Chapter IX. The Island in the Lake
We made the canoe fast and landed on the great rock, to perceive that itwas really a peninsula. That is to say, it was joined to the main landof the lake island by a broad roadway quite fifty yards across, whichappeared to end in the mouth of the cave. On this causeway we noteda very remarkable thing, namely, two grooves separated by an exactdistance of nine feet which ran into the mouth of the cave and vanishedthere.
"Explain!" said Bickley.
"Paths," I said, "worn by countless feet walking on them for thousandsof years."
"You should cultivate the art of observation, Arbuthnot. What do yousay, Bastin?"
He stared at the grooves through his spectacles, and replied:
"I don't say anything, except that I can't see anybody to make pathshere. Indeed, the place seems quite unpopulated, and all the Orofenanstold me that they never landed on it because if they did they would die.It is a part of their superstitious nonsense. If you have any idea inyour head you had better tell us quickly before we breakfast. I am veryhungry."
"You always are," remarked Bickley; "even when most people's appetitesmight have been affected. Well, I think that this great plateau was oncea landing-place for flying machines, and that there is the air-shed orgarage."
Bastin stared at him.
"Don't you think we had better breakfast?" he said. "There are two roastpigs in that canoe, and lots of other food, enough to last us a week,I should say. Of course, I understand that the blood you have shed hasthrown you off your balance. I believe it has that effect, except on themost hardened. Flying machines were only invented a few years ago by thebrothers Wright in America."
"Bastin," said Bickley, "I begin to regret that I did not leave you totake part in another breakfast yonder--I mean as the principal dish."
"It was Providence, not you, who prevented it, Bickley, doubtlessbecause I am unworthy of such a glorious end."
"Then it is lucky that Providence is a good shot with a pistol. Stoptalking nonsense and listen. If those were paths worn by feet theywould run to the edge of the rock. They do not. They begin there in thatgentle depression and slope upwards somewhat steeply. The air machines,which were evidently large, lit in the depression, possibly as a birddoes, and then ran on wheels or sledge skids along the grooves to theair-shed in the mountain. Come to the cave and you will see."
"Not till we have breakfast," said Bastin. "I will get out a pig. As amatter of fact, I had no supper last night, as I was taking a class ofnative boys and making some arrangements of my own."
As for me, I only whistled. It all seemed very feasible. And yet howcould such things be?
We unloaded the canoe and ate. Bastin's appetite was splendid. Indeed, Ihad to ask him to remember that when this supply was done I did not knowwhere we should find any more.
"Take no thought for the morrow," he replied. "I have no doubt it willcome from somewhere," and he helped himself to another chop.
Never had I admired him so much. Not a couple of hours before he wasabout to be cruelly murdered and eaten. But this did not seem to affecthim in the least. Bastin was the only man I have ever known with areally perfect faith. It is a quality worth having and one thatmakes for happiness. What a great thing not to care whether you arebreakfasted on, or breakfast!
"I see that there is lots of driftwood about here," he remarked, "butunfortunately we have no tea, so in this climate it is of little use,unless indeed we can catch some fish and cook them."
"Stop talking about eating and help us to haul up the canoe," saidBickley.
Between the three of us we dragged and carried the canoe a long way fromthe lake, fearing lest the natives should come and bear it off with ourprovisions. Then, having given Tommy his breakfast off the scraps,we walked to the cave. I glanced at my companions. Bickley's face wasalight with scientific eagerness. Here are not dreams or speculations,but facts to be learned, it seemed to say, and I will learn them. Thepast is going to show me some of its secrets, to tell me how men of longago lived and died and how far they had advanced to that point on theroad of civilisation at which I stand in my little hour of existence.
That of Bastin was mildly interested, no more. Obviously, with half hismind he was thinking of something else, probably of his converts onthe main island and of the school class fixed for this hour whichcircumstances prevented him from attending. Indeed, like Lot's wife hewas casting glances behind him towards the wicked place from which hehad been forced to flee.
Neither the past nor the future had much real interest for Bastin; anymore than they had for Bickley, though for different reasons. The formerwas done with; the latter he was quite content to leave in other hands.If he had any clear idea thereof, probably that undiscovered landappeared to him as a big, pleasant place where are no unbelievers orerroneous doctrines, and all sinners will be sternly repressed,in which, clad in a white surplice with all proper ecclesiasticaltrappings, he would argue eternally with the Early Fathers and in duecourse utterly annihilate Bickley, that is in a moral sense. Personallyand as a man he was extremely attached to Bickley as a necessary andwrong-headed nuisance to which he had become accustomed.
And I! What did I feel? I do not know; I cannot describe. Anextraordinary attraction, a semi-spiritual exaltation, I think. Thatcave mouth might have been a magnet drawing my soul. With my body Ishould have been afraid, as I daresay I was, for our circumstances weresufficiently desperate. Here we were, castaways upon an island, probablyuncharted, one of thousands in the recesses of a vast ocean, from whichwe had little chance of escape. More, having offended the religiousinstincts of the primeval inhabitants of that island, we had been forcedto flee to a rocky mountain in the centre of a lake, where, after thefood we had brought with us by accident was consumed, we should no doubtbe forced to choose between death by starvation, or, if we attempted toretreat, at the hands of justly infuriated savages. Yet these facts didnot oppress me, for I was being drawn, drawn to I knew not what, and ifit were to doom--well, no matter.
Therefore, none of us cared: Bastin because his faith was equal to anyemergency and there was always that white-robed heaven waiting for himbeyond which his imagination did not go (I often wondered whether hepictured Mrs. Bastin as also waiting; if so, he never said anythingabout her); Bickley because as a child of the Present and a servant ofknowledge he feared no future, believing it to be for him non-existent,and was careless as to when his strenuous hour of life should end; andI because I felt that yonder lay my true future; yes, and my true past,even though to discover them I must pass through that portal which weknow as Death.
We reached the mouth of the cave. It was a vast place; perhaps the archof it was a hundred feet high, and I could see that once all thisarch had been adorned with sculptures. Protected as these were by theoverhanging rock, for the sculptured mouth of the cave was cut deep intothe mountain face, they were still so worn that it was impossible todiscern their details. Time had eaten them away like an acid. But whatlength of time? I could not guess, but it must have been stupendous tohave worked thus upon that hard and sheltered rock.
This came home to me with added force when, from subsequent examination,we learned that the entire mouth of this cave had been sealed up forunnumbered ages. It will be remembered that Marama told me the mountainin the lake had risen much during the frightful cyclone in which we werewrecked and with it the cave mouth which previously had been invisible.From the markings on the mountain side it was obvious that something ofthe sort had happened very recently, at any rate on this eastern face.That is, either the flat rock had sunk or the volcano had been thrownupwards.
Once in the far past the cave had been as it was when we found it. Thenit had gone down in such a way that the table-rock entirely sealed theentrance. Now this entrance was once more open, and although of coursethere was a break in them, the grooves of which I have spoken ran oninto the cave at only a slightly different level from that at which theylay upon the flat rock. And yet, although they had be
en thus shelteredby a great stone curtain in front of them, still these sculptureswere worn away by the tooth of Time. Of course, however, this may havehappened to them before they were buried in some ancient cataclysm, tobe thus resurrected at the hour of our arrival upon the island.
Without pausing to make any closer examination of these crumbledcarvings, we entered the yawning mouth of that great place, followingand indeed walking in the deep grooves that I have mentioned. Presentlyit seemed to open out as a courtyard might at the end of a passage; yes,to open on to some vast place whereof in that gloom we could not see theroof or the limits. All we knew was that it must be enormous--the echoesof our voices and footsteps told us as much, for these seemed to comeback to us from high, high above and from far, far away. Bickley and Isaid nothing; we were too overcome. But Bastin remarked:
"Did you ever go to Olympia? I did once to see a kind of play wherethe people said nothing, only ran about dressed up. They told me it wasreligious, the sort of thing a clergyman should study. I didn't think itreligious at all. It was all about a nun who had a baby."
"Well, what of it?" snapped Bickley.
"Nothing particular, except that nuns don't have babies, or if they dothe fact should not be advertised. But I wasn't thinking of that. I wasthinking that this place is like an underground Olympia."
"Oh, be quiet!" I said, for though Bastin's description was not bad, hismonotonous, drawling voice jarred on me in that solemnity.
"Be careful where you walk," whispered Bickley, for even he seemed awed,"there may be pits in this floor."
"I wish we had a light," I said, halting.
"If candles are of any use," broke in Bastin, "as it happens I havea packet in my pocket. I took them with me this morning for a certainpurpose."
"Not unconnected with the paraffin and the burning of the idol, Isuppose?" said Bickley. "Hand them over."
"Yes; if I had been allowed a little more time I intended--"
"Never mind what you intended; we know what you did and that's enough,"said Bickley as he snatched the packet from Bastin's hand and proceededto undo it, adding, "By heaven! I have no matches, nor have you,Arbuthnot!"
"I have a dozen boxes of wax vestas in my other pocket," said Bastin."You see, they burn so well when you want to get up a fire on a dampidol. As you may have noticed, the dew is very heavy here."
In due course these too were produced. I took possession of them as theywere too valuable to be left in the charge of Bastin, and, extractinga box from the packet, lit two of the candles which were of the shortthick variety, like those used in carriage-lamps.
Presently they burned up, making two faint stars of light which,however, were not strong enough to show us either the roof or the sidesof that vast place. By their aid we pursued our path, still followingthe grooves till suddenly these came to an end. Now all around us was aflat floor of rock which, as we perceived clearly when we pushedaside the dust that had gathered thickly on it in the course of ages,doubtless from the gradual disintegration of the stony walls, had oncebeen polished till it resembled black marble. Indeed, certain cracksin the floor appeared to have been filled in with some dark-colouredcement. I stood looking at them while Bickley wandered off to the rightand a little forward, and presently called to me. I walked to him,Bastin sticking close to me as I had the other candle, as did the littledog, Tommy, who did not like these new surroundings and would not leavemy heels.
"Look," said Bickley, holding up his candle, "and tell me--what's that?"
Before me, faintly shown, was some curious structure of gleaming rodsmade of yellowish metal, which rods appeared to be connected by wires.The structure might have been forty feet high and perhaps a hundredlong. Its bottom part was buried in dust.
"What is that?" asked Bickley again.
I made no answer, for I was thinking. Bastin, however, replied:
"It's difficult to be sure in this light, but I should think that itmay be the remains of a cage in which some people who lived here keptmonkeys, or perhaps it was an aviary. Look at those little ladders forthe monkeys to climb by, or possibly for the birds to sit on."
"Are you sure it wasn't tame angels?" asked Bickley.
"What a ridiculous remark! How can you keep an angel in a cage? I--"
"Aeroplane!" I almost whispered to Bickley.
"You've got it!" he answered. "The framework of an aeroplane and a jollylarge one, too. Only why hasn't it oxidised?"
"Some indestructible metal," I suggested. "Gold, for instance, does notoxidise."
He nodded and said:
"We shall have to dig it out. The dust is feet thick about it; we can donothing without spades. Come on."
We went round to the end of the structure, whatever it might be, andpresently came to another. Again we went on and came to another, all ofthem being berthed exactly in line.
"What did I tell you?" said Bickley in a voice of triumph. "A wholegarage full, a regular fleet of aeroplanes!"
"That must be nonsense," said Bastin, "for I am quite sure that theseOrofenans cannot make such things. Indeed they have no metal, and evencut the throats of pigs with wooden knives."
Now I began to walk forward, bearing to the left so as to regain ourformer line. We could do nothing with these metal skeletons, and Ifelt that there must be more to find beyond. Presently I saw somethinglooming ahead of me and quickened my pace, only to recoil. For there,not thirty feet away and perhaps three hundred yards from the mouth ofthe cave, suddenly appeared what looked like a gigantic man. Tommy sawit also and barked as dogs do when they are frightened, and the soundof his yaps echoed endlessly from every quarter, which scared him tosilence. Recovering myself I went forward, for now I guessed the truth.It was not a man but a statue.
The thing stood upon a huge base which lessened by successive steps,eight of them, I think, to its summit. The foot of this base may havebeen a square of fifty feet or rather more; the real support or pedestalof the statue, however, was only a square of about six feet. The figureitself was little above life-size, or at any rate above our life-size,say seven feet in height. It was very peculiar in sundry ways.
To begin with, nothing of the body was visible, for it was swathed likea corpse. From these wrappings projected one arm, the right, in the handof which was the likeness of a lighted torch. The head was not veiled.It was that of a man, long-nosed, thin-lipped, stern-visaged; thecountenance pervaded by an awful and unutterable calm, as deep as thatof Buddha only less benign. On the brow was a wreathed head-dress, notunlike an Eastern turban, from which sprang two little wings resemblingin some degree those on the famous Greek head of Hypnos, lord of Sleep.Between the folds of the wrappings on the back sprang two other wings,enormous wings bent like those of a bird about to take flight. Indeedthe whole attitude of the figure suggested that it was springing fromearth to air. It was executed in black basalt or some stone of the sort,and very highly finished. For instance, on the bare feet and the armwhich held the torch could be felt every muscle and even some ofthe veins. In the same way the details of the skull were perfectlyperceptible to the touch, although at first sight not visible on themarble surface. This was ascertained by climbing on the pedestal andfeeling the face with our hands.
Here I may say that its modelling as well as that of the feet and thearm filled Bickley, who, of course, was a highly trained anatomist, withabsolute amazement. He said that he would never have thought it possiblethat such accuracy could have been reached by an artist working in sohard a material.
When the others had arrived we studied this relic as closely as ourtwo candles would allow, and in turn expressed our opinions of itssignificance. Bastin thought that if those things down there were reallythe remains of aeroplanes, which he did not believe, the statue hadsomething to do with flying, as was shown by the fact that it had wingson its head and shoulders. Also, he added, after examining the face, thehead was uncommonly like that of the idol that he had blown up. It hadthe same long nose and severe shut mouth. If he was right, this w
asprobably another effigy of Oro which we should do well to destroy atonce before the islanders came to worship it.
Bickley ground his teeth as he listened to him.
"Destroy that!" he gasped. "Destroy! Oh! you, you--early Christian."
Here I may state that Bastin was quite right, as we proved subsequentlywhen we compared the head of the fetish, which, as it will beremembered, he had brought away with him, with that of the statue.Allowing for an enormous debasement of art, they were essentiallyidentical in the facial characteristics. This would suggest the descentof a tradition through countless generations. Or of course it may havebeen accidental. I am sure I do not know, but I think it possible thatfor unknown centuries other old statues may have existed in Orofena fromwhich the idol was copied. Or some daring and impious spirit may havefound his way to the cave in past ages and fashioned the local god uponthis ancient model.
Bickley was struck at once, as I had been, with the resemblance of thefigure to that of the Egyptian Osiris. Of course there were differences.For instance, instead of the crook and the scourge, this divinity helda torch. Again, in place of the crown of Egypt it wore a wingedhead-dress, though it is true this was not very far removed from thewinged disc of that country. The wings that sprang from its shoulders,however, suggested Babylonia rather than Egypt, or the Assyrian bullsthat are similarly adorned. All of these symbolical ideas might havebeen taken from that figure. But what was it? What was it?
In a flash the answer came to me. A representation of the spirit ofDeath! Neither more nor less. There was the shroud; there the cold,inscrutable countenance suggesting mysteries that it hid. But the torchand the wings? Well, the torch was that which lighted souls to the otherworld, and on the wings they flew thither. Whoever fashioned that statuehoped for another life, or so I was convinced.
I explained my ideas. Bastin thought them fanciful and preferred hisnotion of a flying man, since by constitution he was unable to discoveranything spiritual in any religion except his own. Bickley agreed thatit was probably an allegorical representation of death but sniffed atmy interpretation of the wings and the torch, since by constitution hecould not believe that the folly of a belief in immortality could havedeveloped so early in the world, that is, among a highly civilisedpeople such as must have produced this statue.
What we could none of us understand was why this ominous image with itsdead, cold face should have been placed in an aerodrome, nor in fact didwe ever discover. Possibly it was there long before the cave was put tothis use. At first the place may have been a temple and have so remaineduntil circumstances forced the worshippers to change their habits, oreven their Faith.
We examined this wondrous work and the pedestal on which it stood asclosely as we were able by the dim light of our candles. I was anxiousto go further and see what lay beyond it; indeed we did walk a fewpaces, twenty perhaps, onward into the recesses of the cave.
Then Bickley discovered something that looked like the mouth of a welldown which he nearly tumbled, and Bastin began to complain that he washot and very thirsty; also to point out that he wished for no more cavesand idols at present.
"Look here, Arbuthnot," said Bickley, "these candles are burning low andwe don't want to use up more if we can prevent it, for we may need whatwe have got very badly later on. Now, according to my pocket compassthe mouth of this cave points due east; probably at the beginning it wasorientated to the rising sun for purposes of astronomical observation orof worship at certain periods of the year. From the position of the sunwhen we landed on the rock this morning I imagine that just now itrises almost exactly opposite to the mouth of the cave. If this is so,to-morrow at dawn, for a time at least, the light should penetrate asfar as the statue, and perhaps further. What I suggest is that we shouldwait till then to explore."
I agreed with him, especially as I was feeling tired, being exhaustedby wonder, and wanted time to think. So we turned back. As we did so Imissed Tommy and inquired anxiously where he was, being afraid lest hemight have tumbled down the well-like hole.
"He's all right," said Bastin. "I saw him sniffing at the base of thatstatue. I expect there is a rat in there, or perhaps a snake."
Sure enough when we reached it there was Tommy with his black nosepressed against the lowest of the tiers that formed the base of thestatue, and sniffing loudly. Also he was scratching in the dust as a dogdoes when he has winded a rabbit in a hole. So engrossed was he in thisoccupation that it was with difficulty that I coaxed him to leave theplace.
I did not think much of the incident at that time, but afterwards itcame back to me, and I determined to investigate those stones at thefirst opportunity.
Passing the wrecks of the machines, we emerged on to the causewaywithout accident. After we had rested and washed we set to work to drawour canoe with its precious burden of food right into the mouth of thecave, where we hid it as well as we could.
This done we went for a walk round the base of the peak. This provedto be a great deal larger than we had imagined, over two miles incircumference indeed. All about it was a belt of fertile land, as Isuppose deposited there by the waters of the great lake and resultingfrom the decay of vegetation. Much of this belt was covered withancient forest ending in mud flats that appeared to have been thrownup recently, perhaps at the time of the tidal wave which bore us toOrofena. On the higher part of the belt were many of the extraordinarycrater-like holes that I have mentioned as being prevalent on the mainisland; indeed the place had all the appearance of having been subjectedto a terrific and continuous bombardment.
When we had completed its circuit we set to work to climb the peak inorder to explore the terraces of which I have spoken and the ruinswhich I had seen through my field-glasses. It was quite true; they wereterraces cut with infinite labour out of the solid rock, and on themhad once stood a city, now pounded into dust and fragments. We struggledover the broken blocks of stone to what we had taken for a temple, whichstood near the lip of the crater, for without doubt this mound was anextinct volcano, or rather its crest. All we could make out when wearrived was that here had once stood some great building, for its courtscould still be traced; also there lay about fragments of steps andpillars.
Apparently the latter had once been carved, but the passage ofinnumerable ages had obliterated the work and we could not turn thesegreat blocks over to discover if any remained beneath. It was as thoughthe god Thor had broken up the edifice with his hammer, or Jove hadshattered it with his thunderbolts; nothing else would account for thatutter wreck, except, as Bickley remarked significantly, the scientificuse of high explosives.
Following the line of what seemed to have been a road, we came to theedge of the volcano and found, as we expected, the usual depression outof which fire and lava had once been cast, as from Hecla or Vesuvius. Itwas now a lake more than a quarter of a mile across. Indeed it had beenthus in the ancient days when the buildings stood upon the terraces, forwe saw the remains of steps leading down to the water. Perhaps it hadserved as the sacred lake of the temple.
We gazed with wonderment and then, wearied out, scrambled back throughthe ruins, which, by the way, were of a different stone from the lava ofthe mountain, to the mouth of the great cave.
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