CHAPTER XXV
THE DUNGEON OF THE SKELETONS
As the two interlopers from the outer world moved up theslippery beach toward the great, mist-dimmed flare, escorted by thestrange and spectral throng, Stern had time to analyze some factors ofthe situation.
It was evident that diplomacy was now--unless in a sharp crisis--theonly role to play. How many of these people there might be he couldnot tell. The present gathering he estimated at about a hundred andfifty or a hundred and seventy-five; and moment by moment more werecoming down the slope, looming through the vapor, each carrying acresset on a staff or a swinging light attached to a chain.
"The village or settlement, or whatever it is," thought he, "maycontain hundreds of them, thousands perhaps. And _we_ are only two!The last thing in the world we want is a fight. But if it comes tofighting, Beatrice and I with our backs to the wall could certainlymake a mighty good showing against barbarians such as these.
"It's evident from the fact that they haven't taken our revolvers awaythey don't know the use of firearms. Ages ago they must have forgotteneven the tradition of such weapons. Their culture status seems to be akind of advanced barbarism. Some job, here, to bring them up tocivilization again."
Slow-moving, unemotional, peering dimly through the hot fog, theirwraithlike appearance (as more and more came crowding) depressed andsaddened Stern beyond all telling.
And at thought that these were the remnants of the race which once hadconquered a vast continent, built tall cities and spanned abysses withsteel--the remnants of so many million keen, energetic, scientificpeople--he groaned despairingly.
"What does all this mean?" he exclaimed in a kind of passionateoutburst. "Where are we? How did you get here? Can't you understandme? We're Americans, I tell you--Americans! For God's sake, _can't youunderstand?_"
Once more the word "Merucaans" passed round from mouth to mouth; butbeyond this Stern got no sign of comprehension.
"Village! Houses!" shouted he. "Shelter! Rest, eat, sleep!"
They merely shoved him forward up the slope, together with the girl;and now Stern saw a curious kind of causeway, paved with slippery,wet, black stones that gleamed in the torchlight, a causeway slantingsharply upward, its further end hidden in the dense vapor behindwhich the great and unknown light shone with ever-clearer glowing.
This road wash bordered on either hand by a wall of carefully cutstone about three and a half feet high; and into the wall, at equaldistances of twenty feet or so, iron rods had been let. Each rod borea fire-basket, some only dully flickering, some burning bright andblue.
Numbers of the strange folk were loitering on the causeway or comingdown to join the throng which now ascended; many clambered lithely uponto the wall, and, holding to the rods or to each other--for thestones, like everything here, were wet and glairy--watched with thosesingular-hued and squinting eyes of theirs the passage of thestrangers.
Stern and Beatrice, their breathing now oppressed by the thickeningsmoke which everywhere hung heavy, as well as by this fresh exertionin the densely compressed air, toiled, panting, up the steep incline.
The engineer was already bathed in a heavy sweat. The intense heat,well above a hundred degrees, added to the humidity, almost stifledhim. His bound arms pained almost beyond endurance. Unable to balancehimself, he slipped and staggered.
"Beatrice!" he called chokingly. "Try to make them understand I wantmy hands freed. It's bad enough trying to clamber up this infernalroad, anyhow, without having to go at it all trussed up this way."
She, needing no second appeal, raised her free arms, pointed to herwrists and then at his, and made a gesture as of cutting. But theelder boatman of Stern's canoe--seemingly a person of someauthority--only shook his head and urged the prisoners upward, everupward toward the great and growing light.
Now they had reached the top of the ascent.
On either hand, vanishing in shadows and mist, heavy and high wallsextended, all built of black, cut stone surmounted by cressets.
Through a gateway the throng passed, and the prisoners with them--agateway built of two massive monoliths of dressed stone, octagonal andhighly polished, with a huge, straight plinth that Stern estimated ata glance never could have weighed less than ten tons.
"Ironwork, heavy stonework, weaving, fisheries--a good beginning hereto work on," thought the engineer. But there was little time foranalysis. For now already they were passing through a complex seriesof inner gateways, passages, detours and labyrinthic defenseswhich--all well lighted from above by fire-baskets--spoke only tooplainly the character of the enclosure within.
"A walled town, heavily fortified," Stern realized as he and Beatricewere thrust forward through the last gate. "Evidently these people areliving here in constant fear of attack by formidable foes. I'll wagerthere's been some terrible fighting in these narrow ways--and theremay be some more, too, before we're through with it. God, what aplace! Makes me think of the _machicoulis_ and pasterns at oldCarcassonne. So far as this is concerned, we're back again in the DarkAges--dark, dark as Erebus!"
Then, all at once, out they issued into so strange a scene that,involuntarily, the two captives stopped short, staring about them withwide eyes.
Stretching away before them till the fog swallowed it--a fog nowglowing with light from some source still mist-hidden--an open plazastretched. This plaza was all surrounded, so far as they could see,with singular huts, built of dressed stone, circular for the mostpart, and with conical roofs like monster beehives. Windows there werenone, but each hut had an open door facing the source of the strange,blue-green light.
Stern could now see the inside of the wall, topped with torches; itscrest rose some five feet above the level of the plaza; and, where hecould catch a glimpse of its base between the huts and through thecrowding folk, he noticed that huge quantities of boulders were piledas though for instant use in case of attack.
A singular dripping of warmish water, here a huge drop, there another,attracted his attention; but though he looked up to determine itssource, if possible, he could see nothing except the glowing mist. Thewhole floor of the enclosure seemed to be wet and shining with thiswater; and all the roughly clad folk, now coming from the huts andconcentrating toward the captives, from every direction, were wet aswell, as though with this curious, constant, sparsely scattered rain.
Not a quadruped of any kind was to be seen. Neither cat nor dog wasthere, neither goat nor pig nor any other creature such as in themeanest savage villages of other times might have been found upon thesurface of the earth. But, undisturbed and bold, numbers of a mostextraordinary fowl--a long-legged, red-necked fowl, wattled and hugeof beak--gravely waddled here and there or perched singly and insolemn rows upon the huts.
"Great Heavens, Beatrice," exclaimed the engineer, "what are we upagainst? Of all the incredible places! That light! That roaring!"
He had difficulty in making himself even heard. For now the hissingroar which they had perceived from afar off seemed to fill the placewith a tremendous vibrant blur, rising, falling, as the light waxedand waned.
Terribly confusing all these new sense-impressions were to Stern andBeatrice in their unnerved and weakened state. And, staring about themas they went, they slowly moved along with the motion of their captorstoward the great light.
All at once Stern stopped, with a startled cry.
"The infernal devils!" he exclaimed, and recoiled with an involuntaryshudder from the sight that met his eyes.
The girl, too, cried out in fear.
Some air-current, some heated blast of vapor from the vast flame theynow saw shooting upward from the stone flooring of the plaza, momentlydispelled the thick, white vapors.
Stern got a glimpse of a circular row of stone posts, each about ninefeet high--he saw not the complete circle, but enough of it to judgeits diameter as some fifty feet. In the center stood a round andmassive building, and from each post to that building stretched ametal rod perhaps twenty feet in length.
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sp; "Look! _Look!_" gasped Beatrice, and pointed.
Then, deadly pale, she hid her face in both her hands and crouchedaway, as though to blot the sight from her perception.
Each metal bar was sagging with a hideous load--a row of humanskeletons, stark, fleshless, frightful in their ghastliness. All wereheadless. All, suspended by the cervical vertebrae, swayed lightly asthe blue-green light glared on them with its weird, unearthlyradiance.
Before either Stern or the girl had time even to struggle or so muchas recover from the shock of this fell sight, they were both pushedroughly between two of the posts into the frightful circle.
Stern saw a door yawn black before them in the massive hut of stone.
Toward this the Folk of the Abyss were thrusting them.
"No, you don't, damn you!" he howled with sudden passion. "None o'that for _us!_ Shoot, Beta! _Shoot!_"
But even as her hand jerked at the butt of the automatic, in itsrawhide holster on her hip, an overmastering force flung them bothforward into the foul dark of the round dungeon. A metal door clangedshut. Absolute darkness fell.
"My God!" cried Stern. "Beta! Where are you? Beta! _Beta!_"
But answer there was none. The girl had fainted.
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