by Rex Stout
Chapter VIII.
THE DANCE OF THE SUN.
It seemed to me then in the minutes that followed that there werethousands of black demons in that black hole. At the first rushingimpact I shouted to Harry: "Keep your back to the wall," and forresponse I got a high, ringing laugh that breathed the joy of battle.
The thing was sickening. Harry is a natural fighting man; I am not.Without the wall at our backs we would have been overpowered in thirtyseconds; as it was, we were forced to handle half a dozen of them atonce, while the others surged in from behind. They had no weapons, butthey had the advantage of being able to see us.
They clutched my throat, my arms, my legs, my body; there was no roomto strike; I pushed the knife home. They fastened themselves to mylegs and feet and tried to bring me down from beneath; once, inslashing at the head of one whose teeth were set in my calf, I cutmyself on the knee. It was difficult to stand in the wet, slipperypool that formed at my feet.
Suddenly I heard a sound that I understood too well--the curious,rattling sound of a man who is trying to call out when he is beingstrangled.
"Harry!" I cried, and I fought like a wild man to get to him, withknife, feet, hands, teeth. I reached his coat, his arm; it wasdangerous to strike so near him in the dark, but I felt him sinking tothe ground.
Then I found the taut, straining fingers about his throat, and lungedforward with the knife--and the fingers relaxed.
Again we were fighting together side by side.
As their bodies fell in front of us we were pressed harder, for thosebehind climbed up on the corpses of their fellows and literallydescended on our heads from the air. We could not have held out muchlonger; our breath was coming in quick, painful gasps; Harry stumbledon one of the prostrate brutes and fell; I tried to lift him and wasunequal to the task.
It appeared to be the end.
Suddenly there rang throughout the cavern a sound as of a gigantic,deep-toned bell. The walls sent it back and forth with deafeningechoes; it was as though the mountain had descended with one tremendouscrash into its own bowels.
As though by magic, the assault ceased.
The effect was indescribable. We could see nothing; we merely becamesuddenly aware that there were no longer hands clutching at our throatsor hairy bodies crushing us to the ground. It was as though the hordeof unseen devils had melted into thin air. There were movements on theground, for many of them had been wounded; a man cannot always reachthe spot in the dark. This lasted for two or three minutes; they wereevidently removing those who still had life in them, for the strainingbreath of men dragging or lifting burdens was plainly audible.
Gradually that, too, died away with the last reverberations of themysterious sound that had saved us, and we found ourselves alone--or atleast unmolested--for in the darkness we could see nothing, except thedim outlines of the prostrate forms at our feet.
The cavern was a shambles. The smell was that of a slaughter-house. Ihad had no idea of the desperateness of our defense until I essayed toscramble over the heap of bodies to dry ground; I shuddered and grewfaint, and Harry was in no better case.
Worse, he had dropped his knife when we stumbled, and we were forced togrope round in that unspeakable mess for many minutes before we foundit.
"Are you hurt, lad?" I asked when once we stood clear.
"Nothing bad, I think," he answered. "My throat is stiff, and two orthree of the brutes got their teeth in me. In the name of Heaven,Paul, what are they? And what was that bell?"
These were foolish questions, and I told him so. My leg was bleedingbadly where I had slashed myself, and I, too, had felt their teeth.But, despite our utter weariness and our wounds, we wanted nothing--noteven rest--so badly as we wanted to get away from that awful heap offlesh and blood and the odor of it.
Besides, we did not know at what moment they might return. So I spoke,and Harry agreed. I led the way; he followed.
But which way to turn? We wanted water, both for our dry and burningthroats and for our wounds; and rest and food. We thought little ofsafety. One way seemed as likely as another, so we set out with ournoses as guides.
A man encounters very few misfortunes in this world which, later inlife, he finds himself unable to laugh at; well, for me that endlessjourney was one of the few.
Every step was torture. I had bandaged the cut on my leg as well aspossible, but it continued to bleed. But it was imperative that weshould find water, and we struggled on, traversing narrow passages andimmense caverns, always in complete darkness, stumbling over unseenrocks and encountering sharp corners of cross passages.
It lasted I know not how many hours. Neither of us would have survivedalone. Time and again Harry sank to the ground and refused to riseuntil I perforce lifted him; once we nearly came to blows. And I wasguilty of the same weakness.
But the despair of one inspired the other with fresh strength andcourage, and we struggled forward, slower and slower. It wassoul-destroying work. I believe that in the last hour we made not morethan half a mile. I know now that for the greater part of the time wewere merely retracing our steps in a vicious circle!
It was well that it ended when it did, for we could not have held outmuch longer. Harry was leading the way, for I had found that thatslight responsibility fortified him. We no longer walked, we barelywent forward, staggering and reeling like drunken men.
Suddenly Harry stopped short, so suddenly that I ran against him; andat the same time I felt a queer sensation--for I was too far gone torecognize it--about my feet.
Then Harry stooped over quickly, half knocking me down as he did so,and dropped to his knees; and the next instant gave an unsteady cry ofjoy:
"Water! Man, it's water!"
How we drank and wallowed, and wallowed and drank! That water mighthave contained all the poisons in the world and we would have neitherknown nor cared. But it was cool, fresh, living--and it saved ourlives.
We bathed our wounds and bandaged them with strips from our shirts.Then we arranged our clothing for cushions and pillows as well aspossible, took another drink, and lay down to sleep.
We must have slept a great many hours. There was no way to judge oftime, but when we awoke our joints were as stiff as though they hadgotten rusty with the years. I was brought to consciousness by thesound of Harry's voice calling my name.
Somehow--for every movement was exquisite pain--we got to our feet andreached the water, having first removed our clothing. But we were nowat that point where to drink merely aggravated our hunger. Harry wasin a savage humor, and when I laughed at him he became furious.
"Have some sense. I tell you, I must eat! If it were not for your--"
"Go easy, Hal. Don't say anything you'll be sorry for. And I refuseto consider the sordid topic of food as one that may rightfully containthe elements of tragedy. We seem to be in the position of the king ofvaudeville. If we had some ham we'd have some ham and eggs--if we hadsome eggs."
"You may joke, but I am not made of iron!" he cried.
"And what can we do but die?" I demanded. "Do you think there is anychance of our getting out of this? Take it like a man. Is it rightfor a man who has laughed at the world to begin to whine when itbecomes necessary to leave it?
"You know I'm with you; I'll fight, and what I find I'll take; in themean time I prefer not to furnish amusement for the devil. There comesa time, I believe, when the stomach debases us against our wills. MayI die before I see it."
"But what are we to do?"
"That's more like it. There's only one hope. We must smell out thepantry that holds the dried fish."
We talked no more, but set about bathing and dressing our wounds. Gad,how that cold water took them! I was forced to set my teeth deep intomy lip to keep from crying out, and once or twice Harry gave aninvoluntary grunt of pain that would not be suppressed.
When we had finished we waded far to the right to take a last deepdrink; then sought our clothing and prepared
to start on our all buthopeless search. We had become fairly well limbered up by that timeand set out with comparative ease.
We had gone perhaps a hundred yards, bearing off to the right, whenHarry gave a sudden cry: "My knife is gone!" and stopped short. Iclapped my hand to my own belt instinctively, and found it empty bothof knife and gun! For a moment we stood in silence; then:
"Have you got yours?" he demanded.
When I told him no he let out an oath.
His gun was gone, also. We debated the matter, and decided that toattempt a search would be a useless waste of time; it was next tocertain that the weapons had been lost in the water when we had firstplunged in. And so, doubly handicapped by this new loss, we again setout.
There was but one encouragement allowed to us: we were no longer intotal darkness. Gradually our eyes were becoming accustomed to theabsence of light; and though we could by no means see clearly, nor evencould properly be said to see at all, still we began to distinguish theoutlines of walls several feet away; and, better than that, each of uscould plainly mark the form and face of the other.
Once we stood close, less than a foot apart, for a test; and when Harrycried eagerly, "Thank Heaven, I can see your nose!" our strainedfeelings were relieved by a prolonged burst of genuine laughter.
There was little enough of it in the time that followed, for oursufferings now became a matter not of minutes or hours, but of days.The assault of time is the one that unnerves a man, especially when itis aided by gnawing pain and weariness and hunger; it saps the courageand destroys the heart and fires the brain.
We dragged ourselves somehow ever onward. We found water; the mountainwas honeycombed with underground streams; but no food. More than oncewe were tempted to trust ourselves to one of those rushing torrents,but what reason we had left told us that our little remaining strengthwas unequal to the task of keeping our heads above the surface. Andyet the thought was sweet--to allow ourselves to be peacefully sweptinto oblivion.
We lost all idea of time and direction, and finally hope itselfdeserted us. What force it was that propelled us forward must havebeen buried deep within the seat of animal instinct, for we lost allrational power. The thing became a nightmare, like the crazywanderings of a lost soul.
Forward--forward--forward! It was a mania.
Then Harry was stricken with fever and became delirious. And I thinkit was that seeming misfortune that saved us, for it gave me a springfor action and endowed me with new life. As luck would have it, astream of water was near, and I half carried and half dragged him toits edge.
I made a bed for him with my own clothing on the hard rock, and bathedhim and made him drink, while all the time a string of delirious drivelpoured forth from his hot, dry lips.
That lasted many hours, until finally he fell into a deep, calm sleep.But his body was without fuel, and I was convinced he would neverawaken; yet I feared to touch him. Those were weary hours, squattingby his side with his hand gripped in my own, with the ever-increasingpangs of hunger and weariness turning my own body into a roaringfurnace of pain.
Suddenly I felt a movement of his hand; and then came his voice, weakbut perfectly distinct:
"Well, Paul, this is the end."
"Not yet, Harry boy; not yet."
I tried to put cheer and courage into my own voice, but with poorsuccess.
"I--think--so. I say, Paul--I've just seen Desiree."
"All right, Hal."
"Oh, you don't need to talk like that; I'm not delirious now. I guessit must have been a dream. Do you remember that morning on themountain--in Colorado--when you came on us suddenly at sunrise? Well,I saw her there--only you were with her instead of me. So, of course,she must be dead."
His logic was beyond me, but I pressed his hand to let him know that Iunderstood.
"And now, old man, you might as well leave me. This is the end.You've been a good sport. We made a fight, didn't we? If onlyDesiree--but there! To Hades with women, I say!"
"Not that--don't be a poor loser, Hal. And you're not gone yet. Whena man has enough fight in him to beat out an attack of fever he's verymuch alive."
But he would not have it so. I let him talk, and he rambled on, withscarcely an idea of what he was saying. The old days possessed hismind, and, to tell the truth, the sentiment found a welcome in my ownbosom. I said to myself, "This is death."
And then, lifting my head to look down the dark passage that led awaybefore us, I sprang to my feet with a shout and stood transfixed withastonishment. And the next instant there came a cry of wonder fromHarry:
"A light! By all the gods, a light!"
So it was. The passage lay straight for perhaps three hundred yards.There it turned abruptly; and the corner thus formed was one blaze offlickering but brilliant light which flowed in from the hidden corridor.
It came and went, and played fitfully on the granite walls; still itremained. It was supernaturally brilliant; or so it seemed to us, whohad lived in utter darkness for many days.
I turned to Harry, and the man who had just been ready to die wasrising to his feet!
"Wait a minute--not so fast!" I said half angrily, springing to supporthim. "And, for Heaven's sake, don't make any noise! We're in nocondition to fight now, and you know what that light means."
"But what is it?" demanded the boy excitedly. "Come on, man--let's go!"
To tell the truth, I felt as eager as he. For the first time Iunderstood clearly why the Bible and ancient mythology made such a fussabout the lighting up of the world. Modern civilization is too faraway from its great natural benefits to appreciate them properly.
And here was a curious instance of the force of habit--or, rather,instinct--in man. So long as Harry and I had remained in the darkpassage and byways of the cavern we had proceeded almost entirelywithout caution, with scarcely a thought of being discovered.
But the first sight of light made us wary and careful and silent; andyet we knew perfectly well that the denizens of this underworld couldsee as well in the darkness as in the light--perhaps even better. Sodifficult is it to guide ourselves by the human faculty of pure reason.
Harry was so weak he was barely able to stand, even in the strength ofthis new excitement and hope, and we were forced to go very slowly; Isupported him as well as I was able, being myself anything but anengine of power. But the turn in the passage was not far away, and wereached it in a quarter of an hour or less.
Before we made the turn we halted. Harry was breathing heavily evenfrom so slight an exertion, and I could scarcely suppress a cry ofamazement when, for the first time in many days, the light afforded mea view of his face.
It was drawn and white and sunken; the eyes seemed set deep in hisskull as they blinked painfully; and the hair on his chin and lip andcheeks had grown to a length incredible in so short a space of time. Isoon had reason to know that I probably presented no better anappearance, for he was staring at me as though I were some strangemonster.
"Good Heavens, man, you took like a ghost!" he whispered.
I nodded; my arm was round his shoulder.
"Now, let's see what this light means. Be ready for anything,Harry--though Heaven knows we can find nothing worse than we've had.Here, put your arm on my shoulder. Take it easy."
We advanced to the corner together within the patch of light and turnedto the right, directly facing its source.
It is impossible to convey even a faint idea of the wild and hugelyfantastic sight that met our gaze. With us it was a single, vividflash to the astonished brain. These are the details:
Before us was an immense cavern, circular in shape, with a diameter ofsome half a mile. It seemed to me then much larger; from where westood it appeared to be at least two miles to the opposite side. Therewas no roof to be seen; it merely ascended into darkness, though thelight carried a great distance.
All round the vast circumference, on terraced seats of rock, squattedrow after row of the most completely hideou
s beings within possibility.
They were men; I suppose they must have the name. They were about fourfeet tall, with long, hairy arms and legs, bodies of a curious, bloatedappearance, and eyes--the remainder of the face was entirely concealedby thick hair--eyes dull and vacant, of an incredibly large size; theyhad the appearance of ghouls, apes, monsters--anything but human beings.
They sat, thousands of them, crouched silently on their stone seats,gazing, motionless as blocks of wood.
The center of the cavern was a lake, taking up something more than halfof its area. The water was black as night, and curiously smooth andsilent. Its banks sloped by degrees for a hundred feet or so, but atits edge there was a perpendicular bank of rock fifteen or twenty feetin height.
Near the middle of the lake, ranged at an equal distance from itscenter and from each other, were three--what shall I callthem?--islands, or columns. They were six or eight feet across attheir top, which rose high above the water.
On top of each of these columns was a huge vat or urn, and from each ofthe urns arose a steady, gigantic column of fire. These it was thatgave the light, and it was little wonder we had thought it brilliant,since the flames rose to a height of thirty feet or more in the air.
But that which left us speechless with profound amazement was not theendless rows of silent, grinning dwarfs, nor the black, motionlesslake, nor the leaping tongues of flame. We forgot these when wefollowed the gaze of that terrifying audience and saw a sight thatprinted itself on my brain with a vividness which time can never erase.Closing my eyes, I see it even now, and I shudder.
Exactly in the center of the lake, in the midst of the columns of fire,was a fourth column, built of some strangely lustrous rock. Prisms ofa formation new to me--innumerable thousands of them--caused its sidesto sparkle and glisten like an immense tower of whitest diamonds,blinding the eye.
The effect was indescribable. The huge cavern was lined and dottedwith the rays shot forth from their brilliant angles. The height ofthis column was double that of the others; it rose straight toward theunseen dome of the cavern to the height of a hundred feet.
It was cylindrical in shape, not more than ten feet in diameter. Andon its top, high above the surface of the lake, surrounded by themounting tongues of flame, whirled and swayed and bent the figure of awoman.
Her limbs and body, which were covered only by long, flowing strands ofgolden hair, shone and glistened strangely in the lurid, weird light.And of all the ten thousand reflections that shot at us from the lengthof the column not one was so brilliant, so blinding, as the wild glowof her eyes.
Her arms, upraised above her head, kept time with and served as a keyto every movement of her white, supple body. She glided across, backand forth, now this way, now that, to the very edge of the dizzyheight, with wild abandon, or slow, measured grace, or the rushingsweep of a panther.
The thing was beauty incarnate--the very idea of beauty itself realizedand perfected. It was staggering, overwhelming. Have you ever stoodbefore a great painting or a beautiful statue and felt a thrill--thethrill of perception--run through your body to the very tips of yourfingers?
Well, imagine that thrill multiplied a thousandfold and you willunderstand the sensation that overpowered me as I beheld, in the midstof that dazzling blaze of light, the matchless Dance of the Sun.
For I recognized it at once. I had never seen it, but it had beenminutely described to me--described by a beautiful and famous woman asI sat on the deck of a yacht steaming into the harbor of Callao.
She had promised me then that she would dance it for me some day--
I looked at Harry, who had remained standing beside me, gazing as I hadgazed. His eyes were opened wide, staring at the swaying figure on thecolumn in the most profound astonishment.
He took his hand from my shoulder and stood erect, alone; and I saw thelight of recognition and hope and deepest joy slowly fill his eyes andspread over his face. Then I realized the danger, and I endeavoredonce more to put my arm round his shoulder; but he shook me off withhot impatience. He leaped forward with the quickness of lightning,eluding my frantic grasp, and dashed straight into the circle ofblazing light!
I followed, but too late. At the edge of the lake he stopped, and,stretching forth his arms toward the dancer on the column, he cried outin a voice that made the cavern ring:
"Desiree! Desiree! Desiree!"