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_ We passed through the caves without trouble, but when we came to the
slope of the inverted cone two difficulties stared us in the face. The
first of these was the laborious nature of the ascent, and the next
the extreme difficulty of finding our way. Indeed, had it not been for
the mental notes that I had fortunately taken of the shape of various
rocks, I am sure that we never should have managed it at all, but have
wandered about in the dreadful womb of the volcano--for I suppose it
must once have been something of the sort--until we died of exhaustion
and despair. As it was we went wrong several times, and once nearly
fell into a huge crack or crevasse. It was terrible work creeping
about in the dense gloom and awful stillness from boulder to boulder,
and examining it by the feeble light of the lamps to see if I could
recognise its shape. We rarely spoke, our hearts were too heavy for
speech, we simply stumbled about, falling sometimes and cutting
ourselves, in a rather dogged sort of way. The fact was that our
spirits were utterly crushed, and we did not greatly care what
happened to us. Only we felt bound to try and save our lives whilst we
could, and indeed a natural instinct prompted us to it. So for some
three or four hours, I should think--I cannot tell exactly how long,
for we had no watch left that would go--we blundered on. During the
last two hours we were completely lost, and I began to fear that we
had got into the funnel of some subsidiary cone, when at last I
suddenly recognised a very large rock which we had passed in
descending but a little way from the top. It is a marvel that I should
have recognised it, and, indeed, we had already passed it going at
right angles to the proper path, when something about it struck me,
and I turned back and examined it in an idle sort of way, and, as it
happened, this proved our salvation.
After this we gained the rocky natural stair without much further
trouble, and in due course found ourselves back in the little chamber
where the benighted Noot had lived and died.
But now a fresh terror stared us in the face. It will be remembered
that owing to Job's fear and awkwardness, the plank upon which we had
crossed from the huge spur to the rocking-stone had been whirled off
into the tremendous gulf below.
How were we to cross without the plank?
There was only one answer--we must try and /jump/ it, or else stop
there till we starved. The distance in itself was not so very great,
between eleven and twelve feet I should think, and I have seen Leo
jump over twenty when he was a young fellow at collage; but then,
think of the conditions. Two weary, worn-out men, one of them on the
wrong side of forty, a rocking-stone to take off from, a trembling
point of rock some few feet across to land upon, and a bottomless gulf
to be cleared in a raging gale! It was bad enough, God knows, but when
I pointed out these things to Leo, he put the whole matter in a
nutshell, by replying that, merciless as the choice was, we must
choose between the certainty of a lingering death in the chamber and
the risk of a swift one in the air. Of course, there was no arguing
against this, but one thing was clear, we could not attempt that leap
in the dark; the only thing to do was to wait for the ray of light
which pierced through the gulf at sunset. How near to or how far from
sunset we might be, neither of us had the faintest notion; all we did
know was, that when at last the light came it would not endure more
than a couple of minutes at the outside, so that we must be prepared
to meet it. Accordingly, we made up our minds to creep on to the top
of the rocking-stone and lie there in readiness. We were the more
easily reconciled to this course by the fact that our lamps were once
more nearly exhausted--indeed, one had gone out bodily, and the other
was jumping up and down as the flame of a lamp does when the oil is
done. So, by the aid of its dying light, we hastened to crawl out of
the little chamber and clamber up the side of the great stone.
As we did so the light went out.
The difference in our position was a sufficiently remarkable one.
Below, in the little chamber, we had only heard the roaring of the
gale overhead--here, lying on our faces on the swinging stone, we were
exposed to its full force and fury, as the great draught drew first
from this direction and then from that, howling against the mighty
precipice and through the rocky cliffs like ten thousand despairing
souls. We lay there hour after hour in terror and misery of mind so
deep that I will not attempt to describe it, and listened to the wild
storm-voices of that Tartarus, as, set to the deep undertone of the
spur opposite against which the wind hummed like some awful harp, they
called to each other from precipice to precipice. No nightmare dreamed
by man, no wild invention of the romancer, can ever equal the living
horror of that place, and the weird crying of those voices of the
night, as we clung like shipwrecked mariners to a raft, and tossed on
the black, unfathomed wilderness of air. Fortunately the temperature
was not a low one; indeed, the wind was warm, or we should have
perished. So we clung and listened, and while we were stretched out
upon the rock a thing happened which was so curious and suggestive in
itself, though doubtless a mere coincidence, that, if anything, it
added to, rather than deducted from, the burden on our nerves.
It will be remembered that when Ayesha was standing on the spur,
before we crossed to the stone, the wind tore her cloak from her, and
whirled it away into the darkness of the gulf, we could not see
whither. Well--I hardly like to tell the story; it is so strange. As
we lay there upon the rocking-stone, this very cloak came floating out
of the black space, like a memory from the dead, and fell on Leo--so
that it covered him nearly from head to foot. We could not at first
make out what it was, but soon discovered by its feel, and then poor
Leo, for the first time, gave way, and I heard him sobbing there upon
the stone. No doubt the cloak had been caught upon some pinnacle of
the cliff, and was thence blown hither by a chance gust; but still, it
was a most curious and touching incident.
Shortly after this, suddenly, without the slightest previous warning,
the great red knife of light came stabbing the darkness through and
through--struck the swaying stone on which we were, and rested its
sharp point upon the spur opposite.
"Now for it," said Leo, "now or never."
We rose and stretched ourselves, and looked at the cloud-wreaths
stained the colour of blood by that red ray as they tore through the
sickening depths beneath, and then at the empty space between the
swaying stone and the quivering rock, and, in our hearts, despaired,
and prepared for death. Surely we could not clear it--desperate though
we were.
"Who is to go first?" said I.
"Do you, old fellow," answered Leo. "I will sit upon the other side of
the stone to steady it. You must take as much run as you can, and jump
high; and God have mercy on us, say I."
I acquiesced with a nod, and then I did a thing I had never done since
Leo was a little boy. I turned and put my arm round him, and kissed
him on the forehead. It sounds rather French, but as a fact I was
taking my last farewell of a man whom I could not have loved more if
he had been my own son twice over.
"Good-bye, my boy," I said, "I hope that we shall meet again, wherever
it is that we go to."
The fact was I did not expect to live another two minutes.
Next I retreated to the far side of the rock, and waited till one of
the chopping gusts of wind got behind me, and then I ran the length of
the huge stone, some three or four and thirty feet, and sprang wildly
out into the dizzy air. Oh! the sickening terrors that I felt as I
launched myself at that little point of rock, and the horrible sense
of despair that shot through my brain as I realised that I had /jumped
short!/ but so it was, my feet never touched the point, they went down
into space, only my hands and body came in contact with it. I gripped
at it with a yell, but one hand slipped, and I swung right round,
holding by the other, so that I faced the stone from which I had
sprung. Wildly I stretched up with my left hand, and this time managed
to grasp a knob of rock, and there I hung in the fierce red light,
with thousands of feet of empty air beneath me. My hands were holding
to either side of the under part of the spur, so that its point was
touching my head. Therefore, even if I could have found the strength,
I could not pull myself up. The most that I could do would be to hang
for about a minute, and then drop down, down into the bottomless pit.
If any man can imagine a more hideous position, let him speak! All I
know is that the torture of that half-minute nearly turned my brain.
I heard Leo give a cry, and then suddenly saw him in mid air springing
up and out like a chamois. It was a splendid leap that he took under
the influence of his terror and despair, clearing the horrible gulf as
if it were nothing, and, landing well on to the rocky point, he threw
himself upon his face, to prevent his pitching off into the depths. I
felt the spur above me shake beneath the shock of his impact, and as
it did so I saw the huge rocking-stone, that had been violently
depressed by him as he sprang, fly back when relieved of his weight
till, for the first time during all these centuries, it got beyond its
balance, fell with a most awful crash right into the rocky chamber
which had once served the philosopher Noot for a hermitage, and, I
have no doubt, for ever sealed the passage that leads to the Place of
Life with some hundreds of tons of rock.
All this happened in a second, and curiously enough, notwithstanding
my terrible position, I noted it involuntarily, as it were. I even
remember thinking that no human being would go down that dread path
again.
Next instant I felt Leo seize me by the right wrist with both hands.
By lying flat on the point of rock he could just reach me.
"You must let go and swing yourself clear," he said in a calm and
collected voice, "and then I will try and pull you up, or we will both
go together. Are you ready?"
By way of answer I let go, first with my left hand and then with the
right, and, as a consequence, swayed out clear of the overshadowing
rock, my weight hanging upon Leo's arms. It was a dreadful moment. He
was a very powerful man, I knew, but would his strength be equal to
lifting me up till I could get a hold on the top of the spur, when
owing to his position he had so little purchase?
For a few seconds I swung to and fro, while he gathered himself for
the effort, and then I heard his sinews cracking above me, and felt
myself lifted up as though I were a little child, till I got my left
arm round the rock, and my chest was resting on it. The rest was easy;
in two or three more seconds I was up, and we were lying panting side
by side, trembling like leaves, and with the cold perspiration of
terror pouring from our skins.
And then, as before, the light went out like a lamp.
For some half-hour we lay thus without speaking a word, and then at
length began to creep along the great spur as best we might in the
dense gloom. As we drew towards the face of the cliff, however, from
which the spur sprang out like a spike from a wall, the light
increased, though only a very little, for it was night overhead. After
that the gusts of wind decreased, and we got along rather better, and
at last reached the mouth of the first cave or tunnel. But now a fresh
trouble stared as in the face: our oil was gone, and the lamps were,
no doubt, crushed to powder beneath the fallen rocking-stone. We were
even without a drop of water to stay our thirst, for we had drunk the
last in the chamber of Noot. How were we to see to make our way
through this last boulder-strewn tunnel?
Clearly all that we could do was to trust to our sense of feeling, and
attempt the passage in the dark, so in we crept, fearing that if we
delayed to do so our exhaustion would overcome us, and we should
probably lie down and die where we were.
Oh, the horrors of that last tunnel! The place was strewn with rocks,
and we fell over them, and knocked ourselves up against them till we
were bleeding from a score of wounds. Our only guide was the side of
the cavern, which we kept touching, and so bewildered did we grow in
the darkness that we were several times seized with the terrifying
thought that we had turned, and were travelling the wrong way. On we
went, feebly, and still more feebly, for hour after hour, stopping
every few minutes to rest, for our strength was spent. Once we fell
asleep, and, I think, must have slept for some hours, for, when we
woke, our limbs were quite stiff, and the blood from our blows and
scratches had caked, and was hard and dry upon our skin. Then we
dragged ourselves on again, till at last, when despair was entering
into our hearts, we once more saw the light of day, and found
ourselves outside the tunnel in the rocky fold on the outer surface of
the cliff that, it will be remembered, led into it.
It was early morning--that we could tell by the feel of the sweet air
and the look of the blessed sky, which we had never hoped to see
again. It was, so near as we knew, an hour after sunset when we
entered the tunnel, so it followed that it had taken us the entire
night to crawl through that dreadful place.
"One more effort, Leo," I gasped, "and we shall reach the slope where
Billali is, if he hasn't gone. Come, don't give way," for he had cast
himself upon his face. He rose, and, leaning on each other, we got
down that fifty feet or so of cliff--somehow, I have not the least
notion how. I only remember that we found ourselves lying in a heap at
the bottom, and then once more began to drag ourselves along on our
hands and knees towards the grove where /She/ had told Billali to wait
her re-arrival, for we could not walk another foot. We had not gone
fifty yards in this fashion when suddenly one of the mutes emerged
from the trees on our left, through which, I presume, he had been
taking a morning stroll, and came running up to see what sort of
strange animals we were. He stared, and stared, and then held up his
hands in horror, and nearly fell to the ground. Next, he started off
as hard as he could for the grove some two hundred yards away. No
wonder that he was horrified at our appearance, for we must have been
a shocking sight. To begin, Leo, with his golden curls turned a snowy
white, his clothes nearly rent from his body, his worn face and his
hands a mass of bruises, cuts, and blood-encrusted filth, was a
sufficiently alarming spectacle, as he painfully dragged himself along
the ground, and I have no doubt that I was little better to look on. I
know that two days afterwards when I inspected my face in some water I
scarcely recognised myself. I have never been famous for beauty, but
there was something beside ugliness stamped upon my features that I
have never got rid of until this day, something resembling that wild
look with which a startled person wakes from deep sleep more than
anything else that I can think of. And really it is not to be wondered
at. What I do wonder at is that we escaped at all with our reason.
Presently, to my intense relief, I saw old Billali hurrying towards
us, and even then I could scarcely help smiling at the expression of
consternation on his dignified countenance.
"Oh, my Baboon! my Baboon!" he cried, "my dear son, is it indeed thee
and the Lion? Why, his mane that was ripe as corn is white like the
snow. Whence come ye? and where is the Pig, and where too /She-who-
must-be-obeyed/?"
"Dead, both dead," I answered; "but ask no questions; help us, and
give us food and water, or we too shall die before thine eyes. Seest
thou not that our tongues are black for want of water? How, then, can
we talk?"
"Dead!" he gasped. "Impossible. /She/ who never dies--dead, how can it
be?" and then, perceiving, I think, that his face was being watched by
the mutes who had come running up, he checked himself, and motioned to
them to carry us to the camp, which they did.
Fortunately when we arrived some broth was boiling on the fire, and
with this Billali fed us, for we were too weak to feed ourselves,
thereby I firmly believe saving us from death by exhaustion. Then he
bade the mutes wash the blood and grime from us with wet cloths, and
after that we were laid down upon piles of aromatic grass, and
instantly fell into the dead sleep of absolute exhaustion of mind and
body. _
Read next: CHAPTER XXVIII - OVER THE MOUNTAIN
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