Two Thousand Miles Below
Page 12
CHAPTER XI
_The White-Hot Pit_
How far his guard of wild, red man-things had taken him Dean Rawsoncould not know. Many miles, it must have been. And he knew that theair had grown steadily more stiflingly hot. But the heat of those longtunneled passages was like a cool breeze compared with the blastingbreath of the room into which he was plunged.
It seared his eyeballs; it struck down from the tongues of flame thatplayed in red fury in the recess high up on the farther wall. And thevast room, the fires, the hundreds of kneeling figures, all blurredand swam dizzily before him.
The hot air that he breathed seemed crisping his lungs. Vaguely, forthe stupefying, brain-numbing heat, he wondered at the figure he sawdimly in its grotesque posturing close to the flames. And the hundredsof others--how could they live? How could he himself go on living inthis inferno?
They had been chanting in unison, the kneeling red ones. Dean heardthe regular beat of their repeated words change to an uproar ofshrill, whistling voices. But he could neither see nor hear plainlyfor the unbearable, suffocating heat.
The clamor was deafening, confusing; it echoed tremendously in therocky room and mingled with the steady, continuous roar of the flames.The mass of bodies that surged about him made only a blurringimpression; he tried to make himself see clearly. He must fight--fightto the last! Only this thought persisted. He was striking out blindlywhen he knew that his red guard had cleared a way through the mob andwas dragging him forward.
He knew when they reached the farther wall. Somewhere above him wasthe deep-cut niche in which the fires roared. And then, when again hecould see from his tortured eyes, he found directly ahead anotherdoorway in the solid rock. Beyond it all was black; it gave promise ofcoolness, of relief from the stifling air of the room. Red hands werethrusting him through.
The burst of water, icy cold, that descended upon him from aboveshocked him from the stupor that claimed his senses. He was drenchedin an instant, strangling and gasping for breath. But he could think!And, as the lean hands seized him again and hurried him forward, healmost dared to hope.
* * * * *
To his eyes the passageway was a place of utter darkness, but the redones, their great owl eyes opened wide, hurried him on. His stumblingfeet encountered a flight of steps. With the red guard he climbed awinding stair where the tunnel twisted upward.
That icy deluge had set every nerve aquiver with new life. He hardlydared ask himself what might lie ahead. Yet he had been saved fromthat mob; it might be his life would be spared, that in some way hecould learn to communicate with these people, learn more of thissubterranean world--which must be of tremendous extent. Without anysure knowledge of their plans, he still was certain in his own mindthat they intended to swarm out upon the upper world. He might even beable to show them the folly of that.
A thousand thoughts were flashing through his mind when the tunnelended. Beyond a square-cut opening the air was aglow with red. Anominous thunder was in his ears. Then a score of hands lifted himbodily and threw him out upon a rocky floor that burned his hands ashe fell.
Heat, blistering, unbearable, beat upon him. He was wrapped inquick-rising clouds of steam from his wet clothes.
The platform ended. Far below was a sea of red faces, grotesque andhorrible, where each held two ghastly white disks, and at the centerof each disk a mere pinpoint eye.
He saw it all in the instant of his falling--the inhuman, shriekingmob, the blast of hot flame not forty feet away at the back of therocky niche, and, between himself and the flame, a giant figure thatleaped exultantly, while its body, that appeared carved from metalliccopper, reflected the red fires until it seemed itself aflame.
* * * * *
Dean knew in the fraction of a second while he scrambled to his feet,that the great room had gone silent. The roaring of the flames ceased;even the clamor of shrill voices was stilled. He had thrown one armacross his face to shield his eyes; the heat still poured upon himlike liquid fire. But his instant decision to throw himself out anddown into the waiting mob was checked by the sudden stillness.
To open his eyes wide meant impossible torture, yet he forced himselfto peer through slitted lids beneath the shelter of his arm.
The flame was gone. Where it had been was a wall of shimmering redrock above a gaping throat in the floor, whose rim was quivering whitewith heat. Here the blast from some volcanic depth had come.
Then he saw it, saw the great coppery figure leaping upon him--and sawmore plainly than all this the end that had been prepared for him.
Fire worshipers! Demons of an under world paying tribute to their god.And he, Dean Rawson, was to be a living sacrifice, cast headlong tothat waiting, white-hot throat!
The coppery giant was upon him in the instant of his realization.Somehow in that moment Dean Rawson's wracked body passed beyond allpain. With the inhuman, maniacal strength of a man driven beyond allreason and restraint he tore himself half free from those encirclingarms and drove blow after blow into the hideous face above him.
Only his left arm was free. That, too, was clamped tightly against hisbody an instant later.
* * * * *
The giant had been between him and the glowing rocks. Now he felthimself whirled in air, and again the blast of heat struck upon him.He was being rushed backward; and there flashed through his mind, asplainly as if he could actually see it, the scintillant whiteness ofthat hungry throat.
He tried to lock his legs about the big body to prevent that finalheave and throw that would end a ghastly ceremony. The rocks wereclose, their radiant heat wrapped about him like a living flame.Abruptly his strength was gone--the fight was over--he had lost! Hisheart sent the blood pounding and thundering to his brain; his lungsseemed on fire.
* * * * *
The high priest of the red ones had his priestly duty to perform--thesacrifice must be offered. But even the high priest, it would seem,must have been not above personal resentment. Sacrilege had beendone--a fist had smashed again and again into the holy one's face.This it must have been that made him pause, that brought one big handup in a grip of animal rage about Dean's throat.
Only a moment--a matter of seconds--while he vented his fury upon thiswhite-skinned man who had dared to oppose him. Dean felt the handclose about his throat. So limp he was, so drained of strength, hemade no effort to tear it loose. He was _dead_--what mattered a fewseconds more or less of life? And then a thrill shot through him as heknew his right hand was free.
That hand made fumbling work of drawing a gun from its smoking,leather holster. He could hardly control the numbed, blisteredfingers, yet somehow he crooked one about the trigger; and dimly, asfrom some great distance, he heard the roar of the forty-five....Then, from some deep recess within him, he summoned one last ounce ofstrength that threw him clear of the falling body.
Instinctively he had heaved himself away from the fiery rocks; thesame effort had sent his big coppery antagonist staggering, stumbling,backward. And Dean, sprawled on the stone floor, whose heat where helay was just short of redness, heard one long, despairing shriek asthe giant figure wavered, hung in air for a moment in black outlineagainst the fierce red of a rocky wall above a white-hot pit, thentoppled, pitched forward, and vanished.
Sick and giddy, he forced himself to draw his body up on hands andknees. Then he straightened, came to his feet, and staggered forward.
* * * * *
Below him was pandemonium. The sea of faces wavered and blurred beforehis eyes. From a distant archway other figures were coming. He saw thegleam of metal, heard the wild blare of trumpets, and knew that thehundreds of red ones below him were standing stiffly, both handsraised upright in salute as another barbaric figure entered. The airwas clamorous with a shrill repeated call. "Phee-e-al!" the red onesshrieked. "Phee-e-al!"
But Rawson did not wait to see more. Be
hind him, the flames that hadbeen fed with human flesh--if indeed these red ones were human--roaredagain into life. He had returned the pistol to its holster when firsthe came to his feet; his weak hands had seemed unable to hold it. Andnow his two hands were thrust outward before him as he staggeredblindly toward the tunnel mouth.
It was where he had emerged upon the platform. His reaching handsfound the side entrance where the stairs led down to the main hall.In the darkness he made his way past. Stumbling weakly he pushed ondown the long tunnel whose floor slanted gently away.
Ahead of him was a light. The comparative coolness of these rocks hadserved to revive him somewhat. He had no hope of escape, yet the lightseemed comforting, somehow.
He stopped. His stinging eyes were wide open. He stared incredulouslyat the glowing spot on a distant wall, where a flame must havetouched, and at the figure beneath it.
The figure of a woman! A young woman, tall, slender, fair-haired,whose skin was white, a creamy white, whiter than snow.
A woman? It was a mere girl, slender and beautiful, her graceful youngbody poised as if, in quick flight, she had been caught and held for amoment of stillness.
What was she doing here? His exhausted brain could not comprehend whatit meant. He had seen women of the Mole-men tribe mingling with themen. Like them their heads were pointed, their faces grotesque andhideous. Rawson gave an inarticulate cry of amazement and staggeredforward.
Between him and the distant figure a crowd of Reds swarmed in. Theycame from a connecting passage. Above their heads the lava tips offlame-throwers were spitting jets of green fire. Every face was turnedtoward him at his cry.
Beyond them the white figure vanished. Dean, leaning weakly againstthe wall, told himself dully that it had been a phantom, a product ofhis own despairing brain and his own weakness. Then that weaknessovercame him; and the red Mole-men, their white and hideous eyes, thethreatening jets of green flame, all vanished in the quick darknessthat swept over him....