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Out of the Depths: A Romance of Reclamation, a novel by Robert Ames Bennet |
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Chapter 26. In The Gloom |
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_ CHAPTER XXVI. IN THE GLOOM When the engineer came down to the river, Ashton still crouched low, his dripping head close over the water, as if he was afraid even to look away from it. Blake rinsed out his mouth and stood up to sip slowly from his hat, while looking about at the awesome spectacle of the canyon bottom. His first glance was at the swift-flowing stream. His eyes brightened and the furrows in his forehead smoothed away. The river was not as formidable as its tumult and foam had threatened. It could be descended by wading at the places where ledges and bowlders along the base of the canyon walls failed to afford safe footing. He glanced up the stupendous precipices at the blue-black ribbon of sky, but only for a moment. His present thought was not of escape from the depths. He bent over to grip the crouching man by the shoulder and lift him to his feet. Ashton writhed about and glared at him like a trapped wolf. "Let go!" he snarled. "It was an accident! I didn't mean to do it!" "Of course not," replied Blake, releasing his grip but standing close that he might not have to shout. "It's all right, old man--my fault. The knot slipped." "You own it! You own it's your fault!" cried Ashton. "You've brought me down here into this hell-pit! We can't get out! Lost! All your fault--yours!" He made a frantic snatch and jerked the revolver from Blake's holster. The engineer caught his wrist in an iron grasp and wrenched the weapon from him. "None of that, old man," he admonished with a cool sternness that chilled the frenzy of the other like a dash of ice water. "You're here to do your work, and you're going to do it. Understand?" "My work!" repeated Ashton wildly. "Yes, your work," commanded Blake, his face as hard as iron. "We're going to survey Deep Canyon down to the tunnel site. Your work is to carry rod. Do you get that?" "Down the canyon?--deeper!" "We can't get back up here. There's a place down there beyond the tunnel site where perhaps we can make it up the canyon wall." "A place where we--?" shrilled Ashton. "A place--Good God! and you stand here doing nothing!" He whirled to spring out into the swirling water. Blake was still swifter in his movements. He caught the fugitive by the arm and dragged him back. "Wait!" he commanded. "We must first carry the levels down to the tunnel site. You hear that? Stick by me, and I'll pull you through. Try to run, and, by God, I'll shoot you like a dog!" The captive glared into the steel-white eyes of the engineer, anger overcoming his panicky fear. "Let go!" he panted. "Don't worry! I'll do my work--I'll do my work!" "If you don't, you'll never get out of this canyon," grimly rejoined Blake. He released his hold, and started up the slope, with a curt order: "Come along. We can rod down the slope." Ashton followed him, silent and morose. The instrument was screwed to its tripod, and a line of levels from the foot of the last vertical measurement was carried down the slope to the canyon. The last rod reading was on a ledge, three feet above the water, at the corner of the gorge. Blake considered the reading worthy of permanent record. They had measured all the many hundreds of feet down from the top of High Mesa to these profound depths. With his two-pound hammer and one of the few remaining spikes, he chiseled a cross deep in the surface of the black rock. That mark of the engineer-captain, scouting before the van of man's Nature-conquering army, was the sign of the first human beings that had ever descended alive to the bottom of Deep Canyon. When he had cut the cross, Blake took out his Colt's, and, gazing up the heights, began to fire at slow intervals. Confined between the walls of gorge and canyon, each report of the heavy revolver crashed out above the tumult of the river and ran echoing and reechoing up the stupendous precipices. Yet long before they reached the rim of those towering walls they blurred away and merged and were lost in the ceaseless reverberations of the waters. Blake well knew that this would happen. But he also knew that the flash of the shot would be distinctly discernible in the gloom of the abyss. As he fired, he scanned the verge of the uppermost precipices. After the fourth shot he ceased firing and flung up his hand to point at the heights. "Look!" he shouted. "They see! There is the flag!" Ashton stared up with wide, feverish eyes. From an out-jutting point of rock on the lofty rim he saw a tiny white dot waving to and fro against the blue-black sky. The watchers above had seen the flash of the revolver shots and were fluttering the white flag in responsive signal. Though on the world above the sun beat down its full mid-afternoon flood of light, the two men in the abyss could see stars twinkling in the dark sky around the waving fleck of white. Blake fired two shots in quick succession, the agreed signal that told the flag was seen. He then calmly seated himself and began to add together the vertical measurements taken during the descent of the gorge. But Ashton groaned and flung himself face downward on the rough stone. Blake soon finished his sum in addition, and the result brought a smile to his serious face. He checked the figures with painstaking carefulness, and nodded, fully satisfied. Replacing book and pencil in the deep pocket of his shirt, he opened one of the packages of food. When he had laid out enough for a hearty meal, he looked at Ashton. The prostrate man had not stirred. "Come, Lafe," he called encouragingly. "Time to eat." Ashton lay still and made no response. Blake raised his voice--"Come! You're not going to quit. You're going to eat. You must keep your strength to fight your way through and up out of here--to her!" Ashton sullenly rose and came to sit down on the rock beside the outspread food. He was silent, but he ate even more heartily than his companion. When they had finished, Blake swung his pack and level on his shoulder, fired one shot, and stepped out into the swift but shallow river. Wading as far downstream as he could see to read the rod in the twilight of the depths, he set up the tripod of his instrument on a rock and took the reading given him by Ashton. The survey of the canyon itself had begun. Unappalled by the awful height of the mighty precipices on either side, undaunted by the uncertainty of escape, heedless of the gloom of the deep, of the tumult and rush and chill of the icy waters, the engineer boldly advanced to the attack of this abysmal stronghold of Primeval Nature, his square jaw set in grim determination to wrest from these hitherto inviolate depths that which he sought to learn. Whatever might follow, he must and would unlock the secret of the hidden waters. Afterwards might come death by slow starvation or the quick dashing down from some half-scaled precipice. That mattered not now. First must the engineer perform his work,--first must he execute the task that he had set himself for the conquest of the chasm that was likely to prove his tomb. Vastly different in purpose, yet no less resolute than the engineer, Ashton joined zealously in the grim battle with the abyss--for battle it soon proved to be. Only in places was the subterranean river shallow and easy to wade. More often it foamed in wild fury down steep rapids, to fling itself over ledges into black pools; or, worst of all, it swirled deep and arrowy-swift between fanged rocks where the channel narrowed. Wading, swimming, leaping from rock to rock, scrambling up and down the steep precipice foot, creeping along narrow shelves,--stubbornly the explorers fought their way deeper through that wild passage. Chilled by the icy waters and bruised by many a slip on loose stones and wet, water-polished rocks, ever they carried the line of levels down alongside the torrent, crossing over and back from side to side, twisting and turning with the twists and bends of the chasm. And at every stand Blake jotted down the rod readings in his half-soaked book with his pencil and figured the elevation of each turning point before "pulling up" his instrument to move on downstream to the next "set up." At the end of every half hour he fired a single shot to signal their progress in the depths to the watchers above. But never once did he stop to look up for the flag. Occasionally he was required to help Ashton through or over some unusually difficult passage. For the most part, however, each fought his own way. The odds were not altogether in favor of the older man. He was hampered by the care of the instrument, which must be shielded from all blows or falls. The rod, on the contrary, served as a staff and support to Ashton, alike in the water and on the rocks. Some time before sunset the waning light in the canyon bottom became so dim that Blake was compelled to cease work. He took a last reading on a broad shelf of rock well above the surface of the water, joined Ashton on the shelf, and began firing the revolver at five-minute intervals. After the fifth shot he at last perceived the white dot of the flag far above on the opposite brink of the chasm. He fired two shots in quick succession, and calmly sat down to open one of the soaked packages of food. Ashton did not wait to be bidden to supper. He fell to on the food and ate ravenously. Blake did not check him, though he himself took little and carefully gathered up and returned to the package every scrap of food left at the end of the meal. As Ashton lay back on the rock he squirmed from side to side and groaned. His bruises were so numerous that he could not find a comfortable position. "Cheer up!" grimly quoted Blake. "The worst is yet to come." He stretched himself out on the rock-shelf and, regardless of the sullen resistance of the younger man, drew him into his arms. Chilled to the marrow by his frequent icy drenchings, Ashton was shivering in the cold wind which came down the canyon with the approach of night. But Blake's massive body and limbs were aglow with abundant vitality. Warmed and sheltered from the wind, the exhausted man relaxed like a child in the strong arms of his companion and quickly sank into the deep slumber of overtaxed nature. Blake lay awake until the narrow strip of sky that showed between the vast walls of rock deepened to an inky blackness thickly sprinkled with scintillating stars. The light of a watchfire flamed red far above on the opposite rim of the chasm wall. To the man below it was like the glow of human love in the chill darkness of the Unknown. With a gesture of reverent passion and adoration, he put his fingers to his lips and flung a kiss up out of the abyss. Then he, too, relaxed on the hard rock and sank into heavy sleep. Ashton was the first to waken. The wind had changed, and he was roused by the different note in the ceaseless roar of the river. He stared up at the star-jeweled sky. It was still intensely black; yet the gloom of the depths was lessened by a vague pale illumination, a faint shadow of light that might have been the ghost of a dead day. He thought it was the gray dawn, and sought to roll over on his rock bed away from the sheltering embrace of Blake. The engineer was still deep in profound slumber. His big arm slipped laxly from across the moving man's breast. The change of position wrung a groan from Ashton. Every muscle in his body was cramped, every bruise stiff and sore. Not until he had turned and twisted for several moments was he able to rise to his feet. The vague ghost light about him brightened. He gazed upwards. He did not notice the tiny flame of the fire that told of the anxious watchers above. Out over the monstrous black wall of the abyss was drifting a burnished silver-white disk. "The moon!" he groaned. "Only the moon! To wait here--with him!--with him!" He looked down at the big form of the sleeping man, and suddenly all his pent-up rage burst its bounds. It poured through his veins in streams of fire. He stared about in fierce eagerness in search of a weapon. Blake lay upon the hilt of the revolver; the level rod lacked weight and balance. But the heavy hammer--a blow on the upturned temple of the sleeper!-- With the cunning stealth of madness, Ashton took up the hammer and crept around back of Blake's head. He straightened on his knees, and peered down at the calm, powerful face of the engineer. What if he was a veritable Samson, this conqueror of canyons? Where now was his power? Sleep had bound fast his steel muscles, had numbed his indomitable will and locked his keen intellect in the black prison of unconsciousness. The avenger hovered over him, gloating. Now at last was come the opportunity--the perfect opportunity, down in these uttermost depths, in the secret night time. The world above slept--and he slept. Never should he waken from that sleep; never should he rouse up in his evil strength to escape out of the abyss and bring ruin to her! Lightly the hammer swung over and downward, measuring the curve of the stroke. It lifted and poised. Again it swung down; and again it lifted and poised. The blow must be certain--there must not be the slightest chance of missing. Each time the heavy steel head stopped a full two inches short of the upturned temple--but each time its shadow fell across the eyes of the sleeper. He stirred. The hammer whirled up, gripped in both hands of the kneeling man. The sleeper turned flat on his back, with his face full to the light. A quiver ran through the tense muscles of the avenger. Had the eyes of the sleeper opened, had their lids so much as fluttered, the hammer must have crashed down. But it was the sleeper's lips that moved. As it were by a miracle of acuteness, the tense nerves of the other's ear caught the whispered words through the roaring of the river--"Jenny! Son!" The hammer hurled away out into the swirl of the foam-flecked waters. The avenger flung himself about, face downward on the rock. "God!" he sobbed, in an agony of remorse. "Forgive me, God! I cannot do it! I am weak--unfit!... Not even to save her!--not even to save her!" He writhed in the anguish of his love and rage and self-abasement. He had failed; he was too weak to do the deed. But God--Would God permit that evil should befall her? He struggled to his feet and flung up his quivering hands to moon and stars and black sky in passionate invocation--"O God! You say that vengeance is Yours; that You will repay! Take me, if You will--I give myself! Only destroy him too! Save her! save her!" Again Blake stirred, and this time he opened his eyes. Ashton had sunk down in a huddled silent heap. Blake gazed up at the watchfire on the heights, smiled, and turned over to again fall asleep. _ |
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