Time was pressing. The greatest obstacle to our flight was the child’s terror of the thunderbolts. However, as he succeeded in vanquishing it sufficiently to accompany us, I was obliged to be grateful for that circumstance, for it guaranteed me freedom from pursuit for the duration of the storm. Besides, I saw that the child was infinitely reassured as soon as he took my hand, and I had the intuition then that his malaise might be more physical than mental, contact with my hand easing the veritably electrical undulations that were causing him to shiver. For some reason that escaped me, his body conducted the fluid better than ours, or at least reflected the atmospheric conditions in his nerves—but the cause of that conductivity or nervousness was appeased by my contact, to the extent that he was able to guide us.
We accompanied him in silence for half an hour. Then, to my extreme surprise, I found that we were going into a cave—or, rather, a spacious grotto.
“Where are you taking us?” I cried.
The child looked at Sabine, as if begging her to speak.
“Didn’t you come here through a grotto, then?” the young woman asked me.
“No,” I said. “We came via a sort of river.”
“I was led through immense subterranean workings!” she said.
“Can we risk such an adventure, my dear Sabine?” Addressing myself to the child, I indicated that we wanted to take another route. He gestured that it was impossible, and that it was necessary to go into the grotto—but he seemed sure of himself, as if he had been that way before.
I trembled as I looked at Sabine; she had understood.
“Since there’s no other way,” she said, “isn’t anything preferable to the risk of being recaptured?”
She gave me her hand. The child took my other hand, and we advanced into the darkness.
VII. The Subterranean Journey
In the grotto, the muffled and confused rolls of thunder extended in infinite echoes. It was terrifying in itself to march through vast dark corridors, but the thunderclaps added to that the perpetual fear of a collapse. The danger was not imaginary. Once—when, I suppose, the mountain was struck externally—everything trembled, and after the tide of sound faded away into the depths, with unspeakable terror, we heard a rocky mass fall, a fragment of which struck me on the shoulder.
We went on. I felt Sabine’s little hand shivering. We advanced without talking, in a silence in which anguish and hope were mingled as intimately as mistletoe and an oak-tree. An hour went by. The child was still moving, and I explained his confidence to myself by imagining a single corridor without lateral branches—but I was undeceived when we arrived at a sort of crossroads. One of the routes—which we were not following—had a quicksilver gleam at the end.
“How is the child finding his way among so many others?” I said to Sabine.
“I wondered the same thing,” she replied, “when they were bringing me through these interminable tunnels—I can’t see any explanation for it, unless the Water-People have a better-developed spatial awareness than us, as homing-pigeons do.”
“Yes, my dear Sabine—their skill in movement and the long journeys they undertake under water might have given them the sense of which you speak over a long period.”
“I think they can also see better than us in the dark…”
After two hours of walking, the tunnel broadened out. In the distance, a motionless bronze gleam advertised the presence of water. The gleam increased, becoming greener and unsteady. Then there was a tentative dawn: one of those feeble vertical shafts of daylight that fade away at cave-entrances. A vast space, whose height our eyes could scarcely perceive, enclosed a subterranean cavern. The water extended in the distance into a gallery, to the right, and the light was coming from there, reflected from the waves on to the wall, and from the wall on to the waves. Several large birds fled as we approached, and we could see them flying along the immense tunnel for some time.
Sabine and I were immobilized by the grip of the light; we experienced the wordless joy of people emerging from a nightmare. The child’s face brightened in response to our happiness. He made signs bidding us to rest, and we obeyed, while he plunged into the subterranean water and was lost to sight. Sabine huddled close to me. Our two hearts, in spite of all the weariness, were singing the mighty song of the spring of life.
“Sabine,” I said, “we will love one another all the more for having endured so many perils and prodigious adventures. Our love will retain the trace of our terrible emotions. We will never forget this grandiose vault, these magnificent and heavy waters in the semi-darkness.”
She rested her head on my shoulder, and adorable minutes went by in which my arm enveloped her, with a gesture that was proud and tender at the same time. The dark galleries spoke of indefatigable passion, of the spirit of renewal in which the nests of sticklebacks and the hearts of men are built, of the sovereign beauty of delicate loved ones who summarize the grace of the world.
VIII. The Interior Lakes
After initially following a narrow path, we soon climbed though a dark passage that must have taken us over the subterranean water, for we perceived its dormant reflection through a crevice in the rock. We marched for about two hours, more light-heartedly than in the morning, even though the darkness was colder and damper, and the corridor narrower. Finally, we emerged into the bottom of a valley. The light was dazzling. The storm had eased; a few blue gaps were opening among the soft clouds, where snowy giants were drifting over cotton-wool mountains.
The valley was a part of the grotto whose roof had collapsed in some cataclysm. The walls, sheer to a height of some ten feet, were covered above that height by a crazy vegetation in which reptiles and lianas disputed with the hard skeletons of bushes. At the base there was the debris of the landslide, a petrified flux of immense stone blocks, sculpted by the rain into monstrous teeth and crude animal figures.
We followed this valley for some time, and then went underground again, only to find, after 20 minutes, another valley. Two hours passed in this fashion. We went from darkness to light, from pretty verdant valleys to stupefying caverns. Finally, we emerged into daylight for the last time into an immense dale filled with water. In the distance, we could see the steam that alimented the gigantic basin; it was a waterfall more than 70 meters wide and 15 or 20 high.
We were struck then by the child’s joy. He drew us on rapidly, doubling a cape of high rocks, and human dwellings appeared, similar to those of the Water-People. In response to cries uttered by a number of women, an entire amphibious people emerged from the waves and ran toward us.
They were similar to the child, their hair long and fine, their fingers rather stout—in sum, bearing a closer resemblance to us. I realized that they were, in consequence, inferior to both the light and dark Water-People—and that explained their relegation to the subterranean lakes and rivers. It is worth noting that their inferiority stemmed from their lesser distance from our type, which constituted an evolutionary retardation here. My initial hypothesis, by virtue of which I saw them as late arrivals in the country, did not hold up in the light of subsequent research; it seems, instead, that they belonged to one of the first waves of immigration, which occurred several centuries after that of the Wading Men. The latter had defended the marshes and shallow waters forcefully enough to oblige the newcomers to retreat into the interior valleys, where the depth of the lakes rendered them amphibious. Now, it remains equally probable that the dark Water-People are merely a separate branch of the race of the high valleys, improved for aquatic life, while the light Water-People seem, on the contrary, to have come directly from the western plains, through the marshes, and to have adapted themselves to the new life purely by imitation.
Crosses between the various species of aquatic humans are very rare; although traces of fusion are discovered between the differently-colored Water-People, there is nothing to indicate that there has ever been any marriage between the amphibian species and the Wading Men, the latter being regarded as
an inferior race fallen into a melancholy decadence, diminishing by the day.
Having Sabine with me freed me from anxiety to a great extent, and I abandoned myself enthusiastically to many marvelous discoveries. I saw the humanity beneath this new form of direct adaptation, scorned because of our infatuation with the brain. I promised myself a long sojourn among the aquatic populations, and had high hopes of penetrating their mystery, not only from the historical and ethnographic point of view, but also, and even more so, in terms of the modifications they might bring to our notion of living beings and things in general.
A sadness took hold of me, however, at the thought of other expeditions following ours, and, perhaps colonies of terrestrial humans arriving, ferociously destroying the admirable work of centuries, annihilating the various forms of lacustrian humans. Then I told myself, with that sincerity in regard to ourselves that is the most notable achievement of positivist philosophy, that it would be better for these poor folk if we were all to perish.
Then I shivered, in thinking about Sabine, and so I sought some consolation in the near-impossibility of crossing the marshes where we had so nearly perished; I hoped, at least, that many years would elapse before the surrounding populations, so sparsely scattered, would decide to confront the dark perils of emigration—and that, within a century, the organization of the Water-People would permit them to resist. In order not to accept the yoke of a great nation, they would defend the integrity of their territory vigorously. Their cleverness in assimilating our language was an excellent omen. Finally, these regions, although admirable and perfectly healthy, remained nonetheless essentially lacustrian, and thus relatively inaccessible to terrestrial men.
The welcome we received was most hospitable. According to the custom of these people, after a delicious meal, they held a magnificent aquatic fête in our honor. With an incomparable agility and a great resistance to asphyxia—even those abilities were less outstanding than among their flat-eyed rivals—their maneuvers remained infinitely curious to us. After so much fatigue, we enjoyed the calm and well-being like soldiers after a long march.
Dusk came, and the mantle of night was drawn over the valley. Sabine, worn out, went to sleep with her head on my shoulder. The friendly people, the beautiful twilit waters, and the vast sky into which the last vestiges of the storm were disappearing in cotton-wool threads, generated such tranquility, and such a tempting promise of happiness, that I decided to spend the night there with Sabine.
IX. A Night of Anguish
Before the last rays of sunlight were extinguished in the valley, Sabine was installed in a cabin. I bedded down across the doorway, and the child was lodged outside, beneath a wickerwork canopy. Looking through the cracks in the door, I ascertained that the men of the village were also mounting guard, and I went to sleep confidently.
I think we had been asleep for about five hours when a great tumult woke me up. In addition to the tranquil stream of moonlight, there was a blazing fire outside. I opened the door prudently. Some 20 old men were sitting round the fire, and with them, young men whose flat pupils, stringy lichenous hair and dark skin signaled my adversaries.
Besides, the dark athlete attracted my gaze almost immediately. A jealous rage swelled my chest at the thought of his pretensions. I think I would have found a great relief in engaging him in single combat, but that would be to risk Sabine becoming the prize of victory. I resolved to employ all the diplomacy that prudence inspired in me, and only to have recourse to violence when all other means had been exhausted.
The meeting seemed to be a Council of the elders of the host tribe, and the racket was coming from the young men, visibly attempting to intimidate the council-members. At one time, they broke the circle around the fire and rushed toward our cabin. More than 100 men of the valley were ranged against them and they were forced to change tack. It seemed to me then that they wanted to resume the discussion, but the most imposing of the elders dispersed the firebrands with a kick and spoke angrily for some time in the moonlight. A truce followed, during which our cabin was surrounded by the entire population of the village, while the intruders retired to make camp of the lake-shore.
Sabine was asleep. I drew closer to her. A broad white moonbeam fell upon the loose blonde hair spreading around her head; her mouth exhaled a peaceful breath, and I felt close to fainting with tenderness at the sight of that peaceful sleep, amid the adorable living silk of her tresses. I left her to sleep and ran to the door.
Nothing had changed. The kidnappers, sitting beside the lake in the distance, seemed to be waiting for daylight. Disturbed by their presence, I opened the door. The multitude looked at me silently, in what seemed to me to be consternation. My good friend the child was weeping. I called to him. He came, but—alas!—he could not make me understand what was worrying the crowd and making him cry. All that I could grasp was that neither Sabine nor I could leave the cabin, and that the dark men were awaiting reinforcements.
What could I do? Would the proud council of a short while before, which had obviously refused to surrender us, yield to the reinforcements? Why were the dark athlete and his companions camping by the lake undisturbed? I watched, lugubriously. My fiancée’s slumber seemed to me to be similar to the sleep of a prisoner awaiting execution. Most of all, I was keenly aware of my impotence; I felt that any attempt to use force would not save me and had every chance, on the contrary, of dooming me.
I had spent a long time in such dismal reveries of misery and uncertainty when Sabine woke up, with a smile. She read the desolation on my anxious face.
“Robert! Are you in pain? You’re not ill?”
I explained the situation. She came as far as the door, observed the presence of our enemy, and then, when we had gone back inside, said: “So you think they’ll give us up, Robert?”
“Probably.”
The scant moonlight coming through the roof was enough to illuminate us. I could see Sabine’s eyes, wide and wild, like those of a hunted beast. She threw herself against my breast. I hugged her with such boundless passion! I kissed her forehead timidly. She huddled close—very close—to me, her heart replying to mine; her warm mouth was next to my cheek, and she rendered me almost mad with pain, pride and love by telling me that she did not want to belong to anyone but me, that she would die before any offense. Our souls vibrated in divine accord, and those minutes remain beautiful in my memory, in spite of the sad events that followed them.
We were hugging one another in this manner when the murmur of the crowd drew us to the door. Dawn was approaching; the light of the declining Moon was still bright, but a line of shadow was already trailing across the lake. The light still cut out the silhouettes of the grand old men—and another silhouette, which we recognized as that of the Water-Man who had saved us from the bog!
We opened the door then, and amid the sympathetic murmur of the crowd, with our hearts lifted in hope, we went to meet our friend. His face expressed affection and joy, and all the other faces cleared as he smiled. Save for the dark group on the edge of the lake, the multitude was delicately moved by our gratitude and his generosity—but it displayed a veritable enthusiasm when I took the Water-Child in my arms and introduced him to our first savior.
X. The Return of the Lights
We stayed with the old men, our benefactor and the Water-Child, waiting for the dawn. The Moon brushed the heights of the valley with its pale gleam, and the stars began to fade. Soon, the flower of the aurora reached the Orient, and a delicate daylight fell upon the lake like a scattering of hyacinth petals. The Sun had not yet raised its august face above the hills when a formidable wave rolled along the stream and thousands of bodies fell with the cascade into the lake.
Sabine pressed close to me, but I could see by the smiles of our light friend and that of the child that we had nothing to fear.
Meanwhile, the swimmers were coming ashore, and two distinct groups of light Water-Men and dark Water-Men immediately formed on the shore. The Council of the
Subterranean Water tribe spontaneously reunited on a mound, and the tribe arranged itself solemnly around the mound. Then the dark athlete, with three old men of his own race, took up a position in front and slightly to the left of the council. Our savior and three old men of his own people placed themselves to the right.
I then had a clear intuition of the events of the night and the causes that had changed the crowd’s consternation and the child’s grief into joy and enthusiasm. A few words made Sabine party to my conviction. The council of the Subterranean Water tribe, called to legislate, weak and fearful before its powerful rivals, would have had to hand us over to the dark athlete had it not been for the arrival of the light Water-Men.
We observed the solemnities. Not only did it appear to us that the judges welcomed the speech made by our savior, but that the tribe of dark Water-Men, presumably weary of conflict, approved of the speech. The athlete, confronted with this disfavor, went away and all his companions let him go. We were handed back to our dear initial hosts. And the population of the valley gave the most touching evidence of their sympathy.
The child did not leave our side, caressed by Sabine, by myself, and our aquatic friend. His shoulder was still troubling him slightly, and his feverishly shining eyes looked at us with extraordinary affection. His suffering explains why he could not take part in the utterly marvelous aquatic maneuvers in which the three tribes rejoiced.
Our light savior was the first to disappear under the lake, and although Sabine and I made every effort to make him out among the others, and although nearly all the swimmers surfaced from time to time to wave to us, we were never able to pick him out. We hardly noticed that singularity at the time; we were so happy, so certain of a fine future of love and glory. We were thinking about rejoining Devreuse and the remainder of the expedition and returning to Europe.
The World of the Variants Page 7