And as if the spectacle of the chief pumping the life out of the captive had excited the appetites of the crowd, there was a deafening concert of whistling, and tumultuous eddies. Other monopods, fat and clawless, were brought into the empty space in front of the Terrans, and the multitude of black monsters surged forward. Trunks equipped with suckers punctured eyes swollen with white liquid.
“Paul, Paul!” moaned Lolla.
Fascinated by the spectacle, Paul and Francisco did not have the strength to move a muscle.
Soon, the nourishing monopods doubtless not being very numerous in that location, they saw Mercurians of relatively tall stature knocking down smaller Mercurians, and holding them down...
There was a horrible orgy of feeding, everywhere.
Suddenly, Paul felt a thrill of anguish. A heart-rending cry from Lolla had just struck his ears and broken the perfidious spell of the fascination.
“Demonios!” howled Francisco. “They’re coming for us...”
Lola disappeared, dragged away by a group of monsters—and claws drew her arms apart, and trunks were directed toward her eyes, widened by terror.
Paul leapt forward, armed with a monopod he had just seized by the ankle. Francisco was already struggling in the middle of the group of abductors.
How could they tear Lolla away from the filthy creatures?
Francisco had lifted the young woman up and had started to run, in enormous bounds, over the tumultuous Mercurians, toward the black hole of a tunnel. Paul followed him, striking out in all directions with monopods that he seized, brandished and then threw away, while the living mass was transformed into a formless viscous sheet.
While running and striking out, he reflected, with a strange acuity of intelligence and an astonishing rapidity of thought.
“Francisco!” he shouted. “We won’t be able to see in the tunnel, but they’ll be able to see us!”
“I have my matches,” the Spaniard replied, breathlessly.
“Take care not to jump too high—you’ll smash your skull against the rock.”
“Thanks! I’ll bear it in mind...”
They reached the tunnel. Francisco and his burden disappeared into the darkness.
“Shout, Francisco! Shout, so that I don’t lose you!” And he leapt into the black hole in his turn.
Francisco uttered a cry at every bound. Paul followed him, crying out in his turn and striking out. Suddenly, he perceived that he was thrashing in vain; there were no Mercurians around him. He threw away the shapeless debris of the monopod he was still holding and, solely preoccupied with not losing touch with Francisco, accelerated his pace.
Gradually, he heard the sound of whistling decrease, and they eventually faded away entirely.
“Francisco!” he called.
“Señor!”
“Stop!”
“Why?”
“I can’t hear anything. They’re not chasing us any longer.”
“A halt, then. Here I am, Señor. Don’t go any further. Wait while I put the Señorita down and light a match...”
“Paul! Paul!” called Lolla Mendès. The very excess of the danger had prevented her from fainting.
“Lola! Are you hurt?”
“No, not a scratch. Oh, what monsters! You saved me, Francisco.”
“Good, good, Señorita! I don’t think it’s over yet. Demonios!”
A match scraped. A little blue flame sprung forth and rose into the air above Francisco’s fingertips.
The Frenchman and the Spaniard looked at one another. They were bloodied, and their clothes were in tatters.
“My God!” Lolla exclaimed. “Are you both wounded?”
“No—just superficial scratches. It’s nothing—but what about you?”
Lolla had only suffered a slight scratch on her right hand, but the bottom of her skirt had been torn apart.
“Not bad, then,” said Francisco. We might get out of this yet. Where are we?”
The match went out, and he struck another.
Swiftly, the three fugitives examined their surroundings. They were in a high, broad tunnel with walls of black slate.
“We have to keep on running,” said Paul. “Surprised by our resistance and flight, the crowd of Mercurians is doubtless irresolute, but their chiefs won’t take long to resume their authority and give orders. They’ll certainly come after us. We have a start—it’s necessary to increase it further.”
“Let’s go,” said Lolla, getting to her feet.
“Can you feel the strength of the air-current?”
“Yes.”
“From now on, you’ll position yourself between Francisco and me, holding each of us by one hand. Our specific weight is so light that you won’t have to make any effort. We’ll be able to lift you up like a feather while bounding ourselves.”
“Let’s get going,” said Francisco—but then slapped his forehead. “We’re stupid! We’re going to break our bones against the rock in the dark. We’ve had astonishing luck to have got this far without coming to grief. We can’t go on without light.”
Neither Lolla nor Paul had thought about the danger of the darkness in that unknown tunnel. They looked at one another, discouraged, and the young woman’s eyes moistened with tears.
“If only Brad and Bild were here,” said Francisco. “If there were four of us we could retrace our steps, reach the golden river, and let the current carry us away. It must come out on the other side of the mountain.”
“Unless it plunges into an interior gulf,” said Paul.
“What shall we do?”
“Listen!” whispered Lola.
They held their breath. They could hear whistling.
“They’re coming after us.”
“Damn it!” groaned Francisco.
Paul made a gesture of range, and raised his eyes as if to implore the heavens—but immediately, he uttered a faint exclamation.
“We’re saved!” he murmured. “Throw away that dead match, Francisco, and strike another.”
That was done in the blink of an eye.
“Lift your head,” said Paul, excitedly. “Look up. That hole up there, with those rocky spurs. Let’s jump. We can grab on to the spurs, get into the hole...”
“Understood!” said Francisco. “The dirty beasts will go past, and we can go back to the golden river. Hop! Permit me, Señorita!”
He held out his right arm, with the match upraised in his hand; he put his left arm around Lolla’s waist. “You first, Señor.”
Paul leapt up, hung on, remained suspended momentarily, and then swung himself into the hole with a single movement.
“To me!”
Francisco jumped in his turn. The match went out, but the Spaniard had judged the leap well. He bumped into Paul head first and knocked him over; he and Lolla rolled on the floor; the rock stopped them.
“Señor!” breathed Francisco.
“Lolla!” said Paul.
“I’m here, Paul.
“You didn’t hit your head?”
“No.”
“All’s going well!”
“Yes—silence!”
“And let’s get further into the hole,”
They huddled in the depths of the excavation, tightly grouped together, and waited.
The whistles became louder. The vaults of the tunnel resonated with the distant footfalls of the host—abrupt, jerky hopping footfalls and the scrape of claws on slate.
“Here they come,” whispered Paul.
Although they were ardently curious to see the multitude of Mercurians pass by, the three Terrans obeyed the dictates of prudence. They did not lean over the edge of the hole.
With tumultuous whistles, at a frantic gallop, the ferocious monopods flowed past in a noisy stream four meters below the cavity where the beings they were pursuing, who seemed bizarre to them, had taken refuge. The noisy procession lasted a long time.
While the Mercurians were galloping beneath them, the Terrans reflected sadly. Would they e
ver see the Earth again? Alas, it seemed impossible. How could they get back there? No means could present itself, even to the craziest imagination. Could the prodigious hazard that had led to their being sucked in by the Fiery Wheel—the same hazard that had carried off Brad and Bild for a second time—possibly happen again? To hope so would have been insane...
Lolla, Paul and Francisco saw themselves condemned, therefore, to wander in the strange Mercurian world until they died, tracked like hunted beasts by the savage animals that the monopods were. If they had had the good fortune to fall on one of the old and great planets in the solar system instead, perhaps they would have found intelligent beings in the human mold there, knowledgeable, good, civilized and hospitable! But their unfortunate destiny had thrown them on to Mercury, burned by the sun, deserted Mercury, populated only by intelligent and ferocious monsters that seemed to be ignorant of any science, art and civilization.
What could be expected, in fact, of the whistling black horde that was bounding past in the tunnel like a pack of hunting hyenas? Nothing. There was nothing more to do than wait, first to resign themselves and then to struggle, in order to be ready to seize any chance of salvation that presented itself. The things that had happened thus far had been so extraordinary that they might leave scope for the most extravagant hopes.
Meanwhile, the din of the chase diminished and drew away; the whistles and the sound of footfalls gradually faded away in distant tunnels, and silence fell again beneath the tenebrous vaults.
“They’ve all gone by,” said Francisco.
“What shall w do?” murmured Lola.
“Let’s go,” said Paul. “Let’s go back to the golden river and gamble on the current. We’ll stay close to the edge so that we’ll be able to cling on to the bank if we see the liquid mass falling into a gulf. Whatever the danger is we’re heading for, it’s no worse than that of staying here. I’m really hungry now...”
“Me too,” said Lolla, “and especially thirsty.”
“And me,” growled Francisco.
“Let’s get out! Let’s try to get back to the light…even with the accompanying heat, it’s preferable to this sepulchral darkness. And who knows, perhaps we’ll see the Fiery Wheel again! In our situation, no further incident can increase our distress. Light a match, Francisco. Let’s jump down and get our bearings.”
“Just a moment, Señor,” said the Spaniard. “If you’ll permit, I’ll carry out a reconnaissance as far as the large grotto, in order to make sure that a troop of the filthy things hasn’t stayed behind the one that went past. If that’s the case we’d be caught between two fires—if I might use that Terran expression, as Jonathan Bild would say.”
Paul smiled at Francisco’s irrepressible humor, which could not be defeated by any circumstance, no matter how dangerous. The advice was too good not to be followed. In addition, the young man saw an unexpected means of remaining alone with Lola Mendès—and his voice trembled, not with fear but with emotion, when he replied: “You’re right, Francisco. Go—and be careful.”
“Does the Señorita agree?” the Spaniard asked.
“Yes, my friend. Go—but I too advise you to be careful...”
“I shall be, Mistress, I shall.”
Francisco collected himself, handed Paul a lighted match, and said: “Light my jump, please, Señor!” The he jumped out of the hole.
By the light of the match, Civrac and Lola saw him land gently on his feet, bend his knees, straighten up, light another match, and move off in the direction of the large grotto.
Paul and Lolla were alone.
Emotion made their hearts beat, and if the match that the young man was still holding had not suddenly gone out, they would have seen one another’s faces pale and would have glimpsed a disturbance in one another’s eyes that would have told them more effectively than words what they were both feeling.
Without seeking, their hands found one another and clasped; without saying a word, their lips touched and melted into a long kiss.
Oh, how far away they were from the terrors of the past, the horrors of the present and the apprehensions of the future! Love carried the two individuals, full of strength and life, far away from the material world. Were they still on the planet Mercury? Had they returned to Earth? No, they were floating, hand in hand, lips united, in the indefinable spaces that love opens magnificently to the hearts of which it takes possession. They were only conscious of one thing: their happiness.
When their lips separated, it was to pronounce the same words in unison.
“Lolla, I love you...”
“I love you, Paul...”
They could not see one another in the darkness, but each of them divined the other’s passionate gaze.
“Lolla,” said Paul, “when you appeared to me in the Fiery Wheel, it seemed to me that the gap in the wall of cloud through which you passed was the door of heaven, which had just opened. I loved you immediately. What about you?”
“I don’t know, Paul. I was weeping, in despair since my incomprehensible abduction…but when my eyes met yours, my pain and my fear went away. Since then, it seems that I’m having a marvelous and very sweet dream, a dream that the flashes of nightmare render even more exquisite. Paul!”
He felt her let herself slide softly into his arms. He hugged her forcefully and murmured: “I love you, Lolla, I love you…oh, how glad I am to love you!” And he covered her face with kisses, seeking the lips that she moved away from him with virginal modesty.
Oh the omnipotence of love! Brought together by a chain of events as terrifying as it was implausible; hurled into perils all the more frightful because they were new and unknown; abandoned on a world of terrible surprises and threats; hunted by filthy creatures, innumerable and ferocious; menaced at every moment, every step and every breath by a death that seemed incessantly more imminent and cruelly various, Paul and Lolla, in one another’s arms, only had thoughts of happiness, actions that were caresses, words to stammer their passion, and life in order to love.
The Fiery Wheel, the Saturnians, the planet Mercury, the monopods, the atrocious and bloody scenes, the horrible pursuit, the continual danger, and the death lying in ambush in the darkness were all non-existent so far as Lolla Mendès and Paul de Civrac were concerned. There was nothing, in an indeterminate world, but two living beings: them! Only one thing subsisted in the universe: their love!
And when, vanquished and ecstatic, Lolla finally surrendered her lips to Paul’s kisses, the mysterious planet they were inhabiting could have blown apart like a shell exploding in mid-air, and Paul and Lolla would never have known. They would have passed from life to death without their delight being troubled for a thousandth of a second.
“Oh, Paul!” moaned Lolla, “I didn’t know what happiness is!”
“Lolla! Lolla!” He could not pronounce any other syllables than those forming her name.
And again, avid for a joy so divine their lips were meeting, when a shout struck them like the brutal stab of a sword-blade. Their embrace loosened, their eyes opened, and, in the depths of the tunnel, feebly illuminated, they saw a man coming toward them.
“Where are we?” Lolla murmured, in a dream-like voice. Immediately, however, she recovered consciousness of herself and everything else, and the exclaimed, at the same time as Paul: “Francisco! It’s Francisco!”
“In person, Señor!”
And the Spaniard loomed up before their eyes, lifting a lighted match over his head.
“The way is clear, Señorita. We can escape. Quickly—jump down, both of you, and follow me.”
Paul and Lolla exchanged one last squeeze of the hand, gave their souls to one another again in a glance, and jumped together.
A few minutes later, the fugitives arrived in the vast space where the monopods’ horrible feast had taken place. They turned away in horror from the flaccid black masses that lay here and there on the ground.
“Let’s follow the golden stream,” Paul said.
; They went out of the cavern by means of a narrow corridor, along which the luminous stream ran, leaving a narrow ledge between itself and the wall.
“Do you have your watch, Lolla?” Paul asked.
“Yes.”
“Will you entrust it to me?”
“Here it is.”
Civrac turned the resetting wheel, moving the hands so that they indicated twelve o’clock.
“We can’t know,” he said, “what time it is on Earth, and it’s of no importance to us anyway. I’m setting the watch at noon. The instrument will simply serve to map out the hours that go by. That might be useful to us.”
He used his cravat to attach the watch securely to his belt.
Meanwhile, they continued walking.
The hands marked quarter past twelve when the Terrans emerged into a kind of crossroads from which several tunnels led away, and where the stream mingled its trickle of yellow liquid with the profound mass of the golden river.
“The Mercurians ride on the liquid,” said Paul, “and don’t sink into it, as if it were solid ground. Let’s try.”
He put his foot out and pressed down on the surface of the heavy liquid. He felt a resistance comparable to that of clay, and only sank into it by a few centimeters. The yellow liquid was hot, but the temperature was tolerable.
“Give me your hand, Lolla. Do as I do, Francisco.”
Drawing the young woman along, he put both feet on the strange river. Francisco followed Lolla, similarly holding her hand. Immediately, the current dragged them away, and they glided rapidly alongside the rocky walls.
The subterranean channel in which the river flowed was about fifty meters wide, but its height was immeasurable. The yellow radiation that the luminous liquid produced scarcely reached the vault, which was blurred by shadows high above, displaying sharp ridges and overhanging black masses.
“My God, where are we going?” sighed Lolla. Her heart tightened, for a atrocious presentiment had just surged forth in her mind.
They were sliding through space as if carried by a moving walkway. Paul and Francisco kept close to the wall. Ready to slow down and interrupt their progress if it became necessary, by hanging on to rocky outcrops; with that anticipation, each of them had wrapped everything that he had been able to detach from their ragged clothing around their arm and free hand.
The Fiery Wheel Page 9