Next second the foremost wave, released by some great subterranean floodgate, slapped against the wall—curved upwards scintillating with a million flashing lights and descended, drenching the little party on the quay with great splashes from the backwash.
Below them now, on their left under the quayside, they could see the furious churning of the waters as they seethed and foamed, lit dully by the lights of another great haul of deep sea creatures thrashing and leaping in a frantic effort to escape.
The luminosity from the harbour now lit a fair portion of the cavern with a dim ghostly light. Its roof and furthest walls were not visible, but the herd could be seen in a leprous mass, tightly packed together yet constantly moving like some vast blotchy writhing animal. Its nearest fringe was no more than fifty yards from the McKay but obviously they had no knowledge of his presence.
“Steady,” he said in a low voice. “Steady now, they’ve come down here for the fish—not for us.”
“It’s close on twelve hours since they had their last feed,” muttered Count Axel.
Again they waited, relieved a little, but still acutely anxious. It was almost certain that the submen would spread out along the quay and find them crouching there against the wall at its furthest extremity.
Sally was just behind the McKay. He could hear her breath coming in quick short gasps. Occasionally she choked in an endeavour to steady herself. Suddenly she screamed.
Her scream was so wild that it echoed right round the lofty chamber. Something soft had touched her shoe. For an instant she had thought it was Doctor Tisch’s foot, but the thing had stayed there and, before she had time to move, twined round her ankle like the gentle caress of some slim fingerless hand. Now its grip tightened and it began to pull.
Instantly the semi-darkness was shattered. The torches flashed out—cutting great swathes through the greyish gloom—dazzling and bewildering.
Vladimir saw the ‘thing’ first and, dropping his weapon grabbed her round the shoulders. Another second and the others had seen it too. An octopus had reached its long tentacle up from the waters that seethed three feet below upon their left and, passing it in front of Doctor Tisch, had her by the leg. The fleshy pointed arm with its long row of suckers was taut with the brute’s effort to drag her off the quayside into the harbour.
They had no knives with which to sever the tentacle so they slashed at it with their steel levers while Vladimir exerted all his strength to prevent Sally being wrenched from his embrace. The McKay jerked Bozo’s automatic from his trousers top, focused the curved beak and enormous soulless eye of the octopus in the beam of his torch, then fired down into it.
A fountain of black liquid spouted into the air but still the creature kept its hold on Sally’s ankle and reached up another waving tentacle which searched blindly for her companions. Sally screamed and screamed. Terrified, heartrending cries came shrilling from her wide open mouth and Nicky, as he flashed his torch on her face noticed, quite consciously, despite his own terror, that one of her back teeth had been crowned with gold.
The McKay fired again and again—and yet again. At last the tentacle loosened its grip; the others threshed the water furiously for a moment and the octopus sank from sight hidden under the mass of fish.
Sally went limp in Vladimir’s arms, then slid to the floor like a half-empty sack as he released her, for the submen, warned of their presence by her screams, were now surging towards them.
As the McKay switched round from shooting the octopus he saw the great grey-white herd all facing in his direction. The front ranks wavered, pressing back in fear, but the hundreds behind thrust them forward with shrill cries and clamour.
The nearest were no more than ten yards away and held their long spears blindly before them. A shower of heavy stones came hurtling down, thrown from the back of the mob which was still hidden in the darkness.
“Bombs!” yelled the McKay. “Axel, keep yours—the rest of you—let ’em have it!”
They hurled their canisters while Camilla crouched above the unconscious Sally.
The nearest submen began to stab with a jerky motion of their spears but the light of the torches seemed to disconcert them, for they shielded their faces with their free hands, and jabbed indiscriminately at the empty air. Knocking a couple aside, the McKay lashed out with his lever felling a fat fleshy creature who goggled at him blindly.
As he swiped at another he prayed for the explosion of the bombs. In another minute his little party must be crushed up against the wall or forced off the quay into the water by the relentless pressure of the herd.
Suddenly one of the grenades went off. The crash seemed to shake the roof. Then another and another followed. The submen dropped their spears and broke in wild confusion, screeching vilely.
The McKay had already decided that, if their chance did come, they must take it immediately to get out of this dangerous corner and not let themselves be trapped again in any similar situation.
He gave one swift glance behind him to assure himself that his party was all together—paused for a second as he saw Sally unconscious on the floor, but started forward as Vladimir dragged her up and slung her bodily across his shoulder.
“Quick—keep your formation and follow me!” The McKay exclaimed then, as the fourth bomb exploded, he led the party back in the direction from which they had come nearly five hours before, sticking close beside the wall.
The cavern was now like a scene from hell conjured up by the vivid brush of some early Flemish painter. A broad swathe of silvery-grey luminosity, given off by the big haul of fish and squids, rose above the whole length of the harbour, fading into darkness about ten feet up. As the party of humans advanced along the blank wall which curved in a great arc round the inland side of the quay the herd were thrown up in silhouette against the silvery grey mist. Screeching with terror little knots of them ran blindly from side to side, slipping and falling in the blood of their wounded or blundering into the piles of corpses which marked the places where the bombs had fallen.
The party advanced to near the spot where they had first struck the wall after they left the sphere, when Sally began to whimper. They halted a moment for Vladimir to set her down and the McKay forced a sip of brandy, from his flask, between her lips.
“Think you can walk m’dear?” he asked urgently.
Sally stared with terrified eyes at the nightmare figures moving in the silvery haze. “Oh God!” she gulped. “If we’re caught I—I believe they’ll eat us.”
“We’ll be dead before that,” Nicky’s voice quavered.
“Can you walk Sally?” repeated the McKay. “We’ve got to make an effort now.”
“Yes,” she shuddered, “I’ll manage somehow.”
Camilla and Doctor Tisch took her arms, Vladimir dropped to the rear, and they hurriedly set off again in their original formation. Instead of fleeing as they had the night before, the submen were concentrating now at the far end of the chamber, and a scatter of rocks and stones began to fall.
They were wildly aimed and most of them pitched among their own gibbering wounded, but a few clopped against the wall and one caught Nicky on the shoulder.
“Up shields!” ordered the McKay, as he continued to press forward, then, when they had advanced another hundred yards he saw a lofty break in the wall beyond the place where the herd were massed together.
“That’s the way they come,” he whispered to Axel. “God knows where it leads but we’ve got to chance that and get through it somehow. I had hoped that the bombs would clear this place altogether.”
“You forget the fish,” Count Axel whispered back. “Last night they had full stomachs when you attacked them, but now they are empty and they will not leave this place until they have secured their food.”
The stones were flying faster now, clicking and rattling as they bounded from the flat rock floor. A dozen had already thudded on the shields which the party held over their heads and faces.
Within fifty
feet of the enemy the McKay halted. The big arch showed quite distinctly now, lit by the unearthly glow thrown up from the harbour. Between it and him a solid jamb of the naked sub-race, males and females, were pressed—jostling each other as they threw their stones—a hundred deep, barring the passage.
“Clear me that entrance Count,” said the McKay, “use both your bombs.”
Count Axel lobbed one carefully into the centre of the crowd and threw the other high with all his strength, so that it landed just short of the archway.
“This is sheer murder,” murmured the Doctor in a horror-stricken voice.
“D’you think I like it?” snapped the McKay.
They waited then, clustered together, their shields held up to protect them from the still-falling stones which continued to clatter all about them.
A blinding flash lit the cavern for a second. Again the whole place vibrated with the crash. Another followed two seconds afterwards. Once more there came those piercing screams of agony and the frantic gibbering as the herd parted, stampeding in great batches. One group, distraught with terror, rushed straight off the quayside into the harbour, another blindly collided with the wall only ten feet from where the McKay was crouching.
“Come on now,” he called, “stick together and follow me!” Then at a quick trot he headed for the archway.
The submen seemed to know of their approach by the flashing of the torches, and with animal courage, turned to attack their tormentors.
For five minutes the little party of humans fought their way forward, striking out ruthlessly with their steel levers.
The filthy stench of rotten fish was so nauseating now they were right among the herd that they were nearly overcome by it.
They were terribly handicapped by the semi-darkness, as the beams of their torches only lit the thing upon which they were focused for the moment, and everything outside the rays was hidden from them.
Tripping and stumbling over dead bodies and writhing wounded they literally hacked their way through the mass of short, naked, stinking, grey-white people until, at last, the McKay reached the entrance of the lofty arch.
It was black and empty. In it he turned to assure himself that the rest had got through. The others were close upon his heels. Vladimir and Bozo were beating off the submen in a desperate rear-guard action.
“Come on,” he called. “We’ve got the legs of them, and a clear run before us.” Then he plunged into the tunnel.
The others followed, breaking clear of the mob almost immediately. Yet, as they ran, they knew that they were pursued, for even the echo of their own flying feet did not entirely drown the soft padding of those countless others and the shrill birdlike voices of the submen twittered angrily in their ears.
Count Axel lit the way, his torch focused to the front but downwards, so that they should not rush headlong over some precipice hidden in the velvet blackness. Once or twice the McKay flashed his light up to the roof or walls. The tunnel was about twenty feet in height, and, apparently hewn out of the solid rock.
After a few moments they outdistanced their pursuers. The cries and patter had died down behind them. They eased their pace and dropped into a steady loping trot.
The tunnel ended abruptly and, almost before they had realised it, they were traversing a level open space which sloped downwards. The roof was visible, but no walls until two hundred yards further on they ran slap into one. Turning left they sped along it, hoping to find a break in its smooth surface but, before they did so that stealthy padding of the now silent mob upon their heels, could be heard again.
Unseen by the humans the submen streamed into the chamber, cutting diagonally across it and now it was evident that they were not totally blind, for they began to cast stones in the direction of the torches.
The McKay turned to face the new attack but, as the first shower of stones descended, Nicky cried: “Here—this way! There’s another tunnel.”
“Keep in your ranks,” called the McKay and, thrusting past Nicky, with Axel at his side, he led the way down it.
The second tunnel was much longer than the first and after a half a mile they had outdistanced the short-legged submen again. They slowed up then into a quick walk, all breathing heavily.
At last the second tunnel ended in another high-roofed chamber but the eyes of the whole party were instantly rivetted on one spot in it, low down towards their right. A pale cloud of luminous silver light broke the curtain of pitchy blackness. Like children who have ventured into the dark cellars below some old house, they instinctively ran towards it.
The light came from a round pool about fifty feet in diameter, edged by a broken stone wall just knee high. The water was oily and showed not a ripple, the luminosity came from pieces of dead fish, transparent scales and spiky fins that were floating in a silvery scum upon its surface.
At first they thought the pool to be another of those strange subterranean harbours like that from which they had come, but suddenly the waters broke.
An utterly hideous and rapacious face stared up at them. It was a Merman, such as they had seen on their later dives but larger, and the fair quill-like hair not only stood out backwards from its narrow skull but also sprouted from its fanged receding jaw in a jagged beard.
They drew back in repulsion as others, females of the species rose silently beside it, staring at them with beady unblinking eyes.
“If I could spare the bullets I’d put some into them,” muttered the McKay. “But every one I’ve got is worth its weight in emeralds. Come on—we’ll choose another place to rest in before we go any further.”
After exploring for a little while they found two fresh tunnels about fifty yards apart, but owing to their visit to the pool they were now no longer quite certain of their direction, so chose the entrance of the largest and sat down in it for a breather.
“How are you all feeling?” asked the McKay anxiously. “Anyone get hurt in our last scrap?”
“My calf is cut by a stone,” complained the Doctor, “but that is now of no consequence. What matters is that I have a pain in my stomach from hunger.”
The McKay considered for a moment. The herd had evidently given up the chase or taken a wrong turning among this labyrinth of chambers and tunnels. It seemed that they might just as well consume such food as they had left now. What object was there in saving it until later. In another twelve hours they must find a new source of supply or the game was up—and the sooner it was over, the better then. Since breakfast on the ship—yes, twenty-two hours ago—although it felt like a separate life-time, they had had only one scratch meal to support them. He ordered out the remainder of their provender.
An utter silence filled the great black spaces. Only the sound of their munching broke the heavy stillness.
In ten minutes they had finished up all that was left of their picnic lunch and were temporarily rested. The weaker members of the party had had four hours sleep before the fight in the harbour and, in spite of her horrible experience with the octopus, the freer feeling of the great tunnels made Sally a little less nervy, while Camilla’s tendency towards hysteria had played itself out, so that she squatted beside Vladimir now, sunk in a natural silence.
“We’ll move on I think,” said the McKay, but as he was about to rise Count Axel held out a restraining hand.
“A cigarette first please. I have some still since we were not allowed to smoke in the bathysphere. After all why should we hurry, as we have no idea where we wish to go. Our only clear objective is to avoid those filthy fish-eating creatures.”
“Just as you like,” the McKay sat down again. He remembered that he had some cigarettes too—one would be very welcome. Most of the others had small supplies and soon they were all lighting up.
“This was a good idea,” said the McKay softly as he offered Axel a light. “Restore the old morale eh? You’re a cool hand Count and I take off my hat to you.”
The Count shrugged. “It is only the outcome of a lifelong habit
of procrastination,” he replied, “no more.” But in his mind he knew that the reason lay far deeper and could not be easily explained. He had decided definitely now that they had all died in the bathysphere. Slinger—Ardow—the immaculate but unscrupulous Mr. Kate—were all so infinitely far removed from this new existence.
That the party had remained together was quite explicable. From people who believed that they understood at least the fringe of such things he had heard that in a railway accident those who met sudden death could not quite realise at first that they were really dead, and spoke to the rescuers who removed their bodies, hoping they would hear. Yet they found no response—only from those who had died with them and, for a little while, they were earthbound with those dead companions. Then in due course they became accustomed to the new plane they occupied and drifted apart from their fellow dead—impelled by an omnipotent guidance towards the sphere reserved for their new activities.
It seemed to the Count that this dark underworld must be that in which the ancients had believed so universally; a sort of Purgatory where he would suffer in proportion to his sins but, as surely as the sun would rise again upon the upper earth to-morrow, the vital essence of himself would remain unharmed. Why therefore should they hurry anywhere.
His cigarette was only two thirds smoked when that stealthy patter of naked feet reached his ears again. The others had heard it too. As the McKay sprang up they all scrambled to their feet. The sound seemed to come down the tunnel in the entrance of which they were sitting.
“Form up!” rapped out the McKay, “we’ll take the smaller tunnel,” and at a trot again he led them to the other opening in the wall fifty yards further on.
Their sense of direction had deceived them in the darkness but they realised it too late. As they reached the second tunnel the submen came streaming out of it right on to them.
“About turn,” the McKay bellowed as he emptied the remaining contents of his pistol into the foremost wave, hoping to stem the attack, but the host trampled down their slain and pressed forward without the slightest check.
They Found Atlantis Page 27