CHAPTER V
_The Attack_
Every light of the camp was on as Rawson and his assistant approached.A shallow depression in the sand marked the place where the bigcasting had been. Beyond it a hundred feet was a black swarm of menthat parted as the car drew near. They had been gathered about afigure upon the sand.
Dean sensed something peculiar about that figure as the big carploughed to a stop. He leaped out and ran forward.
He knew it was Riley there on the ground, knew it while still he was ascore of feet away. Only when he was close, however, did he realizethat the body ended in two stubs of legs; only when he leaned abovehim did he know that the Irish foreman's big frame had been cut in twoas if by a knife.
The severed legs lay a short distance beyond the body; they had fallenside by side in horrible awkwardness, their stumps of flesh protrudingfrom charred clothing--and suddenly, shockingly, Rawson knew that theflesh of body and legs had been seared. The knife had been hot--itsblade had been forged of flame!
He heard Smithy cursing softly, unconsciously, at his side.
"The green light," Smithy was saying in horrified understanding. "Butwho did it? How did they do it? Where did they go?"
"Quiet!" ordered Rawson sharply. He dropped to his knees beside themutilated body. Riley's eyes had opened in a sudden movement ofconsciousness.
* * * * *
The voice that came from his lips was a ghastly whisper at first, butin that stricken thing that had been the body of Riley, foreman of thenight drilling crew, some reservoir of strength must still haveremained untapped.
He drew upon it now. His voice roared again as it had done so manytimes before through the Tonah Basin camp. It reached to everylistening ear where crowding men stood hushed and motionless; and theovertone of terror that altered its customary timber was apparent toall.
"Devils!" said Riley. "Devils, straight out o' hell!... I saw 'em--Isaw 'em plain!... I shot--as if hot lead could harm the imps ofSatan....
"Oh, sir,"--his eyes had found those of Dean Rawson who was leaningabove--"for the love of hivin, Mister Rawson, do ye be quittin'drillin'. The place is damned. L'ave it, sir; go away...."
His eyes closed. But he started up once more; he raised his head fromthe sand with one final convulsive movement, and his voice was highand shrill.
"The fire! The fire of hell! He's turnin' it on me! God help...."
But Riley, before his failing mind could recall again that torturingjet of flame, must have slipped away into a darkness as softlyenveloping as the velvet shadow world behind the low-hung stars.Rawson's hand that felt for a moment above the heart, confirmed themessage of the closed eyes and the head that fell inertly back.
He came slowly to his feet.
"Keep the floods on!" he ordered. "Take command of the armed guard,Smithy; keep the whole camp patrolled."
Then to the men:
"Boys, Riley was wrong. He believed what he said, all right, but Smithand I know better. Don't worry about devils. These're just some dirty,skulking dogs who got away with murder this time but who won't do itagain. We know where they're hiding. I'm checking up on them rightnow. After that you'll all get a chance to square accounts for poorold Riley!"
* * * * *
"But the casting!" Smithy protested when he and Rawson were alone."You can't explain that disappearance so easy, Dean."
"No, I can't explain that," Rawson's words came slowly. "They've gotsomething that we don't understand as yet--but I'm going to know theanswer, and I'm going to find out to-night!"
He was seated behind the wheel of his old car.
"I'm as good a desert man as there is in this crowd," he told Smith."And it's my fight, you know. I'm going alone. But there'll be nofighting this trip; I'll just be scouting around."
He leaned from the car to grip Smithy's shoulder with a hand firm andsteady.
"You didn't see the crater when the show was on. You think that I'mcrazy to believe it, but up in that crater is where I'll find theanswer to a lot of questions. Lord knows what that answer will be.I've quit trying to guess. I'm just going up there to find out."
He was gone, the rear wheels of the car throwing a spray of sand as hestarted heedless of Smithy's protests against the plan. Rawson was inno mood to argue. He must climb the mountain while it was night; underthe sun he would never reach the top alive. He would go alone andunseen.
He swung wide of the deserted town at the mountain's base. Thespectral walls of Little Rhyolite still showed their empty windowsthat stared like dead eyes, and the man guided his car without lightsalong a hidden stretch of hard, salt-crusted desert. He felt certainthat other eyes were watching.
* * * * *
He began his climb at a point five miles away. The slopes that seemedsmooth and hard from a distance became, at closer range, a place ofwind-heaped, sandy ash, carved and scoured into fantastic forms. Butits very roughness offered protection, and Rawson fought the draggingsand, and the gray, choking ash that dried his throat and cut it likeemery, without fear of being observed.
He fought against time, too. Above Little Rhyolite, whatevermysterious men were making the ascent would find the going easy. Therewere windswept areas, long fields of pumice; a man could make goodtime there. Rawson had none of these to aid him. He cast anxiousglances toward the eastern sky as he struggled on, till he saw graylight change to rose and gold--but he stood in the titanic cleft inthe crater's rim as the first straight rays of the sun struck across.
The volcano's top had been stripped clean by the winds of countlessyears. Rocks, black, brown, even blood-red, were naked to the pitilessglare of the sun. Their colors were mingled in a weird fantasy oftwisted lines that told of the inferno of heat in which they had beenformed.
They towered high above the head of Dean Rawson as he stood, pantingand trembling with exhaustion. The cleft before him had becomeenormous: it was a canyon, half filled with pumice and coarse ash.
* * * * *
Rawson stood for long minutes in quiet listening. At the canyon's endwould lie the crater, and in that crater he would find.... But therewas no slightest picture in his mind of what he might see. He knewonly that he himself must remain unseen. He went forward cautiously.
Rocky walls; a floor of sand where his feet left no mark. He waswatching ahead and above him. His gun was ready in his hand; he didnot propose to be ambushed. He moved with never a sound.
The silence persisted; no living thing other than himself lent anyflicker of motion to the scene. Not even a lizard could hope forexistence amid these dead and barren heights. He was alone--thecertainty of it had driven deeply into his mind before the canyon endwas reached. And, desert man though he was and accustomed to travelingthe waste places of the earth, Rawson learned a new meaning and depthof solitude.
Here was no voiceless companionship of trees or brush or cactus; nolittle living things scuttled across the rocks--he was alone, the onlyspeck of life in a place where life seemed forbidden.
So sure of this was he that he stepped boldly from the canyon's end.He knew before he looked that he would see only more of the samedesolation. And his mind was filled equally with anger anddisappointment.
* * * * *
Something was opposing him! Something had come into their camp--hadkilled old Riley. And he, Rawson, had been so sure he would findtraces here that would allow him to give that opposing force aname....
He stared out from the rocky cleft into a sun-blasted pit. Alreadythe rising sun was pouring its energy ever the jagged rim of bleakrocks and down into the vast throat, choked and filled with ash.
It sloped gently from all sides, the gray-brown powder that had beencoughed from within the earth. It made a floor where Rawson could havewalked with safety. But he did not go on.
"Damn it!" he said with sudden savagery. "What a fool I was to thinkof finding anyone
here. Who would ever pick out a spot like this for abase of operations?"
He stared angrily at the floor of ash, at the black, outcroppingmasses of tufa. He was angry with himself, angry and baffled and tiredfrom his climb. Far down in the vast, shallow pit blazing sunlightglinted from massive blocks whose sides were mirror-smooth. A whirl ofwind eddied there for a moment and lifted the dust into a verticalgray column--the only sign of motion in the whole desolate scene.Rawson turned and tramped back toward the long hot descent to thefloor of the Basin.
* * * * *
He tried to maintain an air of confidence before the men. He kept thembusy placing and stacking materials; to all appearances the work wouldgo on despite the mysterious happenings of the night.
Dean even prepared to resume drilling operations. He sent down anotherbailer on the end of the ten-mile cable, but he left it there; he didnot care to raise it and risk more inexplicable results with theconsequent destruction of the men's morale.
"Too late to do any more," he said to Smithy that afternoon. "We'lldrop all work--let the men get a good night's sleep. I'll take guardduty to-night, and you can run the job to-morrow."
There were men of the drilling crew standing near, though Rawson washandling the hoisting drums himself. A ratchet release lever hookedits end under a ring on Rawson's hand and pinched the flesh. Dean madethis an excuse for waiting a moment while the drillers walked away.
"Ought not to wear it, I suppose," he said, and dabbed at a spot ofblood under the gold band. "But it's an old cameo--it belonged to myDad."
He was showing the ring to Smithy as the men passed from hearing.
"Don't want to be seen talking," he explained tersely. "Mustn't letthe men know we are on edge--they're about ready to bolt. But you beready for a call. Have your men armed. I am looking for more troubleto-night."
The two were laughing loudly as they followed the men toward thebuilding where the cook was banging on an iron tire that served as abell.
* * * * *
Some three hours later Rawson was not smiling as he climbed the steelladder of the great derrick; he was grimly intent upon the job athand.
All thought of his drilling operations had gone from him. He was notanxious about the project. This was merely an interruption; the workwould go on later. But right now there was an enemy to be met and amystery to be solved.
A rifle slung from his shoulder bumped against him satisfyingly as heclimbed. A man was on duty at a master switch--he would flood the campwith light at the rifle's first crack.
Dean seated himself at the top of the derrick. The cylinder of a hugefloodlight was beside him. Beyond was the massive sheave block; thecables ran dizzily down to the concrete drilling floor so far below.And on every side the quiet camp spread out dark and silent in thenight. Dean surveyed it all with satisfaction. Nothing would get byhim now.
But his further reflections were not so satisfying.
"Who did it? How? Where did they go?" He was echoing Smithy'squestions and finding no ready answers. And that flame-thrower thathad cut down old Riley--how was that worked? Its one green flash hadbeen almost instantaneous.
He was puzzling over such futile questioning when he saw the firstsign of attack.
* * * * *
At the foot of the derrick was the hoisting shed. Except for that,there was clear sand for a radius of fifty feet around the derrick'sbase. Dean was staring suspiciously at that open space almost directlyunderneath.
Moving sand! He hardly knew what he had seen at first. Then the sandat one point bulged upward unmistakably.
For one instant Dean's thoughts shot off at a tangent. It was like thework of a huge gopher--he had seen the little animals break throughlike that. Then the sand parted, and something, indistinct, blurred,dark against the yellow background, broke from cover.
Rawson swung the rifle's muzzle over and down. Below him the vagueshadow had moved. Dean caught the blurred mass beyond his sights, thenswung the weapon aside. Who was it? He would have a look first.
The thin crack of his rifle ripped the silence of the sleeping camp.Dean had aimed to one side and he regretted it in the instant offiring. For, in the same second, there had come from the moving shadowthe gleam of starlight reflected upward from polished metal.
* * * * *
Dean swung the rifle back. He fired quickly a second time. Beside himthe big light hissed into action and the whole camp sprang to sudden,blazing light. And through the quick brilliance, more dazzling eventhan the white glare itself, was one blinding line of green flame.
Dean saw it as it began. It came from the dim shadow that had sprungsuddenly into sharp outline as the big lights came on. He saw thefigure. He sensed that it was a man, though he knew vaguely that thefigure was grotesque and hideous in some manner he had no time todiscern.
The thin line of green flame ripped straight out, swinging in a quick,sweeping trajectory, slashing through the steelwork of the greatderrick itself!
Dean knew he was lost in the blinding instant while that fiery jet wassweeping in a fan-shaped sector of vivid green. A knife of flame! Ithad destroyed a man: it was now cutting down a framework of steel aswell!
The derrick was falling as he fired again. There came a crushing jardownward as the metal melted and failed, and the wild outward swing inthe beginning of the toppling fall. In the mind of Dean Rawson was butone thought: the sights--and a something blurred beyond--a trigger tobe pressed.
He was still firing when the shriek of torn steel went to thunderingsilence, and even the lights of Tonah Basin Camp were swallowed up inthe whirling night....
Two Thousand Miles Below Page 6