Next moment the humans were fighting for their lives, hacking and hewing desperately at the purblind faces which surrounded them, while the filthy stench, drawn into their nostrils with every breath, made them want to vomit.
Perhaps the McKay’s formation saved them then, for they closed in back to back with the two girls wedged in the middle, yet striking out over the men’s shoulders wherever the need for help was greatest.
With Vladimir leading now they retreated like a square of infantry, fighting every inch of the way, until they were in the entrance of the cave where they had had their last meal. Then, at the McKay’s order the group turned as on a pivot. He and Count Axel struck down the blind creatures that barred their path and led the way along the tunnel into temporary safety.
The party broke for a moment but re-gathered when they caught the McKay’s shout that they must run, and after a hundred yards their longer legs had already carried them clear of the clamouring herd.
A shower of stones followed them down the tunnel but that curved a little, and they slackened to a gentler pace, trotting down hill for a quarter of a mile.
It was only when they broke into a walk and Vladimir cried “Where’s Bozo?—he is with us no more,” that they halted dead in their tracks.
Vladimir was right. The gunman had vanished, felled by a stone on the head perhaps—he must have dropped without a sound as they fled.
“We must go back,” announced the McKay without hesitation. “We can’t leave him in the hands of these brutes—they’ll tear him limb from limb.”
The party turned. In two minutes they had covered the distance back to the entrance to the tunnel. It was empty, but in the great cavern an extraordinary and horrifying scene was in progress.
The luminous mist which rose above the pool lower down the slope showed hundreds of the squat grey figures gathered about it. At one point a compact little company carried a dark shape as ants would carry a dead grasshopper. It was Bozo, and before any move could be made to stop them they threw him, with one heave, head foremost, to the bearded monster and his horrible companions in the oily pool.
Camilla, who felt that she had passed beyond all terror, bit into her knuckles and whimpered pitifully with a fresh access of fear.
Sally closed her eyes and leaned limply against the wall. “Oh heaven! Then that’s what will happen when they catch us!” she whispered half fainting with horror.
“He was unconscious,” said the McKay softly, “or dead perhaps. We should have seen him struggling otherwise.”
Count Axel did not speak. It was fitting he thought, that the simplest among them should pass on first. Bozo had paid, no doubt, for the crimes he had committed purely as a means of livelihood. A low mentality, seduced in youth to easy living by carrying out the orders of his criminal superiors without thought of their consequences to other people. Axel judged his own sins and those of his friends to be of a more subtle kind, and such as the human law could take no ready hold upon. Some power had it seemed, decreed that they must suffer further agonies before they had worked off the debts they had accumulated in the life they had just left and be granted rebirth into a more pleasant existence.
The herd had now fallen face downwards in a densely packed circle round the pool. Grovelling, with arms outstretched, they beat their foreheads on the rocky floor, and twittered without cessation, as they made obeisance to the swirling waters into which Bozo’s body had disappeared.
“Dagon!” exclaimed the Doctor suddenly.
“What?” asked Nicky unsteadily.
“They worship Dagon,” answered the Doctor, “or Ea, if you prefer that name. The oldest god of all. It is a sight I never dreamed of witnessing. He was the Sea-god. The fish with a man’s head who came up out of the great waters and spewed up the earth at the very beginning of time. India and Chaldea both retained traces of this cult. Himmel! that I should see it practised is past belief.”
“Let’s get away from here.” Even the McKay’s voice was a shade jerky now.
They turned then and ran, retracing their steps on the downward road through the tunnel which they had already partly traversed.
After covering half a mile they came out in another, smaller, cavern. It had only one other exit, as far as they could see, so they took that and proceeded into the unknown.
The ground sloped upward now and they felt intensely weary but under the McKay’s leadership they stumbled on. This passage was narrower and seemed endless but after they had been marching for twenty minutes Count Axel broke the silence.
“Am I imagining it or is it lighter here?” He switched out his torch and they halted for a minute, then agreed that the impenetrable blackness had given way to a greyish murk.
“Another chamber ahead with some more of those revolting fishmen in a pool I expect,” said the McKay gloomily but, as they advanced again the greyness lightened and took on a warmer yellowish tinge.
They could see each other without the aid of their torches for the first time in many hours. Each thought how tattered and dishevelled the others looked and that their strained, anxious faces had aged ten years in a night.
For a few more moments they plodded on through the half-light until they came round a bend and saw the exit of the tunnel, an arch, brightly lit by what appeared to be golden sunshine.
With cries of surprise, hope, and wonder they ran the last hundred yards, then halted, grouped together in the archway, utterly amazed at what they saw.
It was a cavern, larger and loftier than any which they had yet entered; roughly oval in shape and brightly lit through all its length by a ribbon of steady unflickering golden light which ran round its roof; but the sight which held them spellbound was the luxuriant vegetation covering almost the whole of its floor space.
Only a narrow shelf of bare rock ran round the walls of the vast hall, then came a deep ditch—fifteen feet wide, filled with clear water. On the far side of this moat rose a waist-high cactus hedge whose needle-like spines made it an almost impassable barrier. Above the level of that thick prickly fence flowering shrubs and fruit trees grew in wonderful profusion while beyond, a grove of forty foot palm trees towered up, all but hiding a square pillar of rock which supported the centre of the lofty ceiling.
A heavy silence brooded over the sunlit scene which added to its unreality. No breath of wind stirred the leaves or palm fronds and no rustle in the undergrowth betrayed the presence of any animal life, yet the whole fairyland of verdure made the air balmy with the sweet perfume of its flowers and grasses.
The McKay stood staring across the narrow strip of water no longer trusting his eyesight, until exclamations from other members of the party assured him that they too could see this enclosed woodland paradise.
Dazed and bewildered they moved forward along the narrow shelf of rock outside the water-filled channel, seeking a bridge over it, but they made the whole circuit of the place without finding the least variation in the ditch or any break in the thick spiky hedge of cactus which grew like a low wall on its far side.
This orchard jungle was an island, secreted behind strong natural defences and there seemed to be no way in which it could be entered.
The party paused again about fifty yards from the tunnel entrance, opposite a climbing growth of wistaria heavy with blossom, which rose above the thorny hedge.
“We’ve damn well got to get in there somehow,” exclaimed the McKay.
Suddenly, as though in answer to his speech, the tendrils of the wistaria parted and a man stood there, framed in flowers and greenery, eyeing them with extreme curiosity across the low cactus wall. He was as tall as Vladimir, beautifully proportioned, and as handsome as Nicky but his features had the firmness of middle age and he was olive-skinned. The graceful folds of a white linen garment edged with purple hung from his shoulders. His expression was serene and kindly. He smiled at them and said:
“Good morning.”
CHAPTER XVIII
THE GARDEN OF THE GODS
Count Axel nodded. “We all died together in the sphere—quite painlessly. There is no other explanation for … all this!”
“You are mistaken I think.” A gentle humour twitched the lips of the man beyond the cactus hedge. “You do not look at all dead to me.”
The McKay’s eyes were popping out of his head. With a rudeness quite contrary to his nature he ignored the stranger and addressed the others. “He’s speaking English. I heard him—can you hear him too?”
The man on the island seemed to be more amused than ever. “I speak in English because I heard you use that language,” he said, “but, if you prefer it I can talk with you in any one of the five tongues which are most commonly used in the modern world and I know enough of several others to get about without difficulty.”
“To get about?” exclaimed Nicky. “Just listen now—he’s talking as though he might set off at any moment on an autumn cruise!”
“My surprise at this meeting is almost equal to your own,” remarked the man, “as there is no record of any human from the upper world having penetrated here before—but not quite so great, for we at least had knowledge of your upper world whereas you were naturally ignorant of this. My name is Nahou and I am, what you would call, an Atlantean.”
Count Axel stepped forward to the brink of the water-filled ditch with a belated effort to show some courtesy. “Sir,” he said gravely, “if my belief that we are dead is right you are surely the subject of a gentle God. If I am wrong you are a civilised and cultured man. In either case I beg your pity and protection for myself and my friends. We have suffered much on our journey here. Our endurance is almost at an end, and we shall surely become the prey of evil things unless you grant us sanctuary in your island Paradise.”
The Atlantean eyed him with equal gravity and spoke again with the same gentleness. “Humans in such a desperate situation would have my sympathy in any case but your words, Sir, show you to be one of the elect—a twice-born—and for your sake, if no other, I make your party welcome here. Yet your request for sanctuary raises a problem which we have never had to face before. You will, I fear, find some difficulty in crossing our broad ditch.”
“We can swim,” said the McKay abruptly. “Our real trouble’s going to be when we have to try to scale that beastly cactus hedge.”
“All problems solve themselves with a little thought,” declared Nahou easily. “I will fetch bedding to cast over the needle-thorns; then, if you can swim, I will haul you up one by one.” He turned away and the greenery closed behind him.
“By Crikey!” exclaimed Vladimir, “I am either drunk or should be locked in a cushioned cell.”
“We all feel a bit that way I think,” agreed the McKay “but we’ve just got to hang on to ourselves and see what happens next.”
Camilla laughed—quite naturally. “We’re neither,” she said obscurely. “This is only a very vivid dream. We’ll wake up in our beds to-morrow in the hotel in Madeira. Doctor Tisch and his expedition to find Atlantis have never happened really.”
“Forgive me, Gnädige Hertzogin,” protested the Doctor who was just behind her, “but I am quite real—also this cut in the calf of my leg which hurts greatly.”
Nahou returned and with him came a girl. “This is Lulluma,” he introduced her as he began to pile a great bundle of finely woven linen, which he carried, on to the cactus wall. “The others are away and so may not be disturbed to welcome you.”
They did not seek to probe the meaning of his last words because all their eyes were riveted on the girl. A head and a half shorter than Nahou, she too was dark, with smooth neatly parted hair which ended abruptly in a mass of thick curls on the nape of her neck, but her face bore not the slightest resemblance to the man’s in racial characteristics. He was a pure Mediterranean type, or might even have been a fair-skinned Berber from North Africa. She had all the dark loveliness of a Celtic woman, but there was an added squareness and stockiness about her build which, together with the proud directness of her gaze, suggested a dash of the courageous aristocratic Norman blood. Her forehead was very broad, her head perhaps a trifle large for her short, beautifully rounded, body. Her eyes were very big and limpid, her skin clear and soft with the lustre of perfect health. Her lips were full, smiling, and moistly red.
Count Axel was long past his first youth and had known many women but now, on the instant he saw Lulluma, he knew that she was a being apart. It was not only her bodily loveliness but the very spirit of eternal youth and sparkling merriment which she seemed to carry with her as she moved. She might grow old in body but to her dying day she would retain a courageous gaiety despite every attempt of fate to break it down. Yet the laughter in her eyes as she gazed with surprise and pleasure on the strangers was not all of her. Count Axel guessed rightly that she was born under the sign of Scorpio and therefore thought deeply, kept her own secrets well and, under the beautiful gay mask could be intensely serious and practical; turning her hand when necessity arose to any business just as easily as she could spend hours of idleness guzzling more good things to eat and drink, than were strictly good for her, between bursts of infectious laughter.
She was wearing red, the colour of the Scorpions, which set off her warm dark beauty in such a way that it was impossible to look at her and not feel a new vitality pulse through one’s own body.
“Come now—the rest lies with you,” declared Nahou when he had arranged the bedding across the prickly hedge. “We will help you over.”
“Vladimir—you will go first, then you can give the girls a hand in landing,” ordered the McKay who was still nominally in command of the party. “Nicky, you go after the girls—then the Doctor and Count Axel. I will come last.”
The Prince plunged into the narrow canal. His feet could not touch bottom and its sides were sheer so he would have found it impossible to gain a foothold on the island if Nahou had not reached down, gripped his wrist, and hauled him up. Sally pinned up her skirts and swam the fifteen feet of water, then the three on the opposite shore pulled her over the hedge into safety. Camilla followed her example, then the rest of the party splashed into the channel one by one and, in a quarter of an hour had entered—by this prosaic and most undignified manner—into Paradise.
The McKay introduced each member of his party by name and gave a short, very garbled, version of how they came to be there, then Nahou and Lulluma led them towards the centre of the vegetation where the palm trees rose towards the cavern’s roof. The island was hardly a garden in the strict sense of the word for it lacked paths and borders, but the thick jungle-like growth which hid its interior from external view gave way, after a few yards, to a variegated orchard in which the trees were set wide apart, giving light and air to great clumps of flowers or little single coloured blossoms that starred the grass beside their footsteps.
“I’m afraid things are not looking quite their best just now,” Nahou apologised, apparently quite unnecessarily, as he led them forward. “If you had visited us a fortnight earlier you would have found the Styglomenes in full bloom.”
Lulluma gave a deep chuckle. It was like gurgling water bubbling from a secret well that held the source of all the world’s merriment. “And if you had come a fortnight later,” she said seriously, “the Prathatontecs would have been out for you to see!”
“You are a wicked child Lulluma,” Nahou smiled, throwing his arm carelessly round her shoulders, “You mock at everything for your amusement.” His voice was gentle, caressing, yet it was not the tone of a lover, only that of one who had an infinite capacity for understanding and companionship.
“Dear fool,” she laughed, “how can they care for the beauty of our blossoms now. They are wet and tired and hungry. When they have rested and are more themselves we will show them everything and also satisfy our burning curiosity about them.”
&nb
sp; A vista opened showing a fairy-like scene. A little temple, no more than eighteen feet high, but built of pure gold, stood out against the background of the palm grove. Before it lay an open swimming pool, some thirty feet in length, its sides faced with deep blue lapis lazuli, a flight of white marble steps led down into it at the nearest end. At its far extremity, a dozen yards in front of the temple, a big satyr’s head faced them and, from its mouth a cascade of sparkling water constantly refreshed the pool.
As they advanced the newcomers saw that on either side of the pool, but some way back from it, there stood two rows of low one-storied buildings.
“We have not beds enough,” said Nahou suddenly, “and we dare not wake those who are away.”
“No matter,” Lulluma replied quickly, “we have pillows in plenty. They can sleep naked on the grass while I dry their clothes in the earthshine.”
“They do not understand nakedness, as we do who are so old in time that we have come to appreciate the wisdom of reverting to the customs of simple savages in some things,” Nahou said seriously. “You have not travelled as much as I and therefore know less of the habits of our guests.”
Lulluma threw a lightning glance at the bedraggled party. “How strange,” she said, “but never mind. You will soon learn the joy of being free from such stuffy clothes and your skins will be the better for it. In the meantime you can keep your bodies covered with linen if you wish?”
“What do they mean?” Camilla whispered to Sally. “I’ve sunbathed since I was a kid.”
They had reached the swimming pool and as she spoke Nahou turned; “Is it your desire first to eat or sleep,” he asked.
“For myself I am hungry please,” replied Doctor Tisch without hesitation.
The others agreed. Utterly weary as they were they all felt an overwhelming craving to learn more of this secret island before they gave themselves to sleep.
They Found Atlantis Page 28