Two Thousand Miles Below

by Charles Willard Diffin

  CHAPTER VIII

  _The Darkness_

  Darkness; and red fires that seemed whirling about him as his bodytwisted in air. To Dean Rawson, plunging down into the volcano's maw,each second was an eternity, for, in each single instant, he wasexpecting crashing death.

  Then he knew that long arms were wrapped about him, holding him,supporting him, checking his downward plunge ... and at last theglassy walls, where each bulbous irregularity shone red with reflectedlight, moved slowly past. And, after more eons of time, a rocky floorrose slowly to meet him.

  His body crashed gently; he was sprawled face downward on stone thatwas smooth and cold. The restraining arms no longer touched him.

  He lay motionless for some time, his mind as stunned anduncomprehending as if he had truly crashed to death upon that rockyfloor. Then, at last, he forced his reluctant nerves and muscles toturn his body till he lay face upward.

  Darkness wrapped him as if it were the soft swathing of some blackcocoon. The world about him was at first a place of utter night-timeblackness; and then, far above him, there shone a single star ...until that feeble candle-gleam, too, was snuffed out.

  A hand was gripping his shoulder; it seemed urging him to arise. Hefelt each separate finger--long, slender, like bands of steel. Thenail at each finger-end was more nearly a claw, the whole hand a thin,clutching thing like the foot of some giant ape. And, even as heshrank involuntarily from that touch, Rawson wondered how the creaturecould reach out and grip him so surely in the dark. But he came tohis feet in response to that urging hand.

  The night was suddenly sibilant with eery, whistling voices. They camefrom all sides at once; they threw themselves back and forth inendless echoes. To Rawson it was only a confused medley of conflictingsounds in which no one voice was clear. But the creature that held himmust have understood, for he heard him reply in a sharp, piercingtone, half whistle, half shriek.

  * * * * *

  What had happened? Where was he? What was this thing that pushed him,stumbling, along through the dark? With all his tumultuous questioninghe knew only one thing definitely: that it would be of no use tostruggle. He was as helpless as any trapped animal.

  He was inside the earth, of course; he had fallen he had no least ideahow far; and, in some strange manner, this long-armed thing hadsupported him and eased him gently down. But what it meant or what layahead were matters too obscure for him to try to see clearly.

  He held his hands protectingly before him while the talons grippinginto his shoulder hurried him along. He stumbled awkwardly as his footstruck an obstruction. He would have fallen but for the grip that heldhim erect.

  For that creature, whatever it was, the darkness held no uncertainty.He moved swiftly. His shrill shriek and the jerk of his arm both gaveevidence of his astonishment that his captive should walk soblunderingly.

  Then it seemed that he must have comprehended Rawson's blindness. Agreen line of light passed close behind Dean's head. It wascold--there was no radiant warmth--but, when it struck the face of awall of stone some twenty feet away, the solid rock turned instantlyto a mass of glowing yellow-red.

  The cold green ray swung back and forth, leaving a path of radiantrock behind it wherever it touched. And the rock was hot! Once thegreen light held more than an instant in one place, and the rocksoftened at its touch, then splashed and trickled down to make a fierypool.

  * * * * *

  Abruptly Rawson was able to see his surroundings. Also, he knew thesource of the red glow that had seemed like volcanic fires. There hadbeen others like his captor; they had been down below, and had playedtheir flames upon the rocks deep in the volcano. It was thus that theymade light.

  With equal suddenness, and with terrible clearness, Dean found theanswer to one of his questions. He wrenched himself about to starebehind him at the creature that held him in its grip. And, for thefirst time, the wild experience became something more than anunbelievable nightmare; in that one horrifying instant he knew it wastrue.

  Only a few minutes before, he had been walking across the cindery sandof the crater top, walking under the stars and the dark desertsky--Dean Rawson, mining engineer, in a sane, believable world. Andnow...!

  He squinted his eyes in the dim light to see more plainly the beastlyfigure, more horrible for being so nearly human. He had seen thembriefly up above; the closer view of this one specimen of a strangerace was no more pleasing. For now he saw clearly the cruelty in theface. It was there unmistakably, even though the face itself, underless threatening circumstances, might have been a ludicrous caricatureof a man's.

  Red and nearly naked, the creature stood upright, straps of metalabout its body. It was about Rawson's height; its round, staring eyeswere about level with his own, and each eye was centered in a circulardisk of whitish skin. The light went dim for a moment, and Dean,staring in his turn, saw those other huge eyes enlarge, the whitecovering of each drawing back like an expanding iris.

  Some vague understanding came to him of the beast's ability to see inthe dark. They used these red-hot stones for illumination, but thisthing had seemed to see clearly even when the stones had ceased toglow. And again, though indistinctly, Dean knew that those eyes mightbe sensitive to infra-red radiations--they might see plainly by thedark light that continued to flood these rocky chambers, though, tohim, the rocks had gone lightless and black.

  * * * * *

  Even as the quick thoughts flashed through his mind, he was thinkingother thoughts, recording other observations.

  The rest of the face was red like the body; the head was sharplypointed, and crowned with a mass of thin, clinging locks of hair. Themouth, a round, lipless orifice, contracted or dilated at will; fromit came whistling words.

  Out of the darkness, giant things were leaping. They clutched atRawson, while the first captor released his hold and drew back.Taller, these newcomers were, bigger, and different.

  In the red light from the hot rocks Dean saw their faces, in whichwere owl eyes like those of the first one, but yellow, expressionlessand stupid. Their great bodies were yellow: their outstretched handswere webbed.

  For one instant, as Rawson's hand touched his pistol in its holster,a surge of fighting rage swept through him. His whole being was in aspasm of revolt against all this series of happenings that had trappedhim; he wanted to lash out regardless of consequences. Then coolerjudgment came to his aid.

  Other figures, with faces red and ugly, expressive of nameless evil,were gathered beside the one who still played the jet of cold fireupon the walls. Like him they were naked save for a cloth at the waistand the metal straps encircling their bodies. They, too, hadflame-throwers--he saw the long metal jets and their lava tips. Yetthe temptation to fire into that group as fast as he could pulltrigger was strong upon him.

  Instead he allowed these other giant things to grip him with theirwebbed hands and lead him away.

  * * * * *

  The wavering light had shown many passages through the rock. Glazed,all of them. Either they had been blown through molten rock which hadthen solidified to give the glassy surfaces, or else--and this seemedmore likely--the flame-throwers had done it. Rawson, scanning thelabyrinth for some recognizable strata, had a quick vision of thesecaverns being cut out and enlarged, and of their walls melted just asthey were being melted now--melted and hardened again innumerabletimes by succeeding generations of red and yellow-skinned men.

  Yes, they were men. He admitted this while he walked unresistinglybetween two of the giants. Another went before them and lighted theway with the green ray of a flame-thrower on the melting rock. Thesewere men--men of a different sort. Evolution, working strange changesunderground, had made them half beasts, diggers in the dark, mole-men!

  They were passing through a long tunnel that went steadily down.Cross passages loomed blackly; ahead of them the leader was throwinghis flame upon the walls of a g
reat vault.

  Rawson had ceased to take note of their movements. What use toremember? He could never escape, never retrace his steps.

  He tried to whip up a faint flicker of hope at thought of Smithy.Smithy had seen him go, had seen the red mole-men, of course. And hehad got away--he must have got away! He would go for help....

  But, at that, he groaned inwardly. Smithy would go for help, and thenwhat? He would be laughed out of any sheriff's office; he would belocked up as insane if he persisted. Why should he persist--for thatmatter, why should he go at all? Smithy would not believe for a singleminute that Rawson was still alive.

  * * * * *

  His thoughts ended. Webbed hands, wrapped tightly about his arms, werethrusting him forward into a great room. The green flame had beensnapped off. One last hot circle on the high wall showed only a dullred. But before it faded, Dean saw dimly the outlines of a tremendouscavern. He saw also that these walls were unglazed, raw; they hadnever been melted.

  Below the rough and shattered sides heaps of fragments were piledabout the room.

  Fleetingly he saw the shadowed details; then darkness swallowed eventhat little he had seen. Clanging metal told of a closing door; a lineof red outlined it for an instant to show where it was welded fast. Hewas a prisoner in a cell whose walls were the living rock.

  For a long time he stood motionless, while the heavy darkness pressedheavily in upon his swimming senses; he sank slowly to the floor atlast. He was numbed, and his mind was as blank as the blacknothingness that spread before his staring eyes. In a condition almostof coma, he had no measure or count of the hours that passed.

  Then a fever of impatience possessed him; his thoughts, springingsuddenly to life, were too wildly improbable for any sane mind, weredriving him mad. He forced himself to move cautiously.

  * * * * *

  On the floor he had seen burnished gold, shining dully as he entered.There had been a thick vein of yellow in the rock. The floor, at thatplace, was rough beneath his feet, as if the hot metal had beenspilled.

  His hands groped before him as he remembered the heaps of rockfragments. Then his feet found one of them stumblingly, and he turnedand moved to one side. He remembered having seen a dim shape off therethat had made a straight slanting line. His searching handsencountered the object and kept him from walking into it.

  The feeling of helplessness that drove him was only being increased byhis blind and blundering movements. He told himself that he must wait.

  Silently he stood where he had come to a stop, hands resting on theobject that barred his way--until suddenly, stiflingly, his breathcaught in his throat. Some emotion, almost too great to be borne, wassuffocating him.

  Slowly he moved his hands. Inch by inch he felt his way around thesmooth cylinder, so hard, so coldly metallic. Then, with a rush, helet his hands follow up the slanting thing, up to a rounded top, to aheavy ring and a shackle that was on the end of a cable, thin andtaut. And, while his hands explored it feverishly, the metal moved!

  * * * * *

  He clung to the smooth roundness as it slipped through his hands. Itwas the bailer, part of his own equipment. That slender cable reachedup, straight up to the world he knew. And Smithy was there--Smithy washoisting it!

  He clung to the cylinder desperately. The bore, at this depth, hadbeen reduced to eight inches; the bailer fitted it loosely. And Rawsoncursed frantically the narrow space that would let this inanimateobject return but would hold him back, while he wrapped his arms aboutthe cold surface of the metal messenger from another world.

  It lifted clear, then settled back. This time it dropped noisily tothe floor. And suddenly Dean was tearing at the ring on one of theswollen fingers of his left hand.

  It came free at last; it was in his hand as the cable tightened again.Swiftly, surely, he worked in the darkness to jam the ring through theshackle at the bailer's top. Then the bailer lifted, clanged loudly asit entered the shattered bore in the rocks above, and scraped noisilyat the sides. The sound rose to a rasping shriek that went fainter andstill fainter till it dwindled into silence.

  But Dean Rawson, standing motionless in the darkness of that buriedvault, dared once more to let himself think and _feel_ as he staredblindly upward.

  Up there Smithy was waiting. Smithy would know. And with Smithyfighting from the outside and he, Rawson, putting up a scrap below....He smiled almost happily as his hand rested upon his gun.

  Hopeless? Of course it was hopeless. No use of really kiddinghimself--he didn't have the chance of a pink-eyed rabbit.

  But he was still smiling toward that dark roof overhead as theoutlines of a metal door grew cherry red. They were coming for him!He was ready to meet whatever lay ahead....