A VOICE FROM THE PIT
"Signor, we are arrived," whispered the old man in my ear; and he put outa sudden cold hand, corded like melon rind, to stay me in the stumblingdarkness.
We were on a tilted table-land of the mountain; and, looking forth andbelow, the far indigo crescent of the bay, where it swept towardsCastellamare, seemed to rise up at me, as if it were a perpendicularwall, across which the white crests of the waves flew like ghost moths.
We skirted a boulder, and came upon a field of sleek purple lava sown allover with little lemon jets of silent smoke, which in their wan andmelancholy glow might have been the corpse lights of those innumerabledead whose tombstone was the mountain itself.
Far away to the right the great projecting socket of the crater flickeredintermittently with a nerve of fire. It was like the glinting of thewatchful eye of some vast Crustacean, and in that harsh and stupendousdesolation seemed the final crown and expression of utter inhumanity.
I started upon hearing the low whisper of my companion at my ear.
"In the bay yesterday the Signor saved my life. I give the Signor, inreturn, my life's secret."
He seized my right hand in his left with a sinewy clutch, and pointed astiff finger at the luminous blots.
"See there, and there, and there," he shrilled. "One floats and waverslike a spineless ribbon of seaweed in the water; another burns with asteady radiance; a third blares from its fissure like a flame driven bythe blowpipe. It is all a question of the under-draught, and some mayfeel it a little, and some a little more or a little less. Ah! but I willshow you one that feels it not at all--a hole, a narrow shaft that goesstraight down into the pit of the great hell, and is cold as the mouth ofa barbel."
The bones of his face stood out like rocks against sand, and the pupilsof his maniac eyes were glazed or fell into shadow as the volcanolightnings fluttered.
Suddenly he drew me to a broken pile of sulphur rock lying tumbledagainst a ridge of the mountain that ran towards the crater. It layheaped, a fused and fantastic ruin; and in a moment the old man leaptfrom me, and was tugging by main strength a vast fragment from its place.
I leaned over his shoulder, and looked down upon the hollow revealed bythe displaced boulder. It was like the bell of a mighty trumpet, and inthe middle a puckered opening seemed to suck inwards, as it were themouth of some subterranean monster risen to the surface of the world forair.
"Quick! quick!" muttered Paolo. "The Signor must place his ear to thehole."
With a little odd stir at my heart, I dropped upon my knees and leaned myhead deep into the cup. I must have stayed thus for a full minute beforeI drew myself back and looked up at the old mountaineer. His eyes gazeddown into mine with mad intensity.
"_Si! si!_" he whispered. "What didst thou hear?"
"I heard a long surging thunder, Paolo, and the deep shrill screaming ofmany gas jets."
He bent down, with livid face.
"Signor, it is the booming of the everlasting fire, and thou hast heardthe voices of the damned."
"No, my friend, no. But it is a marvellous transmission of the uproar ofhidden forces."
He leapt to the shallow pit.
"Listen and believe!" he cried; and funnelling his hands about his lips,he stooped over the central hole.
"Marco! Marco!" he screeched, in a piercing voice.
Something answered back. What was it? A malformed and twisted echo? Awhistle of imprisoned steam tricked into some horrible caricature of ahuman voice?
"Paolo!" it seemed to wail, weak and faint with agony. "_L'arqua,l'arqua_, Paolo!"
The old man sprang to his feet and, looking down upon me in a sort ofterrible triumph, unslung a water-flask from his belt, and, pulling outthe cork, poured the cold liquid down into the puckered orifice. Then Ifelt his clutch on my arm again.
"He drinks!" he cried. "Listen and thou wilt understand."
I rose with a ghost of a laugh, and once more addressed my ear to theopening.
From unthinkable depths came up a strange, gloating sound, as from aravenous throat made vibrant with ecstasy.
"Paolo," I cried, as I rose and stood before him--and there was anadmonitory note in my voice--"a feather may decide the balance. Bewaremeddling with hidden thunders, or thou mayst set rolling such anothertombstone as that on which these corpse fires are yet flaming."
And he only answered me, set and deathly,--
"We of the mountains, Signor, know more things than we may tell of."
At a Winter's Fire Page 17