkness will pass, as did the pressure.
“But, perhaps, you are yourself unwilling to continue with a comrade so
helpless? If you would rather that we turn aside, or that you go forward
alone, I am content for it to be as you will.”
I answered readily, “I am well content to go on together. I do not share
or understand your feeling. So far as I can see them, the platforms are
quiet and vacant, and nothing warns me of danger. It is a strange thing
that you cannot see, and may be ominous. But we have chosen a dangerous
search, and we are little likely to reach success if we turn from
shadows. To do so, would be (it is your own thought) to defeat
ourselves, before any hostile movement should avail to thwart us. Let us
at least go round the base of the building until we find whether the
other side be alike. We might do this without penetrating the space
within which you cannot see.”
She answered, “Not by my will. For the fear is less since my resolution
denied it; and how do we know that the higher platforms may not show us
the entrance which we seek? Or that my sight may not avail when we gain
them?”
But her sight did not return, and though I was able to convey the scene
so that she walked confidently, yet our minds could not divert to the
exchange of other thoughts,--could, indeed, scarcely think at all,
without reducing her to a darkness which was not merely such as I had
experienced on the previous night, but blackness absolute and
unrelieved.
We went straight upward from one circular platform to another, finding
no change whatever. We walked on surfaces as smooth as polished granite,
in some places of a milky opaqueness, at others of deep and
multi-coloured transparencies. Always before us was a wall of the same
substance: climbing it, we found another similar platform to traverse.
The outer edge of each curved very slightly upward, not more than a few
inches, like the low rim of a gigantic saucer. It was nothing,
proportionately, to the dimensions of the platforms themselves, but was
enough to make me wonder how they were drained, when the rain fell. Then
I wondered whether rain were allowed to fall in that solitude. Looking
closely, I noticed, at the foot of the next wall, that there was a space
of an inch or two between its apparent base and the platform beneath it.
Apart from these apertures, which gave to each of the circular walls an
appearance of being unsupported, there was no opening anywhere, as of
door or window, nor sign of joint nor division in the whole extents of
walls or platforms.
The colours before and beneath us were of innumerable variety, and of
deep and glowing intensities, changing continually as we advanced. They
changed, but did not flicker, nor sparkle. We walked on lakes of frozen
fire, that faded as we advanced to the quiet green of an English sunset
when the mists are windless. Here, I thought, might be the place of the
birth of sunsets. Sometimes the approaching wall would show a violet
colour of an intensity which I had neither seen nor imagined, but this
colour was never beneath our feet, nor could we reach it closely, for as
we approached, it always changed and faded, if fading it could be called
which was most often into a blue of more than peacock brilliance. But it
was dull to the violet light which had preceded.
So we climbed unhindered, till we traversed a much wider platform than
those below, and knew that the last wall was before us. It was higher
than the previous ones had been, and we mounted it with some difficulty.
We then saw a circular space of a diameter of about two hundred yards,
and of an absolute flatness. It seemed that there was nothing more than
the sides had shown already to reward our climbing. Except--so small a
thing. A tiny point of light on the surface at the centre--so small a
point. As we walked toward it I expected it to show more largely, but it
did not do so. When we stood within a few yards, which was the nearest
that we dared to venture, it was still too small for the eye to measure.
It was a point without magnitude. I cannot say that it was embedded in,
or that it lay upon, the surface. I cannot say that it was red or
yellow: it was fire. It did not change or sparkle.
We stood there for a long time. I had no thoughts that I can translate
to words. I have none now.
At last, we continued our way to the farther side of the platform, where
we found a new reason for pausing. Beneath us lay the penultimate
terrace which we had noticed to be so much wider than the others.
Where we had crossed it in ascending there had been no other difference.
But here I looked upon the body of one of the Dwellers, who lay
face-downwards before us.
She did not lie on the flat surface, but in a shallow depression,
hollowed to the shape of her body, which was half beneath and half above
the surface of the platform on which she lay. It fitted her as though it
were a mould in which she had been cast. It fitted her arms, that lay
stretched straight and wide above her head. The whole attitude was one
of grief or adoration. We watched, and saw no movement.
We walked aside for some distance, before climbing down to the platform
on which she lay. Having done this, I looked toward her, and saw that
she was now standing. We remained motionless. We could merely watch. If
she saw us there could be no escape nor evasion. We could not exchange
thought, for my mind was occupied in conveying to my companion the
vision of what I saw, but she contrived to let me know that it was as
inexplicable to her as to me, and I remembered that she had told me that
she had never seen more than three women among the Dwellers, although
she supposed them to be more numerous.
The one we now saw stood upright, showing a girlish slimness, her great
size neutralised by the parity of her surroundings. She was gazing
towards the point of light, her arms held down before her, and the
joined hands twisting as in an extremity of controlled emotion.
Unlike the male Dwellers, she had hair on her head, abundant, though not
long. It was golden-brown in colour, and extended down the spine, a
narrow lifted ridge. Otherwise the body was hairless. The back was the
brown of a burnt biscuit, changing in front to rich cream-colour.
Otherwise, she might have been a woman of to-day or yesterday, with the
grace and symmetry of a Grecian statue.
So, for a time, she stood, and then turned, and descended.
As I watched her do so, I became conscious that she could see no more
than my companion. For though she walked confidently enough down what to
her were no more than very wide and shallow stairs, I saw her twice put
a foot forward, as with an instant’s doubt, to feel the slight flange
which rose at the edge of each platform.
Before we descended farther, we walked to the edge of the hollow in
which she had lain, and I had an impression of the enormous mould of a
human form, as though it had been pressed in wet sand, but all the
substance of that hollow showed the violet light of which I have told
before, and though it did not flash nor shine into the eyes as sunlight
does, but was, as it were, buried within the stone that contained it,
yet it was of such intensity that my sight was lost as I saw it, and for
some moments after I turned away I was a sharer of my companion’s
blindness.
It was inevitable that we should take much longer in our descent than
had the Dweller, whose stride from platform to platform was so different
from our shorter steps, yet when we arrived again on the level ground
she was still there, and had turned to face the temple (if such it were)
with thrown-back head, and uplifted arms, and an expression as of one
who has been hopelessly repulsed, and yet makes one more appeal, not
with expectation, but because it is intolerable to turn away, and to
admit defeat which is final.
* * * * *
It may be convenient here to explain certain facts regarding the
Dwellers of which I learnt later, and in gradual ways. They had, in the
course of numerous millenniums, developed bodies which were immune from
disease, and (in comparison with our own) from accidental injury also.
So far as their experience showed, there was no physical deterioration,
nor any reason why they should not continue indefinitely. Yet their
solution of the problem of longevity proved inferior to that which had
been evolved by the Amphibians, in an unforeseen way. In our own race,
we know that the desire of life may persist in a body which is both old
and organically defective, and that the brain is usually the last
stronghold of a vitality which is reluctantly surrendered. Their
experience was opposite. A time would come when the body functioned, but
the mind grew weary. Year by year, an increasing lethargy would be
succeeded by a more active desire for death, till the slow operation of
their own will-power would destroy their bodies through the misery of
its final centuries. To the young, this condition would appear
incredible, and they would confidently boast that they would resist it
successfully, but, sooner or later, it would inevitably descend upon
them.
Such was their individual doom: as a race they lived under a darker
shadow. When it became evident that they had so far overcome the threats
of disease and decay that the individual might continue indefinitely,
they had naturally been concerned rather by the fear that there might be
an ultimate congestion of population, than that the race should fail in
fecundity. But this fear had not been acute, because they were then
engaged in exploiting a new, and seemingly almost limitless,
subterranean territory. Also, they passed through a period of warfare
with the inhuman population of other portions of the earth’s surface, in
the course of which many of them were destroyed, and which remained as a
continuing menace when the actual conflict ceased.
They had soon learned that though the lives of their women were
prolonged indefinitely, their power of procreation did not continue, and
they had first observed, immediately after the war of which I have
spoken, that the children that were born were males in a considerable
majority. They were not alarmed at this circumstance, which those who
specialised in such matters assured them to be of a temporary character,
either because (as some held) their males had been weakened in strife,
and their boldest and strongest killed, and it was (they said) a natural
law that the young should be of the sex of the weaker half of the
community; or (as others held) because the spirits of the dead were
reincarnated, so that, in time of warfare, an excess of male births was
a natural consequence of the fatalities which preceded them. With all
their wisdom they could not resolve this question with certainty. They
were not even agreed as to whether there were any necessary relation
between the births and deaths that occurred among them, or whether,
should they cease entirely to die, new spirits could be incarnated
indefinitely from the Unseen.
But the war ceased, and the years passed, and the excess of male births
did not cease, but augmented continually. Many troubles resulted, many
expedients were tried, many laws were passed, but this condition
persisted.
At this day, while the males and older females must have numbered tens
and may have numbered hundreds of thousands, there were less than
seventy women of marriageable age alive, and of some two score of
children there were three girls only.
* * * * *
As the Dweller stood thus, a feeling of desolation came upon me,
settling into a dull despair, which I had no force to combat. It may
have been the attitude in which she stood, solitary and silent, in that
strange setting, the vacant beauty of the temple before, and the golden
circle of the woods behind her, her arms lifted in dumb protest against
the inexorable destiny which overshadowed her.
It may have been her attitude only, or it may have been more than that,
as I realised later.
For when at last she cast down her arms with a gesture of impotence, and
turned with bowed head, and descended into some cavity of the ground, my
companion opened her mind toward me, and the shadow darkened as she did
it. Then her thought grew clear to this issue,--“When you have shown me
the dark things of the time from which you came, I have been curious, or
repelled; or I have sympathised or marvelled only; yet it has been as
unreal as is a reflection in water. But here I find it close, and very
terrible. Its meaning is beyond me, but I had not imagined that the
world could hold such sorrow.... It is strange that we could receive
thoughts which were not directed to us, but it may be that when they are
cast loose in such intensity of petition they may be received by all who
are near them.”
I replied, “That is scarcely so, for I saw only, and her thoughts were
hidden.”
She answered, “It may be that you do not receive the thoughts of the
Dwellers as easily as we do, or as you receive ours, or there may be
another cause, but to me her thought was clear and vivid, though it was
formless, being a desire that was so strong that it could endure with
little hope to support it. I do not know for what she asked, but I think
she called for help which will not be given. I can show you her
thought.”
Then she gave me the prayer which had gained so unexpected an audience,
and my mind was filled at once with a sense of intolerable calamity, and
with the cry of one who knew that the time for hope was over, and who
struggled to reject a despair which would be beyond her endurance, so
that her mind beat lamentably against the repulse of closed and
indifferent doors.
I suppose it to have been because her trouble was of a nature more
easily explicable to myself than to my companion that I found in the
transmitted thought a more concrete quality than she had recognised as
she received it.
I could not tell the cause of her calamity, or its incidence, but I
became aware that it was the impending destruction of her race against
which she pleaded, and that this was joined in some undisclosed manner
with a personal grief, the larger shadow being a connected background to
the more imminent catastrophe.
It was not evident that we were concerned in the troubles of any one of
the Dwellers, or in their general welfare. Indeed, their perils or
pre-occupations might contain our safety. They were alien from, and
might be contemptuously hostile to, my own humanity. Yet the depression
of that telepathy would not lift, and it was with a sense of overhanging
tragedy, illogically enough, that we advanced to investigate the cavity
by which she had descended.
The ground declined as we approached it, becoming a rounded channel or
gutter, down which we moved, the temple on our right, and the surface
soon above the level of our heads on the left. We must have descended
thirty or forty feet when we came to the lowest point, the ground
commencing to rise before us, and at the same time we became aware of
the entrance to a tunnel on our right which sloped down and inward
beneath the temple.
In dimensions it reminded me of the tunnels beside the opal path with
which I was already familiar, but it was otherwise different. There was
no vertical rod, such as that which had drawn the eyes, and stayed the
pursuit of the Frog-Mouths. There was no difference between floor and
walls, but all were marble-smooth, and hard, and cold. They were
opalescent, but of a kind and colour which I had not seen previously.
The sides and roof were of the dim green of the under-surface of an
arching wave, and like a wave they curved over, differing from the
upright walls and flat ceiling of the earlier tunnels. The floor gave an
impression of dark green depths through which we could have seen to the
remoteness of the earth’s interior, had the faint light allowed it.
We had ceased to think as we moved forward, so that I might once again
give to my companion the benefit of the sight she lacked, and it must
have been my own volition that caused us to take a few steps within the
entrance of the cavity. But as we did so, her thought broke sharply
across my own, “You need show no more: I can see here.” It was a relief
that did not lessen the marvel. She showed me that the blackness still
fell like a curtain over the very mouth of the cavity, where I looked
out into sunlight, but the gloom within was alike to both of us, and in
the relief of this renewed equality we sat down, not very prudently,
against the wall of the passage, forgetting its potential dangers in the
pleasure of needed rest, and in the necessity of reconsidering our
position.
“The question is,” I began immediately, “shall we continue the plan we
made before we knew that this tunnel existed, or shall we do better to
attempt to descend it?”
“It is one question, among several,” my companion answered, “but it is
hard to answer. We have some facts now of which we were ignorant when we
decided two nights ago. If we exchange our thoughts at once, we shall
make confusion only. Let us think separately till we have each resolved
what is best, and have made our reasons clear to ourselves. Then, should
we differ, and either prove unable to convince the other, I will give
way very willingly.”
I assented to this, knowing it to be unlikely that such a difference
would arise or continue, and we remained silent for a considerable time,
for my own thoughts were chaotic, and I was anxious not to interrupt the
exhaustive logic of the mind beside me.
My inclination was to explore the cavity to which we had now come, but
when I attempted to formulate arguments in support of this preference, I
knew that I could not do so conclusively. I was in a state of nervous
exhaustion, and my courage sank at the thought of struggling outward
through the belt of the resisting will, only to front the perils of the
pathless hills, and the jaws of the waiting Frog Mouths. Though to
descend to the Dwellers might mean destruction, I was in no mood to
defer it, but rather to cast myself upon their mercy, with a feeling of
indifference as to what the end might be. So that when my comrade
indicated her willingness to converse again, I was quick to ask her
opinion first, to which she assented with her usual equanimity.
“It is evident,” she began, “that though we know more than we did, we
still know so little that all decision must be guessing, and each new
fact, as we gain it, can only demonstrate how foolish may have been the
choice we made before we perceived it. Yet, when the roads branch, a
choice must be made.
“The Dwellers may have information by which they know of our movements,
or they may be searching for us, in ignorance of where we are; or they
may be entirely unaware or indifferent.
“In the first case, it seems clear that should we return we are adding
useless dangers to a sufficient peril, for we must face them, first or
last, and we can gain nothing by wandering upon the surface before we do
so; in the second, we may be more likely to avoid them if we descend
here, by an entrance which appears unwatched, and where they do not know
us to be, than if we return to those with which they already know us to
be familiar; in the third case, it may still be to our advantage to
descend at once, rather than to wander farther upon the unfriendly
surface of an unfamiliar world. I can see that there may be facts which
would make folly of these conclusions. We are certainly distant from
where my Leader’s body was left to their mercy. We have no reason to
suppose, if it have been preserved at all, that it has been conveyed
below the surface in this direction. We have no reason to suppose that
we shall be able to penetrate under the surface toward the point from
which our search should commence more easily than we can do above it. We
have no certainty that there is any connection whatever between this
passage and those of which we knew previously. Should we descend, and
escape capture or destruction, it may still be that a later day will see
us emerge with time lost, to no end but the experience of an abortive
adventure. This is the more likely because there is no evidence of
traffic to or from the entrance, but the whole aspect is of the
reservation of a peculiar and sacred place. I cannot tell which may be
best, but my inclination is to go down.”
I answered, “So is mine; and I can add to your reasons two at least
which you have not mentioned. The one is that while within the tunnel
you have lost the disability of the blindness which had hindered us in
the surrounding area; the other, which is more serious (because I
suppose that we could quickly reach the woods where you would presumably
see as before) is that, after this delay, it is doubtful whether we
could cross the hills before the night falls, and now that my last
remnants of clothing have left me, my body is ill-adapted to meet either
storm or frost, and I have less fear of the more even temperature of the
subterranean places.
“It is true that this passage is not like the one which I first
penetrated. Its slope is less. Its current of upward air is less
evident. Its floor is less easy to tread. Its roof does not give the
same measure of light. It may not be frequently used, and it may lack
the stores of food and water on which I subsisted. But beyond this, all
is conjecture. It is a choice of risks, and we agree as to the one to be
chosen.”
So we rose, and went down together.
CHAPTER VI
THE DOWNWARD PATH
I have often speculated as to what might have happened had we decided
differently, and had I survived the dangers of the surface world, and
attempted the penetration of one of the seaward tunnels. Knowing what I
do now, I suppose that it must have ended fatally for myself, if not for
my companion also. But so much is still mystery, so much conjecture,
that even that may not be certainly true.
As it was, we went on for some time in an eventless silence, the dark
green shadowy smoothness of the surface on which we trod sloping gently
downward, the glassy arch above us becoming gloomier as we left the
daylight. The idea oppressed me that we were actually traversing a
wave’s interior cavity. I think that I had been mentally exhausted by
the prolonged effort of conveying the scene through which we had passed
to my companion’s mind.
Once or twice I tried to establish connection with her, but her thoughts
were closed against me, and I gained no more than a knowledge that she
was abstracted and troubled, and indisposed for conversing. Then we came
to a place where we must needs pause and consult, for the straight path
ceased. The slope ceased. We stood on a level path that curved forward,
right and left, with a blank wall before us. Either side we might turn,
and the choice could scarcely be made in silence.
I questioned my companion with thought and eyes. It was too dark for me
to see hers, but mine may have been visible to her better sight. She
answered readily.
“Yes, we must choose; but I have been concerned with a greater urgency.
As we entered the tunnel my mind inquired for my own people, with whom I
had been disconnected since the encounter with the Dwellers which we
witnessed together, and though I have learnt nothing of their welfare I
found that an urgent message is being sent out to me
continually,--‘_Return at once. Further concealment useless. The animal
must go to the Dwellers, who have already dealt suitably with those he
Seeks. Do not reply._’
“That is the message, about which I am troubled. I cannot quickly tell
what is right to do. I conclude that no reply is desired because there
is either fear or certainty that it would be intercepted, and understood
by the Dwellers, and might do harm in ways which I cannot know, and
might not therefore avoid. It may be from the same cause that the
message contains no mention of the body of my Leader, though that is the
object for which I am here. It may be that this trouble is over; even
that it is returned already. Yet the objection to any reply being sent
indicates less than complete harmony, and there may be actual hostility
between the Dwellers and ourselves.
“From these thoughts two questions follow.
“If there be dissension between the Dwellers and ourselves, and
concealment be useless, how can I hope to return openly and in safety?
Possibly they may have agreed that I shall not be hindered, if you
remain, though there are some improbabilities in this supposition. So
far, I have thought of no other.
“The second question, which is greatly the more important, is this. Am I
right to leave you? Never, from the remotest memory, have I known such a
doubt to rise, nor can I tell how to resolve it. Always we have acted
together. Our Leaders have thought for all, and our will has been
single.”
The news which she gave had disconcerted me sufficiently for my thoughts
to be both confused and depressed at the first hearing, and I cannot say
to what protest or reproach they might otherwise have led me, but to
this appeal there could be only one answer possible.
“If you feel under the obligation of the promise that we should explore
the tunnels of the Dwellers together, there is no need for concern on
that point, for I release you from it. Even if I should not, I think
that your first duty must be to your own kind, and that the news which
your message gives has altered the whole position so radically that no
arrangement could be binding which was made in ignorance of it.”
She answered, “You confuse me with vague thoughts. Let us be silent,”
and for some minutes she closed her mind.
Then she continued, “Your thought is generous, and I should be unfair
not to recognise it, but it is born of conditions which are as alien
from ourselves as are the ways of the Frog-Mouths. If I be under
obligation to keep an undertaking to you which may have already altered
your course, and changed the experiences which you must now encounter,
how can it affect what is right for me to do, that you should accept my
desertion without protest? When you suppose that you can release me in
such a way, you assume a position of Deity--and of a Deity who could
alter the essentials of what is right and wrong. It is not your
willingness that I should go which concerns me--it is the verdict of my
own mind.”
I answered, “I have no doubt that you are right, and that you have
rebuked me justly. Yet, no less, I should like to feel that you have
decided with a mind untroubled by any thought of consequence to myself;
for the event, whether you stay or go, is beyond forecasting. Either way
may be the more dangerous for me. It is beyond knowing. But for
yourself, it seems evident that should you stay you will incur a
needless risk of the anger of the Dwellers, and must be troubled by the
additional fear that you will have disobeyed your Leaders, and may have
to face the consequences of their anger, should you escape the perils of
our present enterprise. It seems to me that your position would then be
worse even than my own, and I cannot willingly agree that you should
incur such dangers to aid me.”
“You think,” she answered, “after your own kind, and suppose a fear
which I could not feel, and a contingency which will not occur. If it be
evil that there should be discord of thought between me and my people,
is it reasonable that either side should desire to continue and perhaps
increase it, in a vain quarrel concerning what will have happened?
“Should I finally return, I shall give my reasons, and, should they be
found insufficient or otherwise, the event must be a source of wisdom
for all of us. But that must wait its time. In which direction shall we
go?”
We looked to right and left, along corridors that curved forward on
either hand, and which were more nearly of the kind that I had first
explored than was the tunnel behind us, excepting that they were
level-floored, and were not lighted in the same way.
The walls were vertical: the ceiling flat: the flooring was of the
material that looked like polished steel, and was soft to the feet, with
which I was already familiar. But in place of the dove-gray walls, and
the faint opalescence of the roof of my first experience, there was an
intermittent darkness, broken by moving fires that glowed, as it seemed,
deep within the substance of the walls, and changed, and faded, and
revived elsewhere.
It shows how dulled we had become to unfamiliar wonder, or how
concentrated our minds had been upon the new problem which had disturbed
us, that we had not observed these shifting lights when first our eyes
must have beheld them.
Now, as we gazed, the left-hand side of the leftward passage glowed with
a sudden redness not twenty yards away. The light spread, and spread,
along the glassy surface of the wall, until it had almost reached us. It
rose up till it neared the gloom of the distant roof, of which the
darkness was not pierced but was changed to a dusky red. The steel-gray
floor was stained also with a faint reflected redness. The glowing
colour showed the lofty passage before us till it curved out of view.
“Come,” she said, “while the light lasts,” and I knew that, with the
decision made, her mind had recovered all its buoyant serenity.
As we left the light, it was already fading, but others showed ahead,
and we went on in an ever-changing darkness, seldom far from some
luminosity which was sufficient to guide us on a plain and unimpeded
way.
The colours in the walls were various, not only in their kind, or in
their intensity, area, or duration, but they had an appearance of being
of varying distance from us, so that we would look at the dark wall, and
see the transient motion of some glowing splendour, as it seemed, a mile
within it, and then an interval of darkness and then a burst of light
and colour, like an open rose, that seemed to be scarcely covered by the
surface of the wall that held it.
So we went on until, in no great space of time, we came to an opening on
the left hand, wide and high as the passage in which we were, and on the
same level, but in an absolute blackness.
We were of one mind to explore it, for the thought had come to both of
us that if we continued to traverse that in which we were, we must
return to the point from which we started, should the curve continue. My
companion, whose judgment was far more accurate than my own on such
points, was definite that we had completed a quarter of the full circle
when this side-corridor was reached. So we decided; not doubting that it
would be lighted in the same manner, and foreseeing no obstacle. I have
little doubt, from our later experiences, that we were right on the
first point, as we were certainly wrong on the second, for we found at
the first step that we were confronted by the same withstanding force
that had obstructed our passage of the sleeping wood, but more instant
and urgent in its application, so that we did not attempt to hold our
ground, but fell back at the same impulse to consult whether we should
again adventure against it.
Recalling our previous decision, and our successful effort, I was
disposed to accept the challenge it gave us, but my companion differed.
She pointed out that it had then resisted the straightforward path which
we had resolved to take, but that now we should be turning aside to face
a needless difficulty, without knowing that the passage we left might
not be in every way the more direct to our purpose.
So we went on, and twice again, at similar intervals, did we come to
such a passage, and each time we attempted it for a few paces, and
recoiled from the resistance of the will that met us.
But the third time we did not accept defeat as we had done previously.
We considered that these passages had appeared at similar intervals, and
that it was probable that this was the last we should meet, the fourth
quarter of the curving path returning us to the point from which we had
started. Faced by this probability, we rested awhile, and then, hand in
hand, that my companion’s vitality might give me the physical strength I
needed, so that my will should be free for the nervous conflict before
us, we went resolutely into the dark mouth of the cavity.
In the course of a few steps, taken with difficulty, as though our feet
dragged in a heavy sand, and our limbs and bodies were pressed against a
trammelling and resisting garment, we found that we were in an absolute
blackness, so that we could not see our steps, and it is doubtful,
indeed, whether we should not have retired at once from so menacing a
prospect, had not my inferior power of progression caused us to bend our
course somewhat to the right, on which side I was, and as we drew nearer
to the wall we discovered that it was of a quality which I may best
describe as having an interior luminosity. It gave no light to the
passage at all, but standing closely to it we could look into it, as
into a glass, yet seeing no reflection of ourselves, but a vision that
held us absorbed and silent. At first we saw a dark pool, or it might be
the shadowed space of a river, but it showed no current, nor any motion
of wind. Strange, fronded trees grew beside it. At some distance, there
was a touch of moonlight on the water, but it did not waver. We watched
for some time, as though expecting something to happen, and yet I
thought it to be nothing more than a picture of some primeval creation.
Then it seemed that the dark surface of the water broke, and a long
snout, as of an alligator, moved into the lighted space, and sank again
very quietly. Nothing else. We watched a long time further, but nothing
changed, unless, perhaps, the light on the water was slightly fainter.
“Is it real?” I wondered. “No, surely,” she thought, “I suppose it to be
a picture of things long past. I do not think it to be of the earth of
this time. Shall we look at the other wall?”
I agreed, though I was reluctant to withdraw my gaze from that primeval
night, where I might see I knew not what of mystery or of wonder if I
should wait till its morning came. The pressure was more tolerable while
we made no effort to move directly forward, and we crossed the interval
of blackness quite easily, to find, as my companion had thought, that
the opposite wall held a corresponding wonder. But it was not of any
strange or terrible or momentous scene.
There was a faint light, as of the late evening, or the very early dawn
of a winter day, and snow was falling thickly. Bare trees showed dimly,
and one ivied trunk was close, as though we might have reached to touch
it, and on the dark berries a pair of hawfinches were feeding. They were
so real and close that it seemed strange that no sound came as they
changed footing with a flutter of wings, or pulled the sprays apart.
That was all. It might have been a scene from winter of my own day, or
of millenniums before or after.
And while we gazed, we became aware that something with a heavy tread
had entered the passage. We thought it (and rightly) to be one of the
Dwellers. The steps passed us, and went forward. We were of one mind to
follow.
Returning to the centre of the tunnel, we were again in darkness, but
the footsteps led us, and we found that the resistance against which we
had fought had ceased to trouble us while we followed the unseen feet.
Realising this, we increased our pace to a run, lest the dividing space
should widen, so that we were but ten or fifteen yards behind--our feet
making no sounds on the soft flooring--when our unseen guide turned
sideways into a chamber on the right-hand side of the passage.
CHAPTER VII
THE LIVING BOOK
We stood at the entrance of a room of (to us) enormous proportions. It
was filled with an equally-diffused light, of which I saw no origin.
Neither, when I considered it later, could I observe any appliances for
the regulation of temperature or ventilation. Yet the warmth was such
that I did not suffer from my lack of clothing; the air was fresh and
exhilarating. The arched entrance to the room had no door, but the light
stayed at the threshold. Standing on the outer side of the entrance, we
supposed ourselves to be unobservable in the darkness.
The Dweller that we had followed was a woman, like the one that we had
last seen, but her colouring was different. The hair on her head was
short, curling, and glossy black. It extended down the spine in the same
way. The body-colour varied from a dark bluish-black to the softest,
palest greys. The effect was beautiful beyond describing.
Her form was as straight and graceful as had been that of the other, nor
did it give an impression of great size in a room which was proportioned
to it. It was not she that was large, but we that were small. Her body
was slim and perfect in its proportions, and her face was flawless, yet
where the other had given an impression of youth, there was here an
atmosphere of age incalculable. I cannot say from what it came, unless
from one thing only. Her eyes were intolerably tired.
As she entered the room she had an object about the size of a football
perched on her left shoulder. There was a table in the centre, of a
transparent blue substance. It had three legs which joined in a twisted
knot, and then spread out. I noticed that these legs moved so that the
table adjusted itself to her as she approached it, but whether this
movement were sentient or mechanical I could not tell. She extended her
left arm to the surface of the table, and the object on her shoulder
rolled slowly down.
It was of the colour of a boiled lobster, with many bluish-white
appendages hanging from its surface. They were about an inch in length,
and of the shape to a dachshund’s ear. As it rolled forward they spread
out like hands, to balance and control its motion, and when it rested
those that were close to the ground would support it steadily.
It was evidently alive, but it had no other features that I could
observe, and it appeared equally comfortable whatever part of its
surface were uppermost.
The table was relatively higher than those to which we are accustomed,
and there was no chair or other seat in the room.
The Dweller remained standing, as though her attention were fixed upon
the red globule before her. I turned to my companion to convey my
wonder, but she gave me a quick thought that she was trying to follow
what was happening, and did not wish for distraction, so I looked
quietly round the room while I waited.
The wall on the side on which we stood, and those to right and left,
were blank of all but colour, which was blue, of a very
delicately-beautiful tint, which I had not seen previously, evidently
designed to harmonise with the colouring of its occupant.
The farther wall was of the same nature as those we had passed in the
passage, having a living picture within it--if living it could be
called, much was an epitome of desolation.
It showed far more plainly, or at least to a far greater distance, than
did those into which we had looked before. It was a scene of a frozen
river, which itself must have been half-a-mile in width, and of an
endless solitary frozen plain beyond it. The sky was frosty blue and
cloudless. There were no trees,--nothing but the frozen river, and the
frozen snow.
I had a perception that it had lain thus for many centuries, lifeless,
windless, and unchanging, and that it was in some inexplicable way akin
to the one who appeared to have selected it to companion her, and that
within it lay the explanation of the weariness in her eyes.
But its desolation was less than hers, for it must have ended at some
time in the earth’s history. Though it might have endured for
millenniums, yet the time had come when the earth again swung sunward,
and the warmth found it. But for the weariness from which she suffered
there was no hope at all.
Following this impression, it occurred to me as a natural thing that, if
reflections of the earth’s changing past were used as mural decorations,
such scenes and periods would be preferred as would show little or very
gradual differences, or their suitability might be lost.
The articles in the room were few. There was a wide shelf at the centre
of the left-hand wall, on which were stacked a number of flat boards
which were probably pictures, or material for them, for, to the right of
the table, there was an easel, such as would have looked natural enough,
apart from its size, in a studio of our own day, with a similar board
upon it, on which a picture of the frozen desolation was half completed.
There were various smaller articles ranged beneath the shelf, of which I
could not understand the nature or utility.
I returned my attention to my companion, to find her ready for
conversing. She said “I cannot learn much, as the thoughts which are
passing are not meant for us, but it seems that there is something here
similar to your own device, of which you have told me. I know that you
have a method of recording ideas and facts by means of marks on
retentive substances, so that the knowledge of them may remain, though
the brain in which they originated be ended, and that, by this means,
you have partly overcome one of the defects of your individual
mortality. It seems to me that this method must be subject to great
disadvantages, as it must be even easier for such as you are to make
marks which will be false, or the record of foolish imaginations, than
to be accurate in fact, and wise in deduction; and, as you have no
authority to distinguish between them, your children must often be
induced to foolishness, or misled to disaster. Possibly the confusion
may be so great that they are distracted from any continuing path, and
the result is the inconsequent and abortive activities of mind and body
to which you are so largely accustomed.
“However that may be, it appears that the Dwellers have devised a
somewhat similar method of recording the facts they accumulate, or the
theories which they formulate, such as is more suited to their greater
longevity, and their superior intelligence.
“This which we see is one of their books--a living creature of a kind,
designed to store the thoughts that are given to it, and to convey them
at later periods to any inquiring mind. She whom we now see is both the
custodian and the compiler of these volumes, and I gather that she is
now placing on record the events in which we have so lately
participated.”
While I received this explanation, the Dweller had crossed the room, and
picked up a metal article of a brass colour, and of the shape of a
figure eight, which she laid flatly on the ground, and within one of the
loops of which she placed the living ball, with which she had now
apparently finished, and then stood for some time gazing at the
half-painted picture, and at the scene from which it was taken. Her
method of painting was different from our own in this particular, that
one part of the picture was entirely finished, but ended abruptly at a
blank which was not touched at all.
After a time, she resumed her work, and the reason of this became
evident. She painted with a long pencil terminating in a small flat pad,
of a surface of two or three square inches, and this she dipped into
saucers of various semi-liquid colours which were arranged upon a wide
ledge of the easel below the picture. There could only have been black
and white and shades of blue and grey that were needed, but the pad was
dipped many times, and touched lightly with a finely pointed instrument
in her left hand, till at last she was satisfied, and it was pressed
upon the surface of the picture, to which it added a further rectangle
of finished work. The picture was then touched slightly with another
pad, apparently to blend the added portion perfectly with the earlier
work, and the same process was resumed.
It was slow to watch, but my companion was of an unhurried mind, and it
is my own disposition to go cautiously when in doubt. I was neither
willing to leave this scene for a further risk of the dark passage, nor
to face a crisis by revealing ourselves in the room, and so we sat and
watched in the outer darkness. It was not a very long vigil, for the
artist appeared to weary, laid down her tools, hesitated, walked towards
the scene which she had been painting, stood gazing at it for some time
in silence, and then lay down beneath it, where it appeared that the
floor rose in a smooth curve, a few feet above the surrounding level.
This surface gave way gently to the impression of her body, which sank
down partly within it. She lay face forward, her head turned from us,
her arms extended straightly above her head. Lying so, she stretched for
half the length of the room. There was no sound of breathing, and we
could not tell whether she slept, but after watching for some time
longer we were of one mind to adventure a further investigation, and
very quietly we entered the room together.
CHAPTER VIII
THE TREATY
It was with a common impulse of curiosity that we first went towards the
living book which was resting motionless within the metal circle. It had
no distinguishable features, and I cannot tell how it became aware of
our existence, but it was its function to respond to the approach of any
inquiring mind. It rebuffed any attempt to explain our own presence, or
what we were, being evidently unable, or forbidden, to accept
information except from the official librarian, but as we were more
anxious to obtain information than to impart it, we had no objection to
this, and, as we found it a cause of confusion to question it together,
my companion generously gave the preference to my own curiosities, and
composed her mind to receive the replies which it should give me.
We learnt at once that it was the last volume of the official History of
the Dwellers, its record extending back for about two hundred years, and
it would have been quite willing to begin at chapter one of that period,
and go on for a week, had we been willing for it to do so. When it
understood that it was required to select specific information in
response to my questions, it assented, rather sulkily, though I soon
realised that its function was limited to supplying the actual
information which it possessed. It was unable to give any explanation or
comment beyond anything which it had received with the facts. To any
question which went outside its period, or beyond its province, it
returned no answer. Even of the way to the library from which it had
come it had no knowledge, though it wished to be returned to its
accustomed shelf. It knew, however, that it must not venture to cross
the metal circle which now confined it, under penalty of a swift
destruction, should it touch it at any point.
My companion perceived the reason for this, as she was aware, without
touching it, that the metal was heavily charged with some petrifying
force having the vigour of electricity, and of a current sufficient to
overcome a much larger creature than that which it now imprisoned.
“Are you impervious to electricity?” I was led to ask, as I perceived
her indifference to this new danger.
“No,” she replied, “of course not. How could we live without it? But we
can naturally control the quantity which we receive. Otherwise our
bodies would be continually exposed to the risk of a sudden destruction.
Are you so liable?”
I said that I was certainly not immune from such danger, and it added a
new peril to our investigations if the Dwellers were accustomed to use
it or other forces of unknown potentialities, in such a manner. She
agreed, but assured me that she could give warning very easily, now that
she knew of this additional infirmity of my body, as she could always
tell the quantity and direction of any electric force which might be in
her neighbourhood.
I was puzzled to think that the Dwellers should expose so valuable a
record to the risk of destruction as a penalty for its own disobedience,
and this made me somewhat sceptical of the accuracy of my companion’s
explanation, but I learnt afterwards that the effect would merely have
been that a new volume would have been commenced. These creatures are
only kept alive until they have received as much information as they are
capable of retaining, and are then slaughtered. The information which
they contain being permanently available, as is that of a gramophone
record, and the minds that hold it being more surely and easily stored
when they are dead, than in a living state.
Having realised the character and limitations of the record at our
disposal, I asked first concerning the safety of the two friends whom I
had come to seek. I had to repeat the question in many forms before
obtaining any response, but I finally obtained this information, which
was obviously the only record which had been made, and the extent of the
help which was here available.
Two Primitives of the False-Skin Age were captured by the
42nd Coast Patrol. One was of a venomous kind. They were
received by the Bureau of Prehistoric Zoology. The body of
one was found to be suffering from microbic disease beyond
sterilisation, and was scraped by the Vivisection
Department. The other was transferred to the Experimental
Section, after the usual method.
That was all. The fate of one of those who had preceded me was
sufficiently indicated, and that of the other was, at the best,
enigmatic; but I could learn no more. Even of the place or nature of the
Bureau it mentioned the living book was entirely ignorant.
Little as it was, it was sufficient to suggest that I should be very
foolish to place myself in the hands of the Dwellers, unless I were
compelled to do so. I realised, as I had not done previously, that my
position was that to which, in my own time, the human race had reduced
all the other living creatures on the earth’s surface, and that the
Dwellers, however justly they might act to each other, would probably
consider it an absolute duty to put me to death or torture if they could
gain any knowledge, obtain any advantage to themselves, or even avert
some trivial inconvenience, by so doing, as many men, and nearly all
women, would subject a mouse to a violent or lingering death for no
greater reason than that it had annoyed them by a sound in the night.
Having realised that I could obtain no further information on the
subject of my own search, I remembered--none too soon--that my companion
must be equally urgent to learn of the one for whom she was seeking, and
of the events which had occasioned the recall which had reached her, and
I inquired accordingly, and received this answer:
Article 5. In consideration of the foregoing, the body of
the Amphibian will be delivered at the Fishgates, at once,
and uninjured. The one who is seeking it will be allowed,
and, if needful, assisted to return in safety, provided that
such return be made before the third sunset, and that she
shall not have entered the Sacred Places. The Primitive
shall remain. He shall be treated with such kindness as
circumstances admit, and, if healthy and quiet, shall be
transferred to an appropriate Reservation. But if he be in
any way diseased he may be dealt with according to the
nature of his infirmity, and as the protection of the
community may require. Otherwise, unless he be violent or
intractable, he shall not be slaughtered, either for food or
for any other purpose, except in the ordinary course, and at
such period as is usual.
Certainly there was information here, and warning, and some mystery
also. Our thought was single that this must be the purport of an
agreement that must have been made between the Amphibians and the
Dwellers since the commencement of our expedition, and we were alike in
desiring to learn the other clauses of the treaty, before we considered
our course of action.
These were very promptly given, for I believe that these living books
were so constituted that they derived a positive physical pleasure from
such thought-transference as would convey their contents to other minds,
such as is commonly experienced in the exercise of the ordinary
functions of the human body.
The treaty (omitting the fifth clause already given) was this:
Article 1. The Leaders of the Amphibians pledge themselves
and their nation, without reservation or exception, that
they will not henceforward, or any of them, invade the
continent of the Dwellers, either above, at, or on the
sea-level, unless or except as may be mutually agreed
hereafter.
Article 2. The Leaders of the Amphibians shall appoint two
of their number, and the Dwellers shall appoint two of their
number, to confer and agree upon the times at and the
conditions on if any which the Amphibians or any of them may
enter or remain upon the surface of the territory of the
Dwellers, or any part thereof.
Article 3. The Amphibians pledge themselves that they will
not give any aid, assistance, or information, active or
passive, to the Antipodeans or hold any communications with
them, except, if at all, at the desire of the Dwellers, and
to obtain information on their behalf.
Article 4. The Amphibians will forthwith institute and
maintain a complete service of observation upon the coasts
of the Antipodeans, and upon all aerial movements above or
from their coasts, with such relays of communication as
shall convey all such information to the Dwellers at the
least possible intervals of time after the observation of
such movements.
Article 5. (Already given).
Article 6. Should the Amphibian who is now landed have
invaded, or invade, the Sacred Places, or should she remain
hidden in the land until after the time of the third sunset,
or should she neglect or refuse to return by or before the
time stated, then the Dwellers shall be free to deal with
her as may appear just to them, or as their safety or
interests may require, and the Amphibians shall none the
less carry out the first four Articles of this treaty, as
though she should have returned safely.
Article 7. In the event of the successful resuscitation of
the body of the Amphibian Leader and of her assent to this
clause, and providing that the Amphibian now on the
territory of the Dwellers shall have returned in safety
whether within the period stated in Article 5, or later by
the clemency of the Dwellers, then, and in these events, the
Leaders of the Amphibians severally and on behalf of their
nation and of every member thereof, do pledge themselves
actively to assist the Dwellers against the Antipodeans, in
the hostilities now impending, to the full extent of their
national and individual capacities, according to their
natures, and by such means as they are spiritually and
physically qualified to do.
Article 8. The Amphibians are entitled to communicate with
the member of their nation who is now on the territory of
the Dwellers for the purpose of recalling her, but not
otherwise, nor shall they invite or receive any
communication from her while she remain upon any part of
that territory or within it, nor with the Primitive who was
her companion.
Article 9. This treaty is made in honour, verity, and
goodwill, without guile and without duress, each nation
contracting freely, and on its own territory, that which is
past being forgotten as though it had not been; by the six
acting Leaders of the Amphibians, and, on behalf of the
Dwellers, by the High Council of Five, and by the device of
the Aged Ones, all equally, severally, and unanimously
assenting thereto, in the Audience of Space, and in the
Light of the Perpetual Stars.
Had I been alone I might have delighted the source of this information
by requiring its repetition several times, for it contained much which
required exactness of memory for its consideration, and it suffered from
the defect of all treaties since the world began, that the effort to
avoid possibilities of ambiguity or evasion results in an added
obscurity, so that they are much more vulnerable to misconstruction, as
they are more difficult to readily comprehend, than are simpler and more
straightforward documents. But my companion intimated at once that she
could recall it as required, and she proposed that we should retire into
the comparative security of the darkness while we considered it
together.
This we did, and I opened my mind to her at once in this manner, “There
is much in what we have heard which must be clearer to you than it is to
me, but it is evident that some larger issue of impending warfare has
assisted your nation to adjust their differences with the Dwellers, and
that you have no further need for concealment, or cause to continue our
enterprise. On the contrary, your safety lies in a prompt and open
return to your own people.
“But my position is different. Your people have abandoned me to the
Dwellers, and it appears that, if I fall into their hands, I shall lose
my liberty at the least, and be exposed to death, or even torture, or
the foulest outrage, as caprice, or self-interest, or curiosity may
suggest.
“For though you appear to regard the Dwellers as of superior mentality
to myself, they do not demonstrate this by brutalities, such as it
appears may have been fatal to my friends already, and which can only
regard a being whom they know to have reached them from an earlier age,
as something to be killed and eaten. In some parts of my own world there
are savages so degraded in type that they will eat the decrepit members
of their own race, or strangers who wander into their territory, but
they are regarded as the lowest specimens of their kind.
“In the experience of my own time it is not usual to find exceptional
brutality such as this to be allied with any high level of intelligence,
and it occurs to my mind that the Dwellers have not shown any
conspicuous ability in discovering our movements, and that when I was
actually captured by one of them, I escaped very easily.
“So far am I from deciding to place myself in their power that I am
resolved to outwit them. I suppose from what we have heard that one of
my friends has already become a victim of their cruelty. The other I am
resolved to rescue, if he be still living. After that, I hope to find
some means of concealment and sustenance on the surface, to which I
shall return, until the time come when I shall be able to rejoin the
civilisation that you deride, but which offers a peace and security
which I am never likely to find among the barbarous cruelties which you
esteem so lightly.”
My companion closed her mind from me when I had finished, but only for a
short time, and then answered quietly. “I think I understand something
of the feeling from which your thoughts had their origin, and at the
injustice to myself and to my nation which you have implied I am not
angered at all, but I think that our minds have never been so far apart
since first I met you.
“There was not a single thought which you showed me which was not either
false or foolish, and it is easy to believe that you come of a species
which devour each other, though there are few created things so base as
to do this, in all the seas that I have known until I came in contact
with you.”
I was startled by the unexpectedness of this rebuke, the justice of
which I did not easily realise, but my mind was cooled by contact with
one which declined to rise to its temperature, and I replied in a
somewhat different mood, “I should be sorry to be unfair to your nation,
and especially to yourself, from whom I have had nothing but a loyal
comradeship which I have done little to merit. I know that my mind was
troubled and indignant, though it still seems to me that I had cause for
such feelings. But if you think differently, can you not show me in what
I have deserved your censure?”
“Yes,” she replied, “I think I can do that very easily, but it is the
more interesting to me to observe how entirely the use of your reason
ceases when you are moved by anger or fear, or, perhaps, by other
feelings, for I can see that the thought that we were about to part was
among the disturbances that suspended your capacity to think to any
useful purpose.
“First, it is by no means clear that I can return in safety, or at all.
How do you know that I have not invaded the Sacred Places, or even that
we are not now within them? I think we may be.
“Second, there would, in any case, be no occasion for us to part
immediately, should we remain undiscovered. The third sunset is still
distant.
“Third, my people have done nothing to cause you to fall into the hands
of the Dwellers, which you are still free to avoid if you are able. They
have been careful to make a treaty which gives you a measure of
protection which you could not otherwise have secured should you be
captured. We have explained already that you could not come with us,
being physically unfit to endure existence in the only territory we
control, or in the waters to which we are native, were we willing to
have you, and were we able to remove you from the place that you have
chosen to enter.
“Fourth, you are unjust to the Dwellers, and forgetful of things which
you have told me of your own kind.
“You have told me that your own race will destroy other creatures
without shame, not only for their own food, or safety (in which you
would not yourself say that they are wrong) but merely for the pleasure
which they derive from inflicting misery upon those who have done them
no injury, or for the gratification of curiosity, or in the hope of some
material advantage resulting to themselves or their fellows.
“More than this, with an unnatural baseness, they will even accept
service from, or make such professions of friendship as will gain the
confidence of, other creatures, which they will not then hesitate to
betray and murder, as caprice or self-interest may incline them. You
have told me that you habitually destroy creatures whose affection and
loyalty you have gained, when they become old and infirm, or are injured
by accident, readily persuading yourselves that you do these things out
of kindness, although you do not desire that you should be dealt with in
a similar manner when your own body shall show evidence that its vigour
is decreasing.
“You have shown me that you justify these things in your own minds by
arguing that you are of such superior nature that the welfare, or
existence of all other creatures is of comparative triviality.
“But even though such conduct could be condoned by a demonstration of
superiority, or would be consistent therewith, it is difficult to
understand by what arguments this asserted superiority could be
maintained.
“Is it by your power to cause the deaths of others? Then a disease-germ
(as you have yourself admitted) may be greater than you.
“Is it by conduct? But you have shown me that you work violence, fraud,
and cruelty among yourselves, and against the creatures around you.
“Is it wisdom? Have you discovered a way of life which is more safe,
more leisured, more healthy, more in harmony with your surrounding
conditions, than that of the creatures which you despise and destroy?
Are their conditions more abject than are those of the disordered and
disastrous lives of which you have told me, where you crowd together in
disease and dirt, inexplicably separated from the land which supplies
you with the food which your bodies need so continually?
“As are the vermin which you trap and kill without mercy, so, and less
than so, and rightly less than so, must you be to the Dwellers.
“You are not of their world. You came unasked. You may bring strange
disease. You may produce discord in a thousand ways. Your mind is
indignant and hostile, merely at the assurance that they will deal with
you in patient justice, after inquiry has been held,--or, it may be, at
the worst, with that expediency which is the basis of the civilisation
from which you come.”
I answered quickly, for my mind responded to hers with more thoughts
than I could easily control for transference, “I see that you have
judged more reasonably than I was able to do. My mind was moved by fear,
under which influence its reactions are instinctive rather than
rational. There is much in your thoughts which is true, as it reflects
upon my own kind, and there is much also that might be urged in defence
or extenuation of conduct which appears to you so monstrous. But there
are questions of practical urgency also which must be faced, and the
occasion is scarcely one for explanation or argument concerning abstract
or distant things.
“Yet one thing I should like to show you. You may reflect adversely upon
our treatment of living creatures of other kinds than our own, and your
thought may not be far from mine, but were you one of ourselves, you
would be faced by issues which are not simple to decide, and by
conditions which are not easy to alter.
“It is true, for the most part, of the domestic animals that we eat,
that we work for them all their lives in a willing servitude, which is
the price we pay for the right to kill them at last. We build their
houses; we prepare their food; we heal their diseases: we wait upon them
in the most menial ways. They are fed with regularity, and without their
own exertion: they are protected from inclement weather. We may even
risk our own lives to guard them from the murderous attacks of other
beasts of prey. Finally, they probably die with less pain, and with far
less of fear and foreboding, than will be the lot of those who minister
to, and then destroy them.
“It is true that we do these things for our own ends, and they owe us no
gratitude, but it is also true that, apart from these things, they would
not exist at all, nor is it true that we are regardless of their
well-being nor indifferent to their suffering. Some may be, but many are
not.
“I am not sure but that the heavier indictment against us may be, not
that we give them death at last, which comes to all, but that we deny
them life while living. It is an inevitable result of their protected
lives, that they have degenerated in intelligence and character, and
compare very poorly with those of their kind that have retained their
freedom in remoter places.
“Further, it appears evident that, with rare and doubtful exceptions,
they have no understanding or premonition of death, and are in this
respect happier than ourselves.
“You have asked why we should consider that we are greater than the
other creatures around us. I agree that a superior capacity for
successful violence is a poor argument in support of such a claim, nor
should I urge it. Nor should I urge that our conduct of life is
superior, for there is a barrier dividing their mentalities from ours
that no man has been able to cross, and I should confuse assumption with
evidence: nor can I, for the same reason, and for others also, claim
that we are of greater wisdom than they. Greater knowledge we may have,
but it is of the race rather than the individual, and it would be a poor
ground for such a claim, at the best.
“If I should seek to support such a plea, I would rather urge the
difficulty of the conditions against which we contend, than the extent
to which we triumph.
“Our ancestors broke from their environment, and may have shown a
doubtful wisdom in so doing. But having so broken, we are confronted
with difficulties from which the rest of the creation is free. If our
conduct be worse, our circumstances are more treacherous.
“But there is another difference. Most other creatures, though we may
not prematurely destroy them, are even shorter-lived than we. They lack
the assistance of our inventions for recording knowledge, and, to some
extent, handing it down to our children. So far as we can judge, they
have no substitute for these, and their individual ignorance of our
purpose to destroy them, and of the methods we use, is a natural
consequence.
“I am not sure that this thought does not bring us nearer to
understanding the difference between my kind and other animals than
would any of the three tests you proposed. All animals have an inherited
fear of pain or damage to their bodies, and this leads them to such
actions or reactions as will conserve their lives, but it is a curious
thought that, since the hidden beginning of created things, no one can
have had any inherited experiences of death, of which we know by
observation only. Our parents were alive at our conceptions and births,
as were all their ancestors before them, and our direct inherited
experience could be no different were they all alive and immortal. But
the accumulated observations and records of the race familiarise us with
the nature of death--at least in its physical consequences,--and teach
us its inevitability, from our earliest years. ‘_In his eyes
foreknowledge of death_,’ that is the burden, and perhaps the glory, of
our kind; and that which may divide us furthest from those who have been
content to obey the laws of their creation. It is curious fact that such
animals as we may allow to associate with us in any intimacy must share
to some extent this difference, be it height or depth, which divides us
from the rest of our creation. A lion cannot sin: but a dog can.
“--But perhaps I weary you with details which are beyond your interest?”
She answered, “No, for I would gladly know more of these things, were
there time for the learning, though we must leave them now. For it seems
that the more our thoughts exchange, the more nearly do our minds
approach to a common point. It may be that we both see truly, though the
same things may appear different. Looking from a distant point, I see
the outlines of your existence as you cannot easily do. Knowing it more
closely, you are aware of dangers and fertilities which I overlook,
seeing only the contours of the mountain peaks, and of the depths which
divide them.
“But there is one thought in which you may take some comfort. You have
told me that your kind, or some of them, will eat their fellow-men when
occasion offers. The Dwellers are, at the worst, so entirely incapable
of such conduct, that you may reasonably hope that there will be a
similar measure of difference between your own treatment of your
domestic animals, and that which you will receive from them, should you
be captured or surrender to them.”
I replied, “I should be glad to think so; but the fact is that the
practice I mentioned is almost entirely confined to men with darker
skins than mine. I have, as you observe, a light skin, tinged with pink.
All men whose skins are of this kind believe it to be an evidence of
every kind of superiority,--and how the darker cannibals may treat their
domestic animals it is unfortunate that I do not know.”
Her mind replied with a sudden ripple of merriment. “I suppose you jest.
But let us turn from these things, and consider what next we shall do,
and how quickly. For time is short before I must take decision as to
whether I shall return within the limit fixed. Yet much may be done, if
we are fortunate, in the space remaining; and, as you said in your
anger, the Dwellers are not quick to discover us. Yet I think you err
when you make light of our peril. Are there no vermin in your own
buildings, which you might disregard for more urgent matters, but which
you would destroy very easily at the allotted time, or should occasion
arise to do so?”
I said, “Yes, there are; yet some of them have found craft by which they
continue, and so must we also. But, first, cannot we learn something
more from this book which we have borrowed so easily? For myself, I am
determined to seek my friend, till I know of his death, or have found
him. He may be near us now, or he may be a thousand miles away, or in
depths beyond our imaginations. What can we tell, with so little to
guide our guessing? And for you, if we can discover whether we have yet
intruded into one of the Sacred Places to which the treaty alludes, it
may make a vital difference to the action which you should take for your
own security.”
She answered “Let us try,” and we rose, and moved again as quietly as
possible into the lighted room. I do not think that this was really
necessary, but it gave us a sense of secrecy to interrogate the red
globe from the shorter distance, and appeared to reduce the risk that
our thoughts would disturb the mind of the sleeper.
CHAPTER IX
THE FLAME OF LIFE
For a long time we asked questions to which we could obtain no answer,
or not such as conveyed any meaning to us.
We tried to learn the extent and depth of the domain of the Dwellers,
and the location of the Reservations in which my friend might be
confined. But the book was not a geography. Neither was it a first
volume. Its records evidently assumed a mass of knowledge which we did
not possess.
We made progress of a kind when it occurred to me that it would give us
some indication of the probable extent of the subterranean world if we
could learn its population.
“How many are there of the nation of the Dwellers?” I queried.
There was no answer.
“How many were there last year?”
No answer came.
“Have you any records of population?”
It seemed as though there were a mental impulse of hesitation, but still
no answer came.
“How many children were born last year?” it occurred to me to ask.
The answer was immediate, “_It was reported to the Council of Five that
three boys had been born in the Great Nursery, and one in the Place of
Renunciation._”
“And how many girls?” I replied, in a natural supposition that this
information was incomplete, but there was no answer.
I then went back, querying from year to year, getting for each year a
similar answer but with a total that increased as the years receded, and
with a record of male births only, till, at ten years’ distance, the
reply came--
_It was reported to the Council of Five that eight boys had been born in
the Great Nursery, and twenty-four boys and one girl in the Place of
Twilight._
I would have asked further, but my companion interposed with reason. “I
think that we are learning little. If it can tell how long they live,
and how many are their deaths, (for as they are born, I suppose that
they may die also), we can then judge how numerous they may be, but from
their births only we cannot.” This we tried, but only to be met again
with silence, or with baffling answers.
By persistence and variety in the form of queries we obtained allusion
to “those of the Great Lethargy,” and to “The Desire of the Darkness,”
but nothing more definite. In a final desperation I tried to obtain
information by means of inquiry as to their customs of marriage, and at
last obtained abstracts from the report of a very lengthy trial or
debate, which threw a sombre and uncertain light upon the information
which we had obtained already.
Mainly, it consisted of a duel of argument between The First, who was
evidently male, and whom we supposed to be the head of the Council of
Five,--and the Elected One, who was a woman.
It was evident from the moods of both that the matter with which they
dealt was of a tragic and overwhelming importance, though there could
hardly have been a greater contrast than was shown in the styles of
their controversy.
The thoughts of The First were slow, deliberate, weighty, solemn, yet
with an extremity of urging which almost amounted to supplication. Those
of the Elected One were swift, insistent, passionate, crowding thought
on thought, in protest, defiance, and vindication. They were impatient
with the intolerance of youth, and bold with the assurance of
immortality.
It appeared that the First One put forward a new method of life for the
women of their kind, or for their descendants, pleading that its
adoption was essential to the continuance of the race of the Dwellers.
But with a fierce scorn she repelled it--“Do you think that women will
consent to be as uncoloured and alike as men? Or that they will conceal
themselves in dead hangings, as in some savage infancy of the world?”
He answered slowly, “It is only this, that you will be alone if you will
not. If you will not that your daughters do these things to save our
race from extinction, then you will be alone in your own places. No man
will come to you. It is already resolved that all shall take this vow,
if you refuse to aid us.”
The reply came with a swift derision. “And would they keep it for a
score of sunsets? Is there a man in the Lower Places that would not come
if I should call him? But it is the thing which we have resolved also.
It is no threat to us. Till we have the girl, there is no man shall come
near us. There is no man shall cross the Blue Darkness, nor enter into
the Place of Twilight. We will not appear at the Feasts of the Inner
Moon, nor at the Mimes of the Recollections. Should we rejoice in our
seats on the Upper Slopes, knowing that we had doomed our daughters to
be less than we?”
The First One answered with the same deliberation as before, but with a
cold finality, as one delivering a judgment from which no appeal could
be made. “For six months’ time, unless you sooner yield, there is no man
will come near you. If you are rebellious longer, we shall use such
force as may be needed that our wills may conquer, and thereafter there
will be nothing of the Place of Twilight, nor of the Blue Darkness, nor
of the Place of Preparation.
“If your seats be in the Upper Slopes at the time of the Great Assembly,
are not these seats made by the hands of men? Are they not known as the
Given Places?
“That which we give we can take.
“If there be any wisdom among you, all these things may continue; but
for your daughters is a different way.”
His thought smote the mind decisively, as a doom relentless and
unescapable, but it did not daunt the courage nor abase the mockery of
the thought that met it. “You threaten that which is beyond your power,
nor do we fear, nor believe you. In six months’ time you will not waste
the Blue Darkness nor the Place of Twilight, for if we do not have the
girl by the next new moon, we will ourselves destroy them. _Tell your
young men that._ Tell them that we shall uproot the Wilderness and the
Five Approaches. You may counsel; but will they refrain? You may
threaten; but will they act?
“You are old and weary of life, but we are not old, and we shall never
weary. Life is ours, and we have learnt by your failure. But we will not
resign our customs either in the Choosing of Males, or in the Rites of
the Preparations. Shall our daughters be less than we? Or shall we
degrade ourselves that others may come after us? We are ourselves the
race, and it is in ourselves that it shall continue.”
At this point, as a book may be illustrated, so the thought changed to
picture, and we had a moment’s sight of the protagonists as they had
appeared as these thoughts were contended.
They were in a lighted space in a hall of vast and shadowy gloom, so
that even their giant forms were dwarfed by its proportions. They were
in the midst of a great assembly, through and over which there was a
diffused light, coming from no visible source, so that the gloom
deepened on every side towards the vaulted roof, and the invisible
distance of the walls.
She stood forward from a group of women, vital as herself,
multi-coloured in their nudity. But she stood out from them like a
living flame, the ruddy orange of her hair continuing in a lengthened
ridge along the spine, dividing the fire-hued back that softened forward
to a paler gold.
There was no speech from her lips, for their thoughts leapt out too
swiftly for words, but they were parted in mockery, and her eyes were
alight with defiance, as The First leaned forward from his high throned
seat, and threw out sudden hands of pleading as he increased the
intensity of the thought with which he assailed her.
“You boast that you will not die, as we have boasted before you. You
boast that you will not tire. Are there no women in the Place of
Forgetting? Are there not those among them that are as vigorous as
yourself, and with a beauty that may last for millenniums? Yet love
cannot allure them. If those that have been dearest approach, they
regard them with indifferent eyes. We show them birth, and they are not
wakened: they see death, and have no care to avoid it.
“Look at myself!”--he rose up from the throne, and stood erect, strong,
active, as though he were an ivory statue of perpetual youth,--“is there
one of the young men who seek the Place of Twilight who is more strong
or more graceful?--One whom I could not overcome with my hands in the
Place of Trials? Will it not still be so for a millennium of the years
to be.--And for another--and another?
“_And yet I know._ I have heard the call that will grow louder. I have
felt the desire of the Silence,--and it will grow, though to-day it be
powerless. It will conquer, though to-day it be impotent.
“As you boast to-day, have we not boasted before you?
“We think to last in the Perpetual Places, but the night will find us,
even as it falls on the rain-drenched roof of the world, where our
ancestors once crouched and shivered.
“We have conquered cold. We have defeated darkness. We have tamed heat
till it licks our feet like a fawning dog. We have resisted corruption.
But there is a night of the soul that falls across the procession of
unending years, against which, one by one, we fight a battle that is
always lost.
“... And every year our race declines, and our women-children are fewer.
“Therefore, each for each, shall you take the Males of our choosing,
forgetting the Caprice of Choice, and the Seven Grounds of Rejection.
Therefore shall the girl go not to the Place of Preparation, but to the
toil of the fish-tanks, and so in turn shall the two that are
younger----”
It was at this point that my comrade interrupted, not impatiently, but
with a quick suggestion that the discussion to which we were attending
was of no immediate assistance, and when I assented somewhat
reluctantly,--for I had been more interested than she in the situation
which was revealed by the disputation,--she went on to suggest that the
book we were consulting so industriously was not likely to contain
anything of a greater value.
She added, “I think that we are not merely wasting time, but incurring a
needless peril. I think that there is little doubt that we have
penetrated into the Sacred Places where the Dwellers did not wish us to
enter, and it may be that we have already encountered the reason for
this reluctance. It is not likely that they would wish this information
as to the condition of their nation to be known, even to their friends,
and still less that there should be any possibility that it might be
carried farther to those who are at enmity with them. There may be other
things which might be learnt which would be still more to their
detriment. It might be fatal to both of us should we be discovered in
this occupation, while we have little hope of any resulting gain, for it
is not the history of past days which we need to know, but rather the
place where your friend is confined, the means of secret approach, the
method by which he may be freed, and the safest road of escape to the
outer world when we have released him.”
I answered, “You are right, as you usually are. But we have a proverb
that we may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, which appears
applicable to our present circumstances. If our movements and occupation
be within the knowledge of the Dwellers, our prospect of escape is
already too small to be interesting. If they have no knowledge, as yet,
of where we are, I suggest that we may do well to discover the library
from which this volume had apparently been taken, where there may be
other books of a more direct utility.”
My companion assented, though doubtfully. “It is an added risk, for an
uncertain gain; yet it is true that if we turn back now, we have very
little to set against the certain peril which we have incurred by
penetrating into these secret places. Nor have we any guidance to direct
our search in subterranean ways, the extent of which may be greater even
than we have previously anticipated,--and even the search for the
library which we suppose to exist does not appear to be a very simple
enterprise.”
I knew that. The librarian, if such she were, had followed us down the
passage, and must have come either from the surface world, or from one
of the other passages that we had passed. The latter was the more
probable supposition. But which passage should we prefer? And how far
should we explore it before turning back and attempting the other?
The search for such a library, even should it exist, might be as
difficult as for the ultimate destination at which we were aiming. I saw
also that time had become of greater importance to my companion than to
myself. I had still the best part of the year before me. She had days
only, if she were to return within the limit fixed by the treaty. To
both of us it might be of the greatest moment to escape unseen from the
Sacred Places, if these were really they. For myself, there was the
consideration that, should she return within the allotted period, I
should be left without the aid of her counsel, or the support of her
vitality.
It was under the influence of these thoughts that I suggested, “Suppose
we wait here for a time, watching from the farther side of the passage.
It may be that she will wake, and herself return the book to the
library, and we would follow unseen. Otherwise, we might follow her in
any other direction which she might take, which would be as likely to
bring us to some definite issue, as wandering blindly in the darkness of
these passages--and we know how much easier is the walking when she goes
before us. But if she should sleep beyond our patience we will search
ourselves without further waiting.”
My companion answered, still doubtfully, “I don’t think it likely that
she brought the book simply to return it, for why then should she not
have given it the information where it was, without bringing it here at
all? But it may be so. It is all guesses. It shall be as you will.”
Before we commenced our vigil, however, I made a further venture into
the lighted room, for I had seen that both water and food (the
bread-like cake which I had found when first I ventured below the
surface) were among the articles that stood against the left-hand wall,
and the chance was too good to lose.
I have wondered since, in the light of these experiences, how far the
furtive lives of those creatures who exist behind the skirting-boards of
our houses, are to be either pitied or envied. I feed, as a mouse feeds,
venturing audaciously for bedside crumbs while a light still burns, and
the fear, real enough, and with sufficient cause, which came as I
watched the huge form that might rise at any moment and chase me with a
monstrous hand outstretched, must be off-set by the satisfaction that
the meal gave to the alertness of my physical being, and to the joyous
sense of a hazard won with which I rejoined my companion in the outer
darkness.
For (have I not said already?) the darkness in the passage was absolute.
Even immediately in front of the open doorway, the darkness fell like a
curtain.
Here arises an issue on which I am in two minds continually. In this
strange world we were constantly surrounded by phenomena which were not
explicable by any knowledge I possessed, nor consistent with any
previous experiences. So was it here. I was accustomed to light that
invaded darkness and gradually died as its source was distanced, but
here was light which was sharply defined in its area,--which ended
evenly and abruptly. To explain this is necessary for my narrative. But
that necessity is incidental. We were surrounded by phenomena which were
equally new, but which were entirely irrelevant. Sometimes I was able to
imagine an explanation: sometimes not. Sometimes the cause became clear
subsequently, or was told to me. I should like to tell of all these
things, but I have a tale to tell also. I am of one mind to turn aside,
and of another mind to go forward. But I see that if I would reach the
conclusion at which I aim, I must restrain my desire to wander.
We sat for some time in the darkness against the opposite wall watching
the form of the Dweller, who did not move, and was still apparently
sleeping. There was no means of judging the passage of time, but it was
long since I had slept, and after the meal I had to confess to an
increasing drowsiness, on which my companion suggested that I should use
the time in sleep, which I required at shorter intervals than herself,
while she would watch for us both.
CHAPTER X
VISIONS
I do not know how long I slept, but suppose it to have been for many
hours. I waked to find that nothing had changed.
Invigorated by rest, I was quite willing to agree that we should wait no
longer, but proceed upon our own investigations.
Rising with this purpose, our eyes were first attracted to the wall
behind us in which was depicted one of those living scenes with which we
had already become familiar.
Strange and wonderful as they then seemed, I have since realised that
there were many simpler-seeming things around me which are less easily
explicable.
Knowing, as we do, that sight travels through space, bearing the vision
of that which was, to the infinite distances, and that we ourselves can
behold the stars of earlier millenniums in positions which they have
long ceased to occupy, it is not difficult to understand that the
Dwellers must have discovered a process by which such visions could be
deflected or reflected back to the earth from which they originated, and
that it was the past history of the earth which was unfolded through the
walls of these dark and (as we subsequently realised) seemingly unending
corridors.
The substance of the walls on or through which these scenes were
displayed excited but did not gratify my curiosity. The effect was as
though looking through a dark mirror which gave a moving scene on a
large scale. The impression was not as is that of a moving picture, but
of great actual distances opening before us. Or, in another place, the
view might be blocked immediately by rising ground, by trees, or by
buildings. There did not appear to be any selection either of place or
time. They were not scenes of dramatic moment, or of selected beauty:
they were not seen from any position of special advantage. They appeared
to develop at the same rate that they had done in original fact, so
that, if you should wish to know what would happen next month you must
watch or return at that interval, to observe it.
I tried to place my hand on the wall, expecting to encounter some
substance of a glassy smoothness, but I felt no physical contact
whatever.--Only an inability to move my hand farther forward.
My companion, more sensitive than myself to any neighbouring substance,
could only tell me that she had an impression as of a transparent
solidity, but of a substance which she had never previously encountered.
It was another point of interest, for which I have no explanation, that
these scenes, or pictures, were not continuous, nor were they divided
sharply from one another, but the outlines would become faint and
blurred, till they were no more than faintly-coloured mist, which, as we
continued to move beside it, would again show blurred outlines that
would develop, farther on, into a quite different scene.
The view which we now beheld was that of a sunny downland, unfenced and
green, beside which we might not have paused but for the sight of a mass
of rock, the memento doubtless of some volcanic or glacial activity,
which rose from the level green. It was flat-sided at its nearest view,
and a figure crouched before it, with his back towards us, but somewhat
sideways. He was man-like in shape and size, quite naked, olive-green in
colour, with a round blue patch, of the size of a tea-plate, stained or
painted between his shoulders. It may have been a mark of honour, or a
sign of servitude, or of merely ornamental significance. His hair, which
was thickly coarse, and black, was drawn over one shoulder in a heavy
plait.
He was sitting on doubled legs, the feet showing clearly. They were
strangely long, and slender. The middle toe was the longest, and ended
in a strong curving claw.
He was carving on the face of the rock with some rude tool that I could
not see plainly. He was so absorbed in his work that a small bird, which
was hovering restlessly near, took courage, and slipped into a thorny
gorse-like bush, which grew against the stone, doubtless to the rescue
of eggs that were chilling. I cannot say that it was gorse. It was not
in flower. But the grass might have grown on the downs of my own time. I
saw the fragile blue of harebells among it, and only one plant, a
clover-like copper-coloured herbage, which I could not recognise. Yet
the man, if such I may call him, was strange enough, and so was a small
rabbit-like creature, with a long tail, thick at the root, which slapped
the ground as it moved, which was feeding nearer and nearer to the
silent figure,--only to disappear with a series of zig-zag rushes when
the man sat back suddenly.
But he had only paused to consider his work. He showed his face now,
low, broad, angular, but not uncomely, or unintelligent, having very
prominent black brows that balanced the sharp projecting tusk-like teeth
at the mouth-corners.
He sat back now to survey his work, with eyes that were yellow and very
bright. He was evidently absorbed in it, to the exclusion of other
consciousness. As he sat and considered it, he bent round a flexible leg
and scratched his belly absently with the long central toe. It was not a
human action. I could see what he had drawn now. It was a bird, in shape
somewhat like a hen, of the old-English game-fowl breed, not with the
distorted lankiness of the show-pen monstrosities which succeeded it.
But it had an impression of great size, and, rudely though it was drawn,
the head and beak had an expression of vulture-like rapacity. There were
no spurs on its legs.
And then we saw the bird itself, advancing quietly over the down behind
him.
It must have been eight or nine feet in height, possibly more. It was
obviously stalking him, moving with careful slowness, foot by foot, its
neck stretched before it, its great beak half-open, its wings (which
were short, and showed a mass of fluffy feathers, somewhat like those of
an ostrich) lifted, but not moving.
He was absorbed in his work again, and appeared unaware of the
approaching danger. I felt an impulse to call, to warn him. It was all
so near, so real, watching the sunny scene, and seeing the grass move as
the wind stirred it.
The great bird was within twenty yards now, a greedy anticipation in the
eyes that never left the prey they were stalking. I knew that the lifted
wings and the stretched neck were in a tremor of anticipation for the
final rush, when it should have crept so near that to attempt escape
would be hopeless. Would nothing warn him? Had those long, queer
flexible legs the power to outdistance such a creature? Or had he any
means of defence should the warning come?
The twenty yards were ten now,--and the rush came. It was too swift and
sudden for the eye to follow, and yet it failed of its object. The
bird’s impetus simply dashed against the bare rock, on which itself was
depicted. The expected victim--had he really heard the approach and
feigned his ignorance till the last second?--had leapt straight upward,
more, I thought, like a kangaroo than a man, touched a moment upon the
top of the stone, and descended upon the farther side.
The bird rushed round it. So did the man. The circuit was so short, the
speed so great, that it was difficult to say which was pursuing the
other. I thought that if the man increased his speed but a trifle he
would be on the flying heels of his pursuer. In fact, that happened. The
bird knew it, and tried to turn, but was a half-second too late, as it
had been previously. The man had leapt on to its back. Its beak was
twisted round to tear him, but his two hands gripped the scraggy
feathered throat and held it off. The long neck jerked desperately. But
the man’s grip was inexorable. It found that, with all its wrenching, it
could not break clear: with all its efforts it could not get its beak
near enough to tear him.
Balancing on one leg, it raised the other to pull him off, as a hen
scratches her eye. An olive-green thigh reddened where a long claw
caught it, but then the man’s leg, that seemed so strangely flexible,
was twisted round the attacking limb, and had gained control of the
danger.
The bird staggered, and its leg came to ground again. As it did so, I
saw the man reach up his other foot, the long central claw catching in
the skinny throat, just below where he had gripped it beneath the beak.
He drove it in, and tore downward. The bird plunged violently. Bird and
man came to the ground together in a flurry of feathers. Then the man
leapt clear. He leapt far forward, over its head, a bound of twenty
feet, if not thirty, with a head that looked back as he did so. But the
bird did not follow. It lay where it had fallen. Blood poured from the
opened throat, a bright scarlet on the green grass. The legs kicked, and
were still.
The man came back cautiously. The bird had died just beneath the picture
which he had made. He looked from one to the other, and his gaze was
troubled. He picked up the head, and raised it with the limp neck till
it was at the height of his shoulder. He appeared to compare it with his
drawing, and was not contented.
It was only after this that he showed consciousness of his own wound.
There was a long gash on the side of the thigh, and the blood ran to his
foot. Probably it was not deep. He jumped twice, and the bleeding
increased. He threw back his head, and his mouth opened widely. We
supposed that he was calling loudly, though we could hear nothing. He
did this several times. Then he sat down by the dead bird, and waited.
We stood there for a few minutes longer, but nothing happened, and we
passed on.
I was puzzled by the sight of creatures different from anything of which
bone or fossil had told us, and yet seeming to be of an earlier world
than mine. But perhaps they were later. There had been time for many
changes since then.
Then I caught sight of my companion’s foot, with its central toe. A
grotesque resemblance struck me between the two feet. Had I witnessed a
link which connected her through the changing millenniums with my
earlier humanity? No, there was no other resemblance. The idea was
absurd.
Yet I gave her the thought when she asked it, though I meant it for her
amusement only.
She took it with an abstract seriousness, pausing before she answered,
“You are giving me new thoughts, as you often do. The resemblance seems
slight, and the connection unlikely. What is the shape of a foot,
considered beside the other differences? In many ways we are less unlike
to each other than is either to the creature we have been watching. But
I have not thought of these changes. In many centuries there has been
little difference in the sea-creatures. Perhaps such changes take place
more rapidly on the land. Yet there have been changes in the sea, enough
to show that such things are.
“And if they be, they must have been in every grade of difference, and
in others beyond thought or counting. Can we, who are the thoughts of
God, imagine what He had not thought? Must it not be, if we think it?”
I answered, “I cannot follow that. To the thinking of my kind, we are,
in part at least, alien from, and displeasing to our Creator, Whose
thoughts are very different from ours.”
She replied, “You may be right. I have no opinion on that. For, to me,
your thought has no meaning.”
CHAPTER XI
WAR
I do not think that I should have been content to leave the argument,
for it was ever our way to continue through disagreement or
misunderstanding until we had arrived at a point of harmony, but that,
at the moment, we both became aware of steps that were approaching to
meet us.
We had not gone many yards from the lighted doorway, and we withdrew
against the wall in a common impulse of silence.
The steps were evidently those of another of the Dwellers, and as he
passed without apparently becoming aware of our presence in the
darkness, and continued along the passage, we should probably have gone
on our proposed way, as soon as the dangers of detection were over, had
he not turned in at the open doorway, on seeing which we were at one in
our inclination to return sufficiently to observe what would happen.
We were well content that we had done this, when we observed him go to
the living ball, and bend down beside it, putting a hand to the ground
after removing the imprisoning ring, on which it began at once to
clamber up the slanting arm, turning over with a ball-like motion, and
perching on his shoulder, in the manner which we had observed already.
We noticed that the newcomer was much less in height than were the
Dwellers, either man or woman, that we had observed previously, and from
this, and other youthful indications, it was not difficult to understand
that we were watching a youth who had not yet gained his full stature.
The sleeping figure did not stir, nor did he address himself to her, and
I suppose that he would have gone on to the library to which the book
was to be returned (for we had been right in this supposition, as the
event proved, excepting only that it was the work of a subordinate, and
not of the Librarian herself), but that, as he turned to leave the
chamber, he was confronted by another youth, of his own age, who came
from the opposite direction, and with an appearance of haste and
excitement, such as I had not observed among these people previously.
He commenced speaking immediately, and, as he did so, the Librarian
arose from her couch so instantly and so quietly as to lead me to wonder
whether she had been asleep at all.
The messenger assailed her mind as she rose with a pressure of thought
of which I could feel the impact, though I could not interpret it
clearly, and appeared to be unable to avoid supplementing it with a
useless triplication of speech and gesture. His auditor surveyed his
excitement with a cool detachment which emphasised the millenniums of
years that divided them. When he had finished, she took back the book
from his waiting companion, and gave it an obviously quieter and briefer
narrative. Then she lay down again, while the two youths left the
chamber together, taking the book with them.
It was doubtless their excited condition that caused them to move so
rapidly that we had to quicken to a run to keep within sound of their
footsteps.
They led us back to the end of the passage, and then along the curving
way, till we came to the next of the dark openings,--the one that led
directly opposite to that by which we had entered beneath the temple. We
followed them along it for about a quarter of a mile, finding it was in
all respects alike to the other, being entirely dark, but having similar
scenes developing within its walls continually. Had I been alone, I
think that I could hardly have controlled my curiosity concerning some
of them,--for I kept sufficiently close to the wall to observe them as
we hurried past,--but I was too conscious of the useless folly of
lingering to make such a suggestion to my companion.
I had short glimpses of a score of scenes which I had no time to
consider, and which left no clear impression, but of a bewildering
variety of landscapes, and once of a tossing windswept sea, beneath a
clouded moon. I caught no sight of human life, except once only, when I
thought there was a distant string of horsemen trailing wearily along a
muddy trampled road, but the scene was obscured by a storm of hail, and
before I could be sure of what I had seen, it had been left behind.
Following in the wake of the two youths, we moved without difficulty,
and kept so nearly behind them that it became necessary to stop very
abruptly when they halted in the darkness.
We heard them turn to the left-hand wall and then a vertical line of
fuchsia-coloured light showed and widened, as a double door slid
backward on either hand.
They went in through this door, and we followed to the entrance, secure
in the fact that no light fell outward. It rose up like a wall of purple
transparency where the door had opened, but it did not penetrate the
darkness in which we stood.
Looking inward we saw, on either hand, high and low, long tiers of racks
on which such living books as that which we had already seen were ranged
in close and orderly rows. They were of somewhat different sizes,
usually about twice that of a man’s head, but more like a large marble
in the hands of those who owned them.
The space between the shelves was wide enough for the two Dwellers to
move side by side, and was more than proportionately lofty; yet, by
reason of its length, it had an effect of narrowness.
Down this alley the bearer of the living history strode for a few paces,
to put it in its place on the rack to which it belonged, his friend
moving beside him. My companion’s mind called me, “Come quickly” and
together we crossed the threshold.
As in our own libraries, the lowest tier of books was close to the
ground. There was just room beneath the rack for us to stand in comfort.
We were under it in a moment.
As we reached this shelter, they turned back. They went out, and the
sliding doors closed behind them.
I disliked the closing of those doors. It reminded me of one that had
closed three nights ago in the darkness. My companion read my mind with
some amusement. “It was your proposal,” she suggested.
“But I don’t like being shut in.”
“How can it matter, till we want to get out?” she answered. “Why will
you always worry over troubles you haven’t got? We wanted to find the
place, and here it is. We wanted to get into it, and here we are. Even
though we should worry later, when we may want to get out, we ought to
be glad now. Let us be glad that we are undisturbed, and see what
knowledge we can acquire which may aid us.”
Her coolness made my fears seem foolish, (as, indeed, they were), and it
was in a recovered serenity that I joined her mind to my own in
exploring the storehouse of knowledge which we had penetrated so
strangely.
We emerged from our cover, and walked along the lofty aisle between the
racks,--pigmies whose hands would scarcely reach to the second shelf,
and whose heads did not reach to the first one.
It was a strange sensation. Even in a library of dead books there is an
atmosphere of knowledge, and of the presence of many forgotten, ghostly
minds. Each room has its own aroma. You may wander with closed eyes into
the divinity section, but you will know at once that you are not in that
of fiction or biography. The atmosphere in a room devoted to sporting
books is different from that of one which is occupied with medical
subjects. That is so with dead books; but these were living. Living
books on either side, clamouring to be read, and we could not read them.
Their desire met ours, but we had no key to their treasures. They would
each answer to the right question, but having no knowledge of what they
contained, we asked of each in turn for that which it could not give,
and an unwilling silence rebuffed us.
Faced by this dilemma, we decided to seek the one book which we knew,
and gain the information which it had received since last we probed it.
We found it without difficulty, about forty yards along on the seventh
tier on the left hand. We both recognised it, high above us though it
was, for these books were not alike. They were all of the same colour,
lobster-red, but the shades varied with each. They all had the little
swaying hands that turned and balanced the living globes, but there was
a difference in each: a difference of personality. They were subtly
individualised by the kind of knowledge which they contained.
So we came to the one of which we knew something already, and received
the last record which we had seen communicated to it. It was brief and
colourless, compared to the evident excitement and long report of the
mind which had brought it, but it was sufficiently momentous, even to
me, and more so when my companion (who had already followed much of it,
and on some points had learnt more detail than was in the recorded
narrative) had explained it to me. It ran thus:
At one fifth after dawn on (here followed a symbol of
date, which conveyed no meaning to my mind) the
fourteenth patrol, on reaching the coast-ridge, observed
two Antipodeans approaching from the east. After
skirting the protective belt for some distance, one of
them attempted to turn into it, lost balance, and
recovered with difficulty. They then soared to a height
of ... (about four miles) when one of them drew
backward, and charged the belt at a very high speed. It
fell when the most part of its bulk was over the belt,
but so that its tail lay in the sea. It was then
inspected as closely as possible, and was seen to be
disabled, but not dead. It was observed to be
differently formed from any previously seen, so that it
was less damaged than would have been anticipated from
so great a fall. It was presumed to be dying, as its
companion descended to the surface of the water, and
commenced to take off its contents through the tail.
Orders were given for the Blue Fire to be used, which
was done twice, but with only partial success, so that
seven Dwellers are dead. Before noon, it was observed
that life was extinct in its main cell, and its
companion retreated. Report was made to the
laboratories; from which orders were issued for the
sufficient flaying of two thousand of the grey-skinned
males.
It was clear from this, even to me, that war was commenced against the
Dwellers by some alien species; but the record was exasperating in its
brevity, and puzzling in the particulars which it supplied, so that I
turned to my companion for explanation.
She answered me readily, though not without a suggestion that we were
wasting time over matters that did not directly concern us.
“Of the last sentence I can give no explanation, but the remainder is
clear enough, excepting only that I do not know how or why there should
have been any deaths to the Dwellers. We knew already that war was
recommencing between the Antipodeans and themselves, which could only
mean that they are being attacked, as it is not likely that they would
attempt to cross the sea or air to assail the Antipodeans, which would
be absurd. Why should they? It would be too unpleasant. The Dwellers
cannot travel under water, and even we avoid the surface around the
coasts of the Antipodeans. Some of my nation have seen the Dwellers
experimenting with the Blue Fire, though I have not. That was many
centuries ago. It moves about like a living thing. The report suggests
to my mind that the result of the attack is not entirely satisfactory to
the Dwellers, though it had resulted in the destruction of one of their
enemies. But if we allow our minds to be occupied by these events, which
do not concern us, we are making them detrimental rather than helpful.”
I answered, “But, surely, they are of interest to you, because of the
alliance you have mentioned, for which I suppose that your own nation
might suffer, should the Dwellers fail in the conflict.”
But this suggestion did not perturb her.
“It is difficult to imagine how we could suffer,” she replied, “for
though we might, in theory at least, be attacked on the Grey Beaches, it
could not be done without our having ample time to vacate them, and we
could retire, were the need sufficient, to the ocean depths, where we
could dwell for ever, and where neither side could pursue us.
“The position of the Dwellers is different. Although they have made
their homes within the body of the earth, they appear to find it
necessary to control, or have access to, some portion of the surface;
or, at least, they are unwilling to resign it. Obviously, they could not
hold it in safety or comfort, if the Antipodeans were always likely to
be feeding upon them.”
“I wish,” I answered, “you would give me some explanation, or sight, of
what these Antipodeans are, when many things might be clearer to me. The
Dwellers do not appear to me as creatures who would be easily eaten, or
who lack means of defence. I suppose that these creatures, which have
the power of flight (which the Dwellers do not attempt?) must be as
formidable in mind as they appear to be huge in body.”
“They are certainly large,” she answered, “but I can say little as to
their minds. I am not sure that they have any. They are not easy to
understand. But I can show you them as they appeared in the mind of the
messenger, when he reported of this fighting.”
Then she gave my mind a vision of sunlit space, with some white cumulus
clouds drifting below, and of a flying insect,--nothing more than that.
It had three pairs of transparent horizontal wings, and beetle-like,
copper-coloured wing-cases, stiffly lifted, but moving occasionally, as
though to steer or balance the flying form.
It seemed small to me, because there was no standard of comparison in
that high void, and because I had a mind which assumed the smallness of
insects.
It drew back--hovered--flew forward at its utmost speed, with wing-beats
too swift to follow,--checked in its flight with an incredible
suddenness, as though it had struck an invisible obstacle,--and fell
headlong.
My mind followed it as it fell, and it was only as the earth rushed
upward to meet it that I was aware that it was of such a size that an
elephant might have travelled as a flea on its back. Though it fell
headlong, it did not turn over in the air, but appeared to be steadied
from the tail.
Though it was so huge, and fell from so great a height, it was not
destroyed by the impact. It was not even broken. It lay with wings
spread flatly over such a growth of glossy leaves as I had seen on my
first morning with the pink tongues licking upward between them.
There was no height of cliff at this point. Compared with the monster’s
bulk, the shore showed no great shelving. It lay with a long tail in the
water, and the end afloat on a calm sea.
But though it was unbroken, it did not appear uninjured. It had a
curiously flattened appearance, and though the tail moved at times, the
rest of the body appeared unable to do so.
Then the scene blurred, as though the narrator’s mind had failed to
picture its report, and cleared again to show it lying beneath a hail of
blue lightning. Only, the shafts of light did not flash and cease, but
remained visible, like blue whiplashes, striking and recoiling around
their disabled victim. I could not see from where they came.
Beneath this attack, the gauze-like wings shrivelled and disappeared.
The long tail lashed out, beating the water to tempest.
But when the lightnings struck the still-lifted wing-sheathes, or the
lustrous head, they slipped off harmlessly; and when some of them
attempted to penetrate beneath the sheathes, they were not repelled, but
appeared to be drawn in against their own wills, by a force which they
resisted vainly, though some made a better struggle than others, and
disappeared very slowly.
Then I was aware of another of these monstrous insects flying low over
the water. As it neared the conflict, its head drew back into a
neck-like collar, which shone with a metallic lustre, similar to that of
the wing-sheathes. The front pair of sheathes lifted and adjusted their
positions, till they formed a vertical shield to the advancing monster.
The blue lightnings, under no visible controls, grouped and advanced
through the air to meet their new adversary.
Swiftly as an eyelid winks, a glow of petunia-red appeared and faded on
the polished sheathes.
Instantly, the lightnings separated, and drew back. They reminded me,
grotesquely enough, of a pack of dogs that had brought a beast to bay
which they would not leave, but lacked the strength to pull down.
Then, almost too swiftly for sight to follow, they struck,--all, I
thought, at one spot beneath the withdrawn head. As they did so, the
petunia light glowed again, and in the same instant they recoiled,
writhing curiously, as though sentient and damaged.
After that, they disappeared entirely.
Freed from the annoyance of these attacks, the fallen monster lay quiet.
The convulsions of its tail ceased.
The rescuer, still almost upon the surface of the water, turned its head
seaward, and twined its tail around that of its companion.
So it remained for some time, with rapidly-beating wings, stationary
above the water. While it did so, its bulk appeared to increase, while
that of the fallen appeared to lessen, so that it lay flatter than
before, and its tail became flabby.
When they parted, the one lay inert, with no further sign of life, while
the other rose heavily, as though sated by a full meal.
I was stopped from further observation by the impatience of my
companion’s mind.
“Shall we not seek the things that more nearly concern us?” she
suggested.
I agreed, but added, “I am puzzled by what I have seen, and it would
take you little time to explain it, if you are able to do so. Are these
great bulks alive? Or do they contain smaller living creatures that
control them, as did an airship in the world I left?”
She answered, “Why not both? And if both, why should you suppose that
the smaller will control the greater?” And when she saw that her thought
confused my mind for a moment, she went on, “You know that I have a body
which is entirely mine, and which is clear of any alien life; and I know
that you have a body over which you have little influence, except in
some of its muscular activities, because a countless number of separate
lives are within you, and do not accept your authority. You have shown
me that you do not control the actions of a single corpuscle of your
blood, and were you able, you have not the requisite knowledge to enable
you to do so intelligently.
“But why should there not be such separate smaller life existing either
in subordination, or in control, of a larger physical body, and yet able
to sever connection without loss of vitality, as the dominant will may
direct?”
“The idea you give me,” I answered, “is as that of a living ship, which
is yet controlled by the crew it carries. Are the Antipodeans really of
this kind?”
“I cannot tell you that,” she replied, “I only showed you that you were
assuming more than is indicated by what we have seen. I can only tell
you that they dominate the most part of the world, and that their dead
bodies are so frequently lying on the shores of the lands they inhabit
as to suggest that they must be very short-lived. But they are too
antipathetic for us to land on those shores, or have any dealings with
them.”
CHAPTER XII
THE FATE OF TEMPLETON
Whatever interest might lie in the spectacle of Titanic conflict which
we had witnessed, it was of little direct assistance to our present
purpose. It showed that the Dwellers might be sufficiently occupied by
more important matters to be unlikely to give much attention to our
escape or capture, but we had known that already. If the moment were
propitious, there were the greater reason for acting swiftly, and when
we found that there was nothing further to be gained from the one volume
which we had been able to interrogate, we resolved to cut the knot of
our difficulty by a systematic inquiry, from corridor to corridor, for
any record of the Vivisection Department, which had been mentioned as
dealing with one, at least, of those for whom I was searching.
Even then, our inquiry might have been long and difficult, had we not
obtained an immediate response from an index, which was almost beside
us, at the entrance to the library, from which point we had resolved to
commence our inquiry.
It replied, “The 92nd on the 14th row, in the Hall of Dead Books,
contains a plan of the Level of the Inquirers, which includes the Bureau
of Prehistoric Zoology, and the Places of Vivisection. The plan is that
of the 28th of the Lower Levels, below the Division. The 73rd book on
the 2nd tier on the left-hand side of the 83rd corridor, contains an
account of all vivisections during the last five moons.”
We went at once to the latter book, as it was the nearer, and it was
here that we gained the first sight,--at least in picture,--of one of
those whose absence had brought me on this strange adventure.
After we had inquired through much detail, sometimes fascinating in its
enigmatic suggestions, sometimes repellent in its exhibitions of what
appeared to me to be a very callous brutality, we were shown a table, by
the side of which, as I thought at the first glance, a naked man stood
with a pair of pincers in his right hand, in which something of the size
of a large rat was squirming.
There was a row of five large jars upon the table before him, into the
first of which he plunged the object of his attention, holding it
immersed for about half-a-minute, and withdrawing it in a half-drowned
condition.
I saw it clearly as it came out, and recognised the red hair of
Templeton with a shock of horror.
Instantly, the proportions of the room were changed by my knowledge of
the identity of the victim. I recognised in the naked man the giant form
of a Dweller, and became aware of the huge size of the row of jars
before him.
I watched Templeton, now hanging limply in the pincers, plunged into a
second, third, and fourth of these jars, being raised to the level of
the operator’s eyes, and inspected carefully after each immersion. But
the fourth inspection was more prolonged than the others, and after
making it the Dweller turned to another table, and laid his victim,
still in the grip of the pincers, upon a yellow disc that was let into
its surface. As the limp body touched the metal it was galvanised into
an activity that kicked and writhed with a furious impotence. Lifted
again, it was plunged into a globe of light of a white intensity,
against which its body showed transparent, every organ, every internal
movement in lung, and artery, and intestine, being clearly indicated.
It appeared that this test had confirmed the unfavourable indications of
the fourth immersion, for the body was now withdrawn from the light, and
thrown carelessly into a mesh-sided tray upon the floor, in which a
number of non-human creatures of unfamiliar kinds were already heaped
and squirming. The Dweller pressed a stud with his foot, and the tray
slid from the room. I did not follow it further.
I felt almost physically sick with repulsion from the brutality which I
had witnessed, as I waited while my companion’s mind continued to
receive the picture.
After a short time, she broke connection also and addressed herself to
me.
“We now know,” she thought, “the fate of at least one of your
companions, and it must be a cause of satisfaction to you that you have
pursued your inquiries successfully, and that you are relieved of
further trouble by the fact that he had a body which was not worth
preservation.”
“I felt sure that they were about to destroy him,” I answered, “and
could not endure to look longer. How did they do it?”
She showed me an instant’s picture of the scene as her mind had followed
it. I saw his still-living body in the jaws of half-a-dozen pig-like
animals to whom it had been thrown for their fattening. My companion
recognised the repulsion that disturbed my mind with a puzzled wonder,
and a sympathetic curiosity.
“I wish,” she thought, “that I could understand the feeling which moves
you.”
“I wish,” I answered, “that I could understand how you can reject all
violence as evil, and yet condone such actions.”
“I condone nothing,” she replied, with a friendly coolness which tended
to reduce the temperature of my own thoughts. “I am not concerned to
defend or condemn. I am merely curious of your own repulsion. Your
fellow-primitive introduced a body which is diseased or defective. It is
so seriously so that the Dwellers, after a patient examination, do not
think it either fit to continue, or to be used for their own food, and
they therefore use it for the fattening of healthier creatures. What
better could they do? If you identify yourself with him, should you not
be grateful for the trouble to which they went?”
I paused a moment, knowing that the query required something better than
a random answer, and the pause lengthened to silence.
Feeling might still remain, but judgment answered too plainly.
I had forgotten once again that we were alien and inferior creatures, of
an uninvited coming. Did not my own race feed one living animal to
another in their zoological reservations? Would they have taken the
preliminary trouble to examine the body of such a creature? When they
decided to reduce the number of the tame and trusting doves in their
capital city, had they sufficient care or intelligence to select the
weaker or diseased for destruction?
Did they not kill and torture countless thousands of other creatures,
even including those that they had bred and trained to friendship, to
gratify curiosity or to gain some possible advantage to themselves in
combating the diseases that their vices earned?
Could that which I had seen be properly described as vivisection of any
kind? Such things might be; and I had little confidence that the
Dwellers would hesitate to practise such infamies, but, in fact, I had
not seen them.
I answered simply, “I was unreasonable, and you have taught me wisdom,
as you do so often.”
“I am less sure of that,” she answered doubtfully, “for there is
something in your mind by which my own is confused and baffled. I can
neither understand it, nor be sure that you are entirely in error. We
stand aloof from violence, as you do not, nor do the Dwellers. But you
have two standards of judgment. You regard your own violence to others
as more tolerable than is theirs to you. This to me appears as though
you make assertion of your own inferiority. But I do not know.... Shall
we inquire further as to the fate of your second friend?”
“Will you do it for me,” I answered, “I do not wish to see it.”
She assented mutely, and after a short interval she reported the success
of her investigation.
“Your second friend is alive and happy. His body has been cleaned and
improved. I cannot discover more, as there is no record of the
intentions of those who are dealing with him, but only of the facts
which are past already. But I think you would do well to leave him, and
inquire no further. Shall we not return to the surface together, where
you may find some place of hiding, and perhaps of a permanent security?”
“I cannot do that,” I answered definitely. “I could not return to say
that I have learnt that he is living, and made no effort to reach him.”
My thought reacted more sharply to her suggestion because I feared the
adventure as I had not done previously, and was aware that, should I
hesitate, my cowardice might be the harder to conquer. “Did you
ascertain how far distant he has been taken?”
I suppose she recognised the finality of my decision, for she made no
further protest, but answered quietly.
“He appears to be immediately beneath us, though at a great depth. But
we shall have to inquire of the other book of which we were told, to
learn the way by which we may reach him.”
“Let us do it quickly,” I replied, for the thought of Templeton writhing
in the clutch of the giant pincers, while the Dweller gazed upon him and
decided, coolly and judicially, upon his destruction, would not leave my
mind, and I was eager to be diverted by action.
We found the Hall of the Dead Books at the farther end of that in which
we were. The dead books were a livid white, and, for the most part, the
little hands had withered and fallen. They lay round them in a dry dust,
or hung shrivelling from those that had not been long dead.
We found the book we sought without difficulty, and though it did not
react to our queries with the urgent impatience of the living, its
responses were mechanically prompt and accurate.
I do not tell all that we learnt as we searched the pages of this book,
such as the maps of the reverse surface of the interior, and stranger
things on which I am entirely silent, because we did not actually see
them, and they are too incredible to be lightly added to a narrative
which must appear fictitious, in any case, to the obtuse and
unimaginative. It is not every one who can realise that the human mind
has no real power of invention, nor that it is impossible to add to that
which is infinite.
We went down in vision for five hundred miles by one continuing spiral,
seeing glimpses of inexplicable things on many levels, until we came to
a place in which were two colonies of the older Dwellers, each
attempting to postpone the weariness of years by activities of the mind,
and who were known (by the nearest synonyms in our language) as the
Seekers of Wisdom, and the Seekers of Science. I write _science_ rather
than _knowledge_ because the impression I received was similar to that
which has degraded the use of the former word, so that its implication
is of the assertion of speculative theories with a dogmatism equal to
that of the theologians whom it despises, and with a lack of imagination
and spiritual perception which insures that scientific hand-books of one
decade become the derision of the next.
We ascertained and memorised very carefully the passages by which the
descending spiral could be reached, and the ways which must be taken
when we left it. We could not discover whether they were the channels of
crowded traffic, or lonely as the dark tunnels which we had already
penetrated, but we had gained much in having learnt the way by which we
must go, and our next task was to find an exit from the library.
We should have pursued this purpose, and might have continued the
adventure together, and completed it successfully, had we not been drawn
aside to observe a movement among the books at the farther side of the
library.
It was foolish in itself, and disastrous in its consequence, but the
sight which drew us was sufficiently curious to be some excuse for our
error.
CHAPTER XIII
SEPARATION
In a large room, or recess, at the side of the library, there was a tank
completely covering its floor, and filled, to a depth of about three
feet, with a watery liquid, slightly tinged with carmine.
An arrangement of gently-sloping boards had enabled the books of several
tiers of shelves to make their way to this tank, into which they
plunged, and floated with an appearance of satisfaction, working their
hands in such a way that they turned over continually, in a very comical
manner.
It required no very great penetration to see that this was a place of
refreshment, or nourishment, which was needed to maintain their
vitality, but it was one which they could not reach without an
intervening danger.
As they crossed the final plank, which was horizontal, they passed over
a trap which was so adjusted that it would give way if a sufficient
weight were upon it, and resume its position afterwards, and the weight
required to spring it was that of a book which was mature and completed.
There was a square vat beneath this trap, filled with an indigo-coloured
liquid, into which, as we watched about fifty of these books hurry over
the plank, two fell, their little hands struggling frantically as they
slowly sank to the bottom, having found a place of death instead of the
enjoyment to which they had hurried.
It was reasonable to assume that these activities indicated some
directing attendant, and I had little cause for surprise when my
companion’s thought reached me quietly, “Do not attempt escape. We are
discovered. I think you had better leave this to me. Can you be serene
and confident?” Her mind closed from me, as we turned to observe the
dreaded form of one of the Dwellers advancing upon us.
He stopped as we faced him, and I knew that my companion had already
engaged him in the mental combat on which our lives depended. I could
not follow their thoughts, which were not intended for me. I never did
take the thoughts of the Dwellers with quite the same ease with which I
received those of the Amphibians. Now I was conscious only of a tension
of conflict, as when the swords of two duellists meet and hold, and
either knows that his life is staked upon the strength of wrist that
presses his opponent’s blade. There was a long minute during which their
wills fought in this posture, and then it was as though her blade
pressed sideward, inch by inch, the one that met, and inch by inch slid
down it.
Size has no absolute meaning. It is only relative, and, even so, it is
of little importance. The smallest insect might control the earth as
easily as an elephant, had either of them the brains to do so, though
the one be many million times the size of the other.
Our protagonist could have crushed us both in one hand, but I felt that
her will had triumphed against him. Not entirely; for minutes passed,
and I knew that they still warred with contending thoughts which I could
not read, but these were rather of the terms of treaty than of an
unconditioned hostility.
While they fought, I had endeavoured to maintain the poise of mind which
she had asked. I knew that I must not think of Templeton. I fixed my
attention upon the giant form which confronted us. He was similar to the
others I had seen, except in one particular. He moved with a slight
limp, and his left hip showed a long downward scar, deepening to an
actual pit at its lower end, and being black, with an aspect of charred
wood. It showed that their bodies, however perfect and enduring, were
not exempt from the danger of accident.
She turned to me at last. “Come,” her mind said only. “There is an open
way.”
I followed her down a corridor which we had not previously penetrated,
and we came to a doorway standing open, by which the attendant had
entered, and to which he had directed her. As we retreated, I saw him
bending over the vat, as though he were unaware of our existence.
In the darkness of a passage such as those with which we were already
familiar, we sat down together.
“I have made terms,” she commenced at once, “but it was not easy to do,
and you may not like them. We are in the Sacred Places, as we had
thought likely, and if we should be found here, or should it be known
that we have been here, the things we have learnt will certainly cause
our destruction. But I have given pledges which must be kept, and it
will be as though he had not seen us. I could not have done it, were he
not apart from his race, through the wound he bears, and angered by its
cause, which does not concern us. He refused my will until he thought of
the Seven Causes of Rejection, and his mind wavered.
“But the agreement is this. I must return at once to my own people, by a
way which will be unobserved, which he has shown me, telling to none
that I have seen him, nor of the things which we have seen and heard
since we forced the barrier of silence.
“That was easily agreed; but your case was more difficult. He would have
been willing that you should return with me, but we know that that would
not be possible. He would have agreed that you should escape to the
surface, and hide in the mountain caves, but I knew that you were
resolved to seek your friend, and I feared that, if I should make such
an agreement for you, you would not keep it. He showed me that it is a
way of death to go downward, and I was not willing to leave you to
perish. In the end, I have done little, but I have learnt this which may
aid you. When you have found your friend, and have learnt (as I think
you will), that you can do nothing to aid him, if you can then make your
way to the Place of the Seekers of Wisdom, you will be in a sanctuary
from which none will seek to remove you. They will question you of the
life you left, and so long as you can tell them of new things they will
be very sure to keep you in safety. Even beyond that time, there is a
possibility that they may transfer you to depths into which our minds
have not inquired, and of which I know nothing, where you might even
find that some of your own kind are existing, as do the Bat-wings, on an
inner surface of the earth.”
Her mind paused, expectant, to receive my pleasure.
Consternation replied,--confused, hopeless, and yet protesting. Why had
she agreed thus to our parting? Had she not herself urged, and did she
not again suggest, that Brett was beyond my rescue? Was it not her own
plan that I should return to the surface? Two passions, grief and fear,
rose in an alliance of opposition. She was my one friend in a world in
which I was worse than outcast,--was I to part from her for ever? She
was the actual physical strength, as she was the moral confidence, by
which I hoped to have overcome the dangers and difficulties of the
descent,--having feared to adventure it in her company, was I now to go
lonely?
She realised my mind with a sympathy which was without comprehension, as
one might sympathise with pain who had never felt it. Perceiving it, she
met it with all her strength of will and reason, as she had fought the
mind of our recent opponent.
“Did you not say yourself that it was a needful thing that you should go
downward? Had I not agreed that we should part, I should have lost all
that I have won for both of us. If our meeting has been a pleasure (as
it has to me), shall we spoil it with foolish protest now that it is
completing? It will not cease to be, because the event is over. Will it
not be actual in our minds as long as we desire to recall it?... Do you
not think too much of your body, and of the risks which it must take for
your service? If you heed it thus it is of less use than even so poor a
tool might be under a control more confident.... You think of the period
of time which will divide us, should you succeed in that which you have
attempted, and return to your own people. But is not your presence here
a proof that you are vexed by illusions only? When we consider time or
space, we know that they are, and yet we know that they are both
impossible.... Were it otherwise, would it not be true that if two
companions were to turn apart for a moment, though they were both
immortal, and were to continue forward on their different ways, seeking
each other for a million million of eons, they would be eternally
separate, with a separation which would increase through all eternity?
That is evident; but it is also incredible.... Can you not learn to
become fearless of circumstance, so that you may find the freedom of
living, and learn the joy of that liberty?”
So her mind struck, thought for thought, against the confusion of the
thoughts I showed her.
Then she added, “I will do that which I can to secure the safety of the
body which you value so greatly. I will ask my Leaders for their help
when I rejoin them. If we should still be allied in the war which is
coming, it will be a slight thing to require it. But does it matter so
greatly? Is it not true that life is only good while we regard it
lightly?”
At this she closed her mind, and rose, and left me. She gave no sign of
regret, or of farewell, nor did she hasten nor loiter.
She left me with no further hope of her vitality to give me strength, or
spirit to give me confidence, with a feeling of loneliness and despair
such as I had not felt before, even in this strange and hostile world.
CHAPTER XIV
LOVE AND WAR
So we parted. Of the months that followed I do not write in detail for
sufficient reason. I did not go straight down, as I had hoped to do.
Time after time I was driven aside to avoid detection. Under the stress
of war the spiral which had been comparatively little used, except at
certain seasons, had become an artery of traffic. For many weeks I lived
a furtive life of lurking peril. I fed at instant risk of detection, and
slept without assurance of safety. On one Level, I went not only in fear
of the Dwellers, but of other vermin, larger and better-armed than
myself, that maintained a tolerated existence in a place that was given
over to the incineration of garbage.
Once I spent a period which I cannot estimate, without food or water, in
the interior of a machine of which I did not know the purpose, nor how
or when it might become active to my destruction. There I lay, watching
with sleepless vigilance for a moment when I might hope to escape
unnoticed.
Concerning much I am silent, because it could be nothing more than a
confused narrative of inexplicable things.
During the whole time I was conscious that the war continued, and that
it was maintained at an increasing cost of life and effort.
In the end, when I had passed the Division, (at which point the
gravitation changes, being about four hundred and fifty miles below the
surface), and, after many delays and deflections, had reached the place
I sought in the Lower Levels, when I was at the very threshold of the
domain of the Seekers of Wisdom, a moment’s incautious boldness betrayed
me, and I was seen and captured. I found myself held in pincers such as
those in which I had seen the writhing body of Templeton, and was
carried thus into the great laboratory, and laid aside as my captor was
called to a more urgent occupation.
The pincers were not uncomfortable. Their jaws were of a rubber-like
substance, ductile to the shape of the body they held,--firmly as in a
vice, and yet with an almost cushion-like softness.
I was laid so that I hung a few feet over the edge of a table, suspended
sideways in the gripping jaws.
Expecting that death or mutilation were only delayed for a moment, I
found myself roused to a vivid consciousness of the moving drama around
me. I can see it still, in every detail, as, for several hours, I
surveyed it.
War had invaded the laboratory, and it had become a theatre of
operations, the most seriously injured bodies in which life still
lingered being brought down this great distance for the facilities which
it provided.
Those who had sought to postpone the desire of death by searching for
curious knowledge in the bodies of other creatures, were now working
with a recovered energy to repair those of their younger fellows. Those
who had boasted that their youth was of an invincible immortality, were
now being carried in, broken or maimed or in divided parts, to be
repaired or rejected. And those who were past repair were not cast aside
for fire or corruption to feed upon them, but the portions of their
bodies which were still sound were used for the repair of their more
lightly-injured companions, and for this purpose, (if not immediately
required), they were hurried into a freezing-chamber, if possible before
life had entirely left them.
I saw a surgeon stoop over a body which had been bitten through at the
waist, so that it was almost entirely severed, and give a gesture of
negation, on which it disappeared at once in the direction from which
bodies, or parts of bodies were being brought and thawed as they were
required for the repairing of others; muscles, or bones, or missing
organs being grafted upon those who retained sufficient life to connect
them.
On the distant surface of the world the fighting must have been of a
desperate character, for while I was laid aside and forgotten a
succession of wounded, most of them with ghastly injuries, were brought
in, till it seemed that the ample floor of the laboratory would be too
small to contain them.
One of the last was a woman.
I had only known her before in a moment’s vision, but I could not forget
or mistake that flame of life as I had seen it assert defiant youth
against the deepest laws of the Universe which conceived it. And the
flame of life was still there, and still unconquered, though the body
was torn and opened, soiled with filth from the upper surface of the
earth which had been the place of its conflict, and discoloured in
places to a sulphurous yellow from the action of its antagonist.
It was in tribute to that dominating vitality that the attendants paused
in their work, the consciousness of my own peril left my mind, and the
dying turned to regard her, as she gave her thought to the surgeon who
was bending to observe her injuries.
“The tide is turned,” (and the thought was less a speech than a song of
victory), “the tide is turned, and we have found the way that will
triumph. Eight of them we have brought down in the place of fighting, on
the Grey Beaches of the Amphibians,--eight we have brought down, and the
rest are scattered.... Tell the women from me that every one who is
above the Youth of Motherhood is to go upward. It is the last order I
give them. There are better things than the delights of the Five
Approaches. Tell them that I have found death, and I do not fear it.”
Her eyes met those of the surgeon who was considering her injuries, and
her thought was derisive. “Can you not see that I am spoiled beyond your
mending? Am I one who would walk crutched who have been the Centre of
Circles? You will pass me very quickly into the Place of Freezing. There
are two women that follow whom you may repair from that which is
uninjured, if you lose no time in the doing. You will not wait till I
die...?” I was aware of a note of protest in the mind of the surgeon
that met her own, and was swept aside, weak as a bird’s wing in the
tempest. It was not his protest alone, but that of all, the injured and
the attendants, who heard her. There was one thought that broke through
like a cry of agony, and called my attention to a wounded form from
which it came, which had been carried in behind her. With a surprise of
recognition, I knew my captor of the first night,--he who had called in
sleep for that which he would never gain.
But their thoughts were beaten down by the indignation with which she
perceived them. “Do you think to thwart my will because I am fallen?” It
seemed that her thought swept the other protests aside to reach the form
that was behind her. “_You_ who would have come a thousand miles had I
called you? Who would have waited to know my pleasure like a crouching
dog. You have followed well where the stings were striking. Will you
follow now where I lead you?”
“Yes,” he said, “I will follow.”
There was no further protest. I heard the gates withdrawn, and the two
litters, with their living burdens, passed into the Place of Freezing.
I saw that eons pass, but Love and War will continue.
CHAPTER XV
RELEASE
I remained for several hours gripped in that soft inflexible pressure,
knowing not what of death or torture or mutilation I must undergo when
they had leisure for my insignificance, and watching with an
extraordinary mental clarity and aloofness the operations by which they
built up the bodies of some of the less hopelessly injured with the
limbs or organs of those who were themselves beyond saving.
But the time came when the pincers were lifted once again, and I was
aware of the hatefully impartial eyes which considered my destiny. At
this extremity of peril I recalled the methods of the Amphibians.
Desperately I fought for the self-control which I could not gain:
desperately I fought to reach some contact with the mind on which my
fate depended. But I failed utterly. It was natural for the creatures he
examined to protest and struggle, and the fact did not interest his
mind. My thoughts were nothing to him, and he did not heed them.
But I was more fortunate than Templeton. Instead of being immersed in
the successive jars, I was plunged immediately into the white light
which had condemned him. The sensation was not unpleasant,--might,
indeed, be described as ecstatic for a mind untroubled. My body tingled
with life. Looking down, I was conscious of a new nakedness. I could see
everything which my body held, and yet through them. The activities in
every vein were transparent.
I was held there for some time, and then lifted out, examined, and
plunged back for a further period. When I expected to be thrown aside, I
was carried, still held in that vice-like grip, to a further room, where
I was thrust into one of a great number of little cages which lined its
walls.
I considered my position, and was not sure that I might not come to envy
even the fate of Templeton. The operation I had undergone had already
disfigured me. There was no hair, long or short, left upon me. Even my
hands showed an unaccustomed bareness. I looked round, and I cannot say
what I saw. It is best forgotten.
I will only say that Harry Brett was in an opposite cage, and though I
called over to him, he did not know me. He was quite mad, and it was
true that he was quite happy. Like a child, he enjoyed to watch the
colour of his flesh change ... but I have resolved that I will not tell
it.
... A Dweller passed before my cage, thinking slowly and clearly. He
inquired for a Primitive of the False-skin Age who was claimed by
the Amphibians. With a stir of hope I responded.
After a moment’s questioning, he allowed my identity. He told me, “You
are released at the request of the Leaders of the Amphibians. There has
been fighting on the Grey Beaches, at which they helped us to conquer.
They might have had what they would, but they asked for this thing
only.” He looked at me with more curiosity than contempt, and I knew
that he would have cut me open without scruple had he felt free to do
so, to discover the secret of my importance. He went on, “You are to be
given to the Seekers of Wisdom. You will be safe with them so long as
you tell them some new thing continually.... It needn’t be true,--that
doesn’t matter,” he added more to himself than to me.
He lifted me from the cage, and walked on at a quiet pace, and I trotted
behind him.
* * * * *
I was with the Seekers of Wisdom many months, till the year was
completed.
During that time I was examined incessantly on every detail of the
civilisation from which I came. I defended it as best I might, and I
explained it where I was able. But I found that I knew few things
thoroughly, and my explanations halted continually. I met a readier
understanding of social life from creatures which were more after my own
kind than had been possible to the Amphibian mind, but I was still vexed
by the contempt with which my race was regarded. I reflected that the
antipathy which we feel for anything which is different from our own
customs might be theirs also, and that they might be less than fair to
us in consequence. Brief as our own lives are, we know that many of us
live too long to remain in harmony with the changes which a generation
brings. I could not see that their own methods of life were as far
advanced as they thought them.
Yet the reactions of their minds will not leave me as they learnt of the
filth of our polluted rivers, and the pall of our blinded skies.
I must still see, as they saw them, the pity of our neglected land, the
folly that leaves our fields half barren while the shadow of starvation
is but ten years distant, the foulness of our congested cities, the
insane worship of movement which leaves its thousands slain or maimed
unpitied in our bloody streets....
But to write of these things in detail would be to begin a book when it
is time for the ending.
I lost the count of days, and the time came unlooked for when the year
was over....
CHAPTER XVI
RETURN
“Danby,” I said, “you might fetch me an overcoat.”
Having been provided with this useful garment, I sat once more at the
familiar fireside.
I looked at the clock, which had indicated three minutes after eight
when I had shaken hands with the Professor, with a disliked solemnity,
before I commenced the experiment. The hand was now at seven minutes
after the hour.
I had noticed a lump of half-burnt coal that had poised perilously over
the top bar of the grate as I had risen to leave them. It broke now, as
I gazed, and fell noisily into the ashpan.
Yes,--it was the same fire,--the same night. It would be no use to tell
them.
And yet I saw that they were impatient for me to begin, but how could I?
How could I expect them to believe?--And so much was beyond the reach of
words to tell it.
“Did you find them?” said the Professor, with a note of suppressed
anxiety in his voice which would have been less surprising from one of
the others, and which reminded me that the question was not merely of my
own adventures. I realised the different values of that room from those
of the world that I had left behind (or before) me.
“I’m afraid you won’t see them again,” I answered, “Templeton is dead.
Brett is insane, and can’t live much longer. They are torturing him
horribly. At least, I don’t know whether that is a fair word. He enjoys
being tortured.”
Then I told them, in a confused way, with many interruptions and
discursions. Frequently I saw the doubt in the eyes of one or other, and
then they looked at me, and something in my appearance caused the doubt
to die.
I rose, and looked in the pier-glass.
“Professor,” I said, with a moment’s bitterness, “I shouldn’t have asked
for an overcoat only. I need a skull-cap.”
But it was not only that I was so utterly hairless. My face was
different,--younger, and more virile, and there was a subtle change in
the eyes, which I could not define. It was the face of a stranger.
I became conscious also of a bodily alertness and vigour, very different
from the physical conditions of the earlier evening.
“It may grow,” he answered mildly. I don’t think he was hopeful. I know
I wasn’t.
“I think you’ve made me a freak for this world. Perhaps I’d better go
back,” I said, thoughtlessly.
“Would you go forward again?” The Professor’s voice was eager.
“I don’t know----” I began, doubtfully.
“Isn’t he the principal witness for the defence?” Bryant interpolated.
“I think,” said the Professor, “he might better be described as the sole
witness for the prosecution. But I don’t think that we have any legal
responsibility. They took the risk freely. Besides, they’re not dead
yet.--Of course, we’re all sorry, but exploration is always hazardous.
Really,” he said seriously, “we have postponed their deaths for a rather
long period.”
Certainly, the legal position was somewhat complicated, but I felt that
there must be a flaw in the argument somewhere. I couldn’t help the
retort, “Just as you’ve prolonged the life of my hair for the same
period.”
The Professor was not often disconcerted, but this silenced him for a
moment. Then he said, “But you have come back, and they have not.
Surely, even you can see the difference.”
“I would rather see my hair where it used to be.”
“Hair,” said the Professor, “has become a useless parasitic growth,
which we are in process of discarding. You are only ahead of your time.”
“A bald head,” I replied, and felt the joke was out of place as I spoke
it. The Professor ignored me, and Bryant reverted to the earlier
discussion. “I don’t see how we can have any legal trouble, though it
may be awkward to explain the disappearances of two guests in
succession. Mrs. Brett will have something to say. But isn’t there a law
that you can’t accuse any one of murder unless you can exhibit a body?”
“I believe that is so,” said the Professor, with relief in his voice. “I
suppose that is why they always dig up the garden.”
This roused young Danby. “They won’t dig up this one.--Not till the
bulbs are over.”
“Oh, but they will,” I retorted. I felt that they deserved that much.
Why hadn’t they gone themselves, instead of passing on the risk to
others? “The police are most painstaking in these matters, especially
when one of their own number is concerned. You mustn’t forget that
Templeton was a retired inspector. Why not divert their minds to the
cellar?--a few bricks out of place, and a little soil, and just a trace
of quicklime. They’d never miss that.... They’ll dig for a week.”
I saw that the Professor thought my levity was ill-timed. There was
nothing new in that. But Bryant gave a fresh turn to the discussion.
“You say that Brett isn’t dead? Suppose he comes back while the
investigation’s proceeding?”
We looked at one another in consternation. In the condition in which I
had seen him last he would be an awkward fact to explain to the official
mind. I imagined the sarcasm of the prosecuting counsel as I told my
tale in the witness-box. Doubtless, the dock would follow. The Professor
was the only one who was unmoved by the suggestion.
“He cannot return now. Were he doing so, he would have been back before
to-night.”
“I have no doubt he is dead,” I added, “I think they had nearly finished
him when I saw him.”
“Yes,” said the Professor, “he will die during the year.” He was the
only one of us who was not confused in his tenses. He thought a moment,
and then turned to me seriously. “I regret the capillary singularity of
which you complain, but you will admit that you did not go without
warning. I am about to ask you a further favour. I want you to write a
careful narrative of your experiences, making it as accurate as is
possible to your journalistic mind. For this narrative, if it be written
promptly and clearly, I will give you £2000. I shall publish it,--as
fiction, if necessary,--and may recover the money.
“Afterwards, I hope that, in the interests of science, rather than for
any prospective pecuniary advantage, you will consent to explore this
strange world somewhat further. You have shown considerable adroitness
in avoiding its dangers, and you will have a great advantage over a less
experienced adventurer.”
He looked for my reply with a very real anxiety, and I answered slowly.
“I will write the book willingly, but as to going again,--well, I
wouldn’t do it alone. Perhaps, if Clara would come with me....”
“_Clara!_” exclaimed the Professor.
“Yes,” I said, “she might.... I know her better than you do.... I’ll
think it over.”
And so, here is the book. It isn’t all I saw or heard, and it leaves
much unexplained. How can a year of such experiences be clearly told, or
crowded into a single volume? But I have tried to be accurate.
As to adventuring once again,--well, it depends on Clara. I’ll ask her
now.
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