“That lets me out,” he said. “I’m through. Yes, thank you, the pain is better. But it is K.O. to William Scanlan. I’ve learned my lesson. You don’t fight hell with six-shooters, and it’s no use to try. I give him best from now onwards.”
“Yes, you have had your lesson,” said Maracot, “and it has been a severe one.”
“Then you think our case is hopeless?”
“What can we do when, as it would seem, he is aware of every word and action? And yet we will not despair.” He sat in thought for a few moments. “I think,” he resumed, “that you, Scanlan, had best lie where you are for a time. You have had a shock from which it will take you some time to recover.”
“If there is anything doing, count me in, though I guess we can cut out the rough stuff,” said our comrade bravely, but his drawn face and shaking limbs showed what he had endured.
“There is nothing doing so far as you are concerned. We at least have learned what is the wrong way to go to work. All violence is useless. We are working on another plane — the plane of spirit. Do you remain here, Headley. I am going to the room which I use as a study. Perhaps if I were alone I could see a little more clearly what we should do.”
Both Scanlan and I had learned to have a great confidence in Maracot. If any human brain could solve our difficulties, it would be his. And yet surely we had reached a point which was beyond all human capacity. We were as helpless as children in the face of forces which we could neither understand nor control. Scanlan had fallen into a troubled sleep. My own one thought as I sat beside him was not how we should escape, but rather what form the blow would take and when it would fall. At any moment I was prepared to see the solid roof above us sink in, the walls collapse, and the dark waters of the lowest deep close in upon those who had defied them so long.
Then suddenly the great bell pealed out once more. Its harsh clamour jarred upon every nerve. I sprang to my feet, and Scanlan sat up in bed. It was no ordinary summons which rang through the old palace. The agitated tumultuous ringing, broken and irregular, was calling an alarm. All had to come, and at once. It was menacing and insistent. “Come now! Come at once! Leave everything and come!” cried the bell.
“Say, Bo, we should be with them,” said Scanlan. “guess they’re up against it now.”
“And yet what can we do?”
“Maybe just the sight of us will give them a bit of heart. Anyhow, they must not think that we are quitters. Where is the Doc?”
“He went to his study. But you are right, Scanlan. We should be with the others and let them see that we are ready to share their fate.”
“The poor boobs seem to lean on us in a way. It may be that they know more than we, but we seem to have more sand in our craw than they. I guess they have taken what was given to them, and we have had to find things for ourselves. Well, it’s me for the deluge — if the deluge has got to be.”
But as we approached the door a most unexpected interruption detained us. Dr. Maracot stood before us. But was it indeed the Dr. Maracot whom we had known — this self-assured man with strength and resolution shining from every feature of his masterful face? The quiet scholar had been submerged, and here was a superman, a great leader, a dominant soul who might mould mankind to his desires.
“Yes, friends, we shall be needed. All may yet be well. But come at once, or it may be too late. I will explain everything later — if there is any later for us. Yes, yes, we are coming.”
The latter words, with appropriate gesture, were spoken to some terrified Atlanteans who had appeared at the door and were eagerly beckoning to us to come. It was a fact, as Scanlan had said, that we had shown ourselves several times to be stronger in character and prompter in action than these secluded people, and at this hour of supreme danger they seemed to cling to us. I could hear a subdued murmur of satisfaction and relief as we entered the crowded hall, and took the places reserved for us in the front row.
It was time that we came, if we were indeed to bring any help. The terrible presence was already standing upon the dais and facing with a cruel, thin-lipped, demoniacal smile the cowering folk before him. Scanlan’s simile of a bunch of rabbits before a weasel came back to my memory as I looked round at them. They sank together, holding on to each other in their terror, and gazing wide — eyed at the mighty figure which towered above them and the ruthless granite-hewed face which looked down upon them. Never can I forget the impression of those semi-circular rows, tier above tier, of haggard, wide-eyed faces with their horrified gaze all directed towards the central dais. It would seem that he had already pronounced their doom and that they stood in the shadow of death waiting for its fulfilment. Manda was standing in abject submission, pleading in broken accents for his people, but one could see that the words only gave an added zest to the monster who stood sneering before him. The creature interrupted him with a few rasping words, and raised his right hand in the air, while a cry of despair rose from the assembly.
And at that moment Dr. Maracot sprang upon the dais. It was amazing to watch him. Some miracle seemed to have altered the man. He had the gait and the gesture of a youth, and yet upon his face there was a look of such power as I have never seen upon human features yet. He strode up to the swarthy giant, who glared down at him in amazement.
“Well, little man, what have you to say?” he asked.
“I have this to say,” said Maracot. “Your time has come. You have over-stayed it. Go down! Go down into the Hell that has been waiting for you so long. You are a prince of darkness. Go where the darkness is.”
The demon’s eyes shot dark fire as he answered:
“When my time comes, if it should ever come, it will not be from the lips of a wretched mortal that I shall learn it,” said he. “What power have you that you could oppose for a moment one who is in the secret places of Nature? I could blast you where you stand.”
Maracot looked into those terrible eyes without blenching. It seemed to me that it was the giant who flinched away from his gaze.
“Unhappy being,” said Maracot. “It is I who have the power and the will to blast you where you stand. Too long have you cursed the world with your presence. You have been a plague-spot infecting all that was beautiful and good. The hearts of men will be lighter when you are gone, and the sun will shine more brightly.”
“What is this? Who are you? What is it that you are saying?” stammered the creature.
“You speak of secret knowledge. Shall I tell you that which is at the very base of it? It is that on every plane the good of that plane can be stronger than the evil. The angel will still beat the devil. For the moment I am on the same plane on which you have so long been, and I hold the power of the conqueror. It has been given to me. So again I say: Down with you! Down to Hell to which you belong! Down, sir! Down, I say! Down!”
And then the miracle occurred. For a minute or more — how can one count time at such moments? — the two beings, the mortal and the demon, faced each other as rigid as statues, glaring into each other’s eyes, with inexorable will upon the two faces, the dark one and the fair. Then suddenly the great creature flinched. His face convulsed with rage, he threw two clawing hands up into the air. “It is you, Warda, you cursed one! I recognize your handiwork. Oh, curse you, Warda. Curse you! Curse you!” His voice died away, his long dark figure became blurred in its outline, his head drooped upon his chest, his knees sagged under him, down he sank and down, and as he sank he changed his shape. At first it was a crouching human being, then it was a dark formless mass, and then with sudden collapse it had become a semi-liquid heap of black and horrible putrescence which stained the dais and poisoned the air. At the same time Scanlan and I dashed forward on to the platform, for Dr. Maracot, with a deep groan, his powers exhausted, had fallen forward in helpless collapse. “We have won! We have won!” he muttered, and an instant later his senses had left him and he lay half dead upon the floor.
* * *
Thus it was that the Atlantean colony was saved from
the most horrible danger that could threaten it, and that an evil presence was banished for ever from the world. It was not for some days that Dr. Maracot could tell his story, and when he did it was of such a character that if we had not seen the results we should have put it down as the delirium of his illness. I may say that his power had left him with the occasion which had called it forth, and that he was now the same quiet, gentle man of science whom we had known.
“That it should have happened to me!” he cried. “To me, a materialist, a man so immersed in matter that the invisible did not exist in my philosophy. The theories of a whole lifetime have crumbled about my ears.”
“I guess we have all been to school again,” said Scanlan, “If ever I get back to the little home town, I shall have something to tell the boys.”
“The less you tell them the better, unless you want to get the name of being the greatest liar that ever came out of America,” said I. “Would you or I have believed it all if someone else had told us?”
“Maybe not. But say, Doc, you had the dope right enough. That great black stiff got his ten and out as neat as ever I saw. There was no come-back there. You clean pushed him off the map. I don’t know on what other map he has found his location, but it is no place for Bill Scanlan anyhow.”
“I will tell you exactly what occurred,” said the Doctor. “You will remember that I left you and retired into my study. I had little hope in my heart, but I had read a good deal at different times about black magic and occult arts. I was aware that white can always dominate black if it can but reach the same plane. He was on a much stronger — I will not say higher — plane than we. That was the fatal fact.
“I saw no way of getting over it. I flung myself down on the settee and I prayed — yes, I, the hardened materialist, prayed — for help. When one is at the very end of all human power, what can one do save to stretch appealing hands into the mists which gird us round? I prayed — and my prayer was most wonderfully answered.
“I was suddenly aware of the fact that I was not alone in the room. There stood before me a tall figure, as swarthy as the evil presence whom we fought, but with a kindly, bearded face which shone with benevolence and love. The sense of power which he conveyed was not less than the other, but it was the power of good, the power within the influence of which evil would shred away as the mists do before the sun. He looked at me with kindly eyes, and I sat, too amazed to speak, staring up at him. Something within me, some inspiration or intuition, told me that this was the spirit of that great and wise Atlantean who had fought the evil while he lived, and who, when he could not prevent the destruction of his country, took such steps as would ensure that the more worthy should survive even though they should be sunk to the depths of the Ocean. This wondrous being was now interposing to prevent the ruin of his work and the destruction of his children. With a sudden gush of hope I realized all this as clearly as if he had said it. Then, still smiling, he advanced, and he laid his two hands upon my head. It was his own virtue and strength, no doubt, which he was transferring to me. I felt it coursing like fire down my veins. Nothing in the world seemed impossible at that moment. I had the will and the might to do miracles. Then at that moment I heard the bell clang out, which told me that the crisis had come. As I rose from the couch the spirit, smiling his encouragement, vanished before me. Then I joined you, and the rest you know.”
“Well, sir,” said I, “I think you have made your reputation. If you care to set up as a god down here, I expect you would find no difficulty.”
“You got away with it better than I did, Doc,” said Scanlan in a rueful voice. “How is it this guy didn’t know what you were doing? He was quick enough on to me when I laid hand on a gun. And yet you had him guessing.”
“I suppose that you were on the plane of matter, and that, for the moment, we were upon that of spirit,” said the Doctor thoughtfully. “Such things teach one humility. It is only when you touch the higher that you realize how low we may be among the possibilities of creation. I have had my lesson. May my future life show that I have learned it.”
So this was the end of our supreme experience. It was but a little time later that we conceived the idea of sending news of ourselves to the surface, and that later by means of vitrine balls filled with levigen, we ascended ourselves to be met in the manner already narrated. Dr. Maracot actually talks of going back. There is some point of Ichthyology upon which he wants more precise information. But Scanlan has, I hear, married his wren in Philadelphia, and has been promoted as works manager of Merribanks, so he seeks no further adventure, while I — well, the deep sea has given me a precious pearl, and I ask for no more.
THE END
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The Maracot Deep Page 12