CHAPTER X
THE TERRORS OF THE DARK
I
From the topmost summit of that range of pointed hills which held thecaves and the cave-mouth fires of his people, Grom stared northwardwith keen curiosity. To east and south and west he had explored, everseeking to enlarge the knowledge and strengthen the security of histribe. But to northward of the pointed hills lay league on league ofprofound jungle--grotesque and enormous growths knitted togetherimpenetrably by a tangle of gigantic, flame-flowered lianas. And inthose rank, green glooms, as Grom had reason to believe, there lurkedsuch monsters as even he, with all his resources of fire and novelweapons, had so far shrunk from challenging.
But beyond the expanse of jungle stretched another line of hills,their summits not saw-toothed like his own, but low and gentlyrounded, and of a smoky purple against the pure turquoise sky. Thesehills Grom was thirsting to explore. They might contain caves moreroomy than those of his own hills--spacious and suitable to giveshelter to his tribe, which was now finding itself somewhat cramped.Moreover, it had always seemed to Grom that there might be a mysterybehind those hills, and to his restless imagination a mystery wasalways like a stinging goad.
In all this neighborhood the crust of earth was thin as plainlyappeared from the fringe of wavering volcanic flames which, during allthe five years since the coming of the tribe, had been dancing fromthe lip of the narrow fissure across the mouth of their valley. Nightand day, now high and vehement, now low and faint, they had dancedthere, guarding the valley entrance--until just one moon ago. Then hadcome an earthquake, shaking the hearts of all the tribe to water. Thedancing flames had died. The fissure had closed up, and its place hadbeen taken by a pool of boiling pitch. And one of the caves had fallenin, burying several members of the tribe, who had been too stupefiedwith panic to flee into the open at the first alarm. For some daysafter this catastrophe the tribe had camped in the open, huddled abouttheir great fires. Then, but with deep misgivings, they had allcrowded back into the remaining caves.
But now there was not room enough, and Bawr, the wise Chief, had takenfrequent counsel upon the matter with Grom, whom, loving him greatlyhe called sometimes his Right Hand and sometimes the Eye of thePeople. At last, it had been settled that Grom should lead a partythrough the jungle land to those other hills, to spy out the prospect.And Grom, like the foresighted leader that he was, had spent manyhours on the mountain-top, planning his route and studying theluxuriant surface of the jungle outstretched below him, beforeplunging into its mysterious depths.
As was his custom when on a perilous venture, Grom would have fewfollowers to share the peril with him. He took A-ya, not only becauseof her oft-proved courage and resourcefulness, not only because hewanted her always at his side, but, above all, because he knew hecould not leave her behind. Had he tried to leave her, she would havedisobeyed and followed him by stealth--and perhaps fallen a prey toprowling beasts. He took also A-ya's young brother, the hot-head Mo;and Loob, the shaggy, little sharp-faced scout, who could run like ahare, hide like a fox, and fight like a cornered weasel. This he wouldhave accounted, ordinarily, a sufficient party. But the presententerprise being one of peculiar difficulty, he decided at the lastmoment to strengthen his following by the addition of a dark-faced,perpetually-grinning giant named Hobbo, who was slow of wit, butthewed like a bull, and a mighty fighter with the stone-headed club.
This little but greatly daring band, which Grom, one flaming sunrise,led down into the unknown jungle, was well armed. Besides the spearand the club, each member of the party but Hobbo (who had displayed noaptitude for its use) carried Grom's wonderful invention--the bow.Hobbo, however, because of his immense strength, bore the heavyfire-basket, wherein the smoldering coals were cherished in a bed ofclay. As a food reserve, everyone carried a few strips of half-driedmeat; but their main dependence, of course, was to be upon the spoilsof their hunting and the fruits that they might gather on theirmarch.
The forest into whose depths Grom now led the way was in reality asurvival from a previous age, into which the forms, both vegetable andanimal, of contemporary life had been gradually infiltrating. Thesoil, of incredible fertility, still poured forth those gigantic treegrasses, and colossal, sappy ferns and psuedo-palms, which hadflourished chiefly in the carboniferous period. But here they weremingled with the more enduring hard-wood growths of the later tropicalforests; and only these were strong enough to support the massive,strangling coils of the cable-like lianas, which wound their way upthe huge trunks and reached out in aerial, swaying bridges fromtree-top to tree-top. On every side, high or low, the deep-green gloomwas splashed with color from the gorgeous orchids and other epiphytes,which flowered out into grotesque or monstrous wing-petaled shapes ofvermilion and purple and orange and rose and white, eyed with velvetblack or streaked with iridescent bronze.
To men of to-day this jungle would have been impenetrable, except bythe incessant use of axe or machete. But Grom and his party wereCave-Men, and had not yet forgotten all the instincts and capacitiesof their tree-dwelling ancestors. Sometimes, where it seemed easiest,they forced their way along the ground, or followed the trodden trailof some great jungle beast, so long as it led in the right direction.But here they had to be ceaselessly on the watch against surprise bycreatures whose monstrous tracks were unlike any that they had everseen before. Whenever possible, therefore, they preferred to journey,after the fashion of their apish ancestors, by way of the highbranches and the liana bridges. Hampered as they were by theirweapons, their progress by this aerial way was slow. But it wascomparatively secure. And it was also comparatively cool; while downat the ground-level the steaming heat and the stinging insects werealmost beyond endurance.
Yet before the end of that first day's journey they learned that evenin tree-tops it was necessary to be always on the watch. Once thelittle hairy scout, Loob, who traveled always on the outskirts of theparty, was struck at suddenly by a huge black leopard, which layambushed in the crotch of a tree. Loob, however, who was soquick-sighted that he seemed to see things before they actuallyhappened, leapt to a higher branch in time to escape the deadlypaw. In the next instant he struck down furiously with his spear,catching his assailant between the shoulder-blades and driving thestroke home with all his strength. With a screech, the beast stiffenedout, and then, somewhat slowly, collapsed. As Loob wrenched hisweapon free, the great animal slumped limply from its branch. For amoment or two it hung by the fore-paws, coughing and frothing atthe mouth. Then this last hold relaxed and it fell, bumping with acurious deliberation from branch to branch. It vanished through afloor of thick leafage, and struck the ground with a dull crash. Itmust have fallen under the very jaws of an unseen waiting monster; forthere arose at once a strange, hooting roar, followed by the soundof rending flesh and cracking bone. Loob grinned over his feat,and Grom, glancing at A-ya, muttered quietly: "It is better to be uphere than down there." As he spoke, and they all peered downwards,a dreadful head, with the limp body of the leopard gripped like arat between its long jaws and dripping yellow fang, thrust itselfup through the floor of leafage and stared at them with round eyesas cold and black as ice.
Grom itched to shoot an arrow into one of those unwinking, devilisheyes. But arrows were too precious to be wasted.
That night they slept profoundly on a platform which they wove ofbranches in one of the tallest and most unscalable trees. They keptwatch, of course, turn and turn about; but nothing attempted toapproach them, and they cared little for the sounds of strife, thecrashings of pursuit and desperate flight, which came up to them atintervals from the blackness far below.
On the morrow, however, as they were pursuing their aerial path alongthe borders of a narrow, sluggish bayou, they were suddenly made torealize that the tree-tops held perils more deadly than that of thelurking leopards. They were all staring down into the water, whichswarmed with gigantic crocodiles and boiled immediately beneath themwith the turmoil of a life-and-death struggle between two of thebrutes, when hars
h jabbering in the branches just across the watermade them look up.
The tree-tops opposite were full of great apes, mowing and gibberingat them with every sign of hate. The beasts were as big and massive asHobbo himself, and covered thickly with long, blackish fur. Theirfaces, half human, half dog-like, were hairless and of a bright butbilious blue, with great livid red circles about the small, furiouseyes. With derisive gestures they swung themselves out upon theoverhanging branches, till it almost seemed as if they would hurlthemselves into the water in their rage against the little knot ofhuman beings.
The girl A-ya, overcome with loathing horror because the beasts wereso hideous a caricature of man, covered her eyes with one hand. YoungMo, his fiery temper stung by their challenge, clapped an arrow to hisstring and raised his bow to shoot. But Grom checked him sternly,dreading to fix any thirst of vengeance in the minds of the terribletroop.
"They can't come at us here. Let them forget about us," said he."Don't take any more notice of them at all."
As he led the way once more through the branches along the edge of thebayou, the apes kept pace with them on the other side. But presentlythe bayou widened, and then swept sharply off to the west. Grom kepton straight to the north, by the route which he had planned. And themad gibbering died away into the hot, green silence of the tree-tops.
The adventurers now pushed on with redoubled speed, unwilling to passanother night in the tree-tops when such dangerous antagonists were inthe neighborhood. The hills, however, were still far off when eveningcame again. Not knowing that the great apes always slept at night,Grom decided to continue the journey in order to lessen the risk of asurprise. When the moon rose, round and huge and honey-colored, overthe sea of foliage, traveling through the tree-tops was almost as easyas by day, while the earth below them, with its prowling and battlingmonsters, was buried in inky gloom. When day broke, there were therounded hills startlingly close ahead, as if they had crept forward tomeet them in the night.
And now the hills looked different. Between the nearest--a long,rolling, treeless ridge of downland--and the edge of the junglelay an expanse of open, grassy savannah, dotted with ponds, andhere and there a curious, solitary, naked tree-trunk, with whatlooked like a bunch of grass on its top. They were like giganticgreen paint-brushes, with yellow-gray handles, stuck up at random.Far off they saw a herd of curious beasts at pasture, and away tothe left a giant bird, as tall as the tree by which it stood, seemedto keep watch. A little to the right, where the treeless ridge cameabruptly to an end, gleamed a considerable stretch of water. It wastoward this point, where the water washed the steep-shoulderedpromontory, that Grom decided to shape his course across the plain.
By the time the sun was some three hours high they had arrived withina couple of hundred yards of the open. Sick of the oppressive jungle,and eager for the change to a type of country with which they weremore familiar, they were swinging on through the tree-tops at a greatpace, when that savage, snarling jabber which they so dreaded washeard in the branches behind them. Grom instantly put A-ya in thelead, while he himself dropped to the rear to meet this deadliest ofperils. There was no need to urge his party to haste; but it seemed tothem all as if they were standing still, so swiftly did the clamor ofthe apes come upon them.
"Down to earth," ordered Grom sharply, seeing that they must beovertaken before they could reach the open, and realizing that in thetree-tops they could not hope to match these four-handed dwellers ofthe trees.
As they dropped nimbly from branch to branch, the foremost of the apesarrived in sight, set up a screech of triumph, and came swooping downafter them in vast, swinging leaps. In the hurry Hobbo dropped hisfire-basket, which broke as it fell and scattered the precious coals.Grom, guarding the rear of the flight, made the mistake of keeping hiseye too much on the enemy, too little on where he was going. In amoment or two, he found himself cut off, upon a branch from whichthere was no escape without a drop of twenty feet to a most uncertainfoothold. Rather than risk it, he ran in upon his nearest assailant atthe base of the branch, thrusting at the blue-faced beast with hisspear. But his position being so insecure, his thrust lacked force andprecision. The great ape caught it deftly; and Grom, to preserve hisbalance, had to let the spear be wrenched from his hand. At the samemoment another ape dropped on the branch behind him.
For just one second Grom thought his hour had come. He crouched tosteady himself, then darted forward and hurled his club straight athis foe's protruding and shaggy paunch. Again the beast caught themissile in its lightning clutch; but in the next instant it threw upits long arms, without a sound, and fell backwards out of the tree.A-ya, who had been the first to reach the ground, had drawn her bowand shot upwards with sure aim. The shaft had caught the great apeunder the center of the jaw, far back at the throat, and piercedstraight up to the brain.
Surprised at seeing their leader fall with so little apparent reason,the other apes halted for a moment in their onset, chattering noisily.In that moment Grom swung himself to the ground. As he reached it bothMo and Loob discharged their arrows. Another ape fell from his perch,but caught himself on a lower branch and hung there writhing; while athird, with a shaft half buried in his paunch, fled back yelling intothe tree-top. Then the adventurers snatched up their fallen weaponsfrom the ground and made for the open as fast as they could run. Andthe apes, with a hellish uproar of barks and screams, came swarmingafter them through the lower branches.
At this point, fortunately for the travelers, the jungle was alreadythinning, and they had a chance to show their speed. The ragingblue-faces were speedily distanced, and the fugitives ran outbreathless upon the sunny savannah. Here, feeling themselves safe,they halted to look back. The lower branches all along the edge of thegrass were thronged with leaping brown forms, and gnashing blue masks,and red-rimmed, devilish eyes. But not one of the great beasts, forall their rage, seemed willing to venture forth into the open.
"There must be something out here that they fear greatly," commentedGrom, peering warily about him. But there was nothing in sight tosuggest any danger, and he led the way onward through the rank grassat a long, leisurely trot.
II
For the most part the grass grew hardly waist high; but here and therewere patches, perhaps an acre or so in extent, where it was more canethan grass and rose to a height of twelve or fifteen feet. To suchpatches, which might serve as lurking-places to unknown monsters, Gromgave a wide berth. He had a vivid remembrance of that colossal head,with the awful dead eyes, which had reared itself through the leafageto stare up at him.
In spite of the strange and enormous trails which crossed their pathat times; in spite of occasional massive swayings and crashings in thedeep beds of cane, the adventurous party accomplished the journeyacross the savannah without encountering a single foe. The mid-noonblaze of the sun upon the windless grass, which was almost more thanthey could endure, was probably keeping the monsters to their lairs;and the only living things to be seen, besides the insects and ahigh-wheeling vulture or two, were a few shy troops of a kind of smallantelope, incredibly swift of foot.
Grom drew a breath of relief as they reached the foot of the hills.But just here it was impossible to climb them. A range of highlimestone downs, they were fringed at this point by an unbroken lineof cliff, perpendicular and at times overhanging, from forty or fiftyto perhaps a couple of hundred feet in height, and so smooth that eventhese goat-footed cave-folk could not scale them. The rich plain-landat their feet had once been a shallow, inland sea, and now its grasseswashed along their base in a gold-green, scented foam.
Turning to the right, Grom led the way close along the cliff-foottoward the water, which glowed like brass about a mile ahead. Alongthe right of their path the ground sloped off gently to a belt of thathigh cane-like growth which Grom regarded with such suspicion. Beforethey had gone many hundred yards his suspicion was more thanjustified.
From a little way behind them there arose all at once a chorus ofexplosive gruntings, mixed with a
huge crashing of the canes. Glancingover their shoulders, they saw a great rust-red animal, about the sizeof a rhinoceros, which burst forth from the canes and stood staringafter them. Its hideous head was larger than that of any rhinocerosthey had ever seen, and armed with a pair of enormous conical horns,each more than a foot in diameter at the base and tapering to a keenpoint. Set side by side, at a moderate angle, upon the bridge of thesnout, they were far more terrible than the horns of any rhinoceros.Their bearer lowered them menacingly, and charged down upon Grom'sparty with a sound that was something between the grunting of a hogand the braying of an ass. Immediately upon his massive heels a wholeherd of the red monsters surged forth from the canes, and camecharging after their leader at a ponderous gallop which seemedliterally to shake the earth.
For a moment or two Grom's party had paused, confident in their ownfleetness of foot, and wondering at that pair of amazing horns on themonster's snout. But when the rest of the terrific herd camethundering down upon them, they fled in all haste. To their amazement,they found that their speed was none too great for their need. The redmonsters, in spite of their bulk, were disconcertingly swift.
As he neared the swift promontory which terminated with the range ofdowns, Grom began to fear that he and his followers would have to takerefuge in the water. This water, as it chanced, was the brackishestuary of a river which, sweeping down from the east, here made itsway to the sea through a long, slanting break in the limestone hills.It was now near low tide, and there opened before the hard-pressedfugitives, as they approached the shore, a strip of damp beach runningaround the base of the bluff. As they left the grass and ran out uponthe beach they were astonished to find that the thundering pursuit hadstopped short. Just at the turn of the cliff they halted and staredback wonderingly. Their pursuers, though swinging their great hornsand braying with rage, were evidently unwilling to venture so near thewaterside. They drew back, indeed, as if they feared it, and at lastwent crashing away into the canes. The fugitives, glad of anopportunity to rest their laboring lungs, squatted down with theirbacks against the cliff and congratulated themselves on having got ridof such perilous attentions. But Grom's sagacious eyes searched thecliff face anxiously, without neglecting to watch the unruffled water.If that water was so dreaded that even the mighty herd of theirpursuers durst not approach it, surely its smiling surface must hidesome peril of surpassing horror.
For the next few hundred yards, till it vanished around the curve, thestrip of naked beach was not more than twenty or thirty feet in width.Not without some apprehensions, Grom decided to push forward. Thereseemed nothing else to do, indeed, seeing that the cane-beds behindthem were occupied by that irresistible red herd. Somewhere ahead, heargued, there must be a break in the cliff which would give access tothe rolling downs above, where they might travel in safety.
Disguising his growing uneasiness that he might not discourage hisfollowers--who were now full of elation at having reached the foot ofthe hills--he led on again in haste, though there seemed to be no needof haste. Both Hobbo and young Mo, indeed, were for staying a whileand sleeping in the shade of an overhanging rock. But A-ya, who sensedthrough sympathy her lord's disquietude, and the little scout Loob,who was always, on principle, ill at ease in any spot where there wasno tree to climb, were as eager as their chief to push ahead; and theothers would never have dared, in any case, to question Grom'sdecision.
As they rounded the next bend of the cliff, however, a clamor ofexcited satisfaction arose from all the party. Straight ahead, and notfifty paces distant, there opened before them a spacious cave-mouth,with a somewhat wider strip of beach before it. Immediately beyond thecave the strip of beach came sharply to an end, and the tide lappedsoftly against the foot of the cliff.
But just then, in the moment of their elation, a terrifying thinghappened. As if aroused by their voices, the still surface a few yardsfrom shore boiled up, and was lashed to foam by the strokes of agigantic tail.
"Run!" yelled Grom; and they all dashed forward, there being no chanceto go back. In the same instant, an appalling head--like that of athrice magnified and distorted crocodile, with vast, round, paintedeyes--was upthrust from the water and came rushing after them at apace which sent up a curving wave before it.
Quick as thought, Grom drew his bow and shot at the appalling head.The arrow drove straight into the gaping throat, eliciting athunderous bellow of rage, but producing no other effect. Then Gromsprang after his fleeing companions, and raced for his life toward thecave mouth. The cave might be nothing more than a death-trap for themall; but it seemed to offer the one possibility of escape.
As they dashed into the cave the awful, gaping head was close behindthem. They had a flashing glimpse, through the gloom, of high-archeddistance melting into blackness, of a strip of black water along theright, and to the left a gentle ascent of smooth white sand, whose endwas out of sight.
Up this slope they raced, with the clashing of monstrous fangs closebehind them. But they had not gone a dozen strides when the slopequivered, and heaved upwards shudderingly beneath them; and they allfell forward flat upon their faces. From all but Grom there went up ashriek so piercing that in their own ears it disguised the stupendousrending roar which at that moment seemed to stun the air. The mightyarch of the cave mouth had slipped and crashed down, completelyjamming the entrance, and opening up a gash of blue heaven above theirheads.
To Grom's unshaken wits, it was clear on the instant what hadhappened. He staggered to his feet and looked back through a rain offalling rock-splinters. He had a vision of their colossal pursuer, itsjaws stretched to their utmost width, the vast globes of its eyesprotruding from their armored sockets, its ponderous, bowed fore-legspawing the air aimlessly in the final convulsion. The fallingrock-mass had caught it on the middle of the back, crushing its mightyframe like an eggshell.
For a second or two, Grom stood there rigid, staring, his gnarledfingers clenched upon his weapons. Then a second earthquake tremorbeneath his feet warned him. With an unerring instinct, he sprang onup the slope after his companions, who had fled as soon as they couldpick themselves up. And in the next moment the rock above his head,fissured deep by the rains, slipped again. With a growling screech, asif torn from the bowels of the mountain, it settled slowly down, andsealed the mouth of the cave to utter blackness.
Grom stopped short, having no mind to dash out his brains against therock. There was stillness at last, and silence save for the faint,humming moan of the earthquake which seemed to come from vast depthsbeneath his feet. Profoundly awed, but master of his spirit, he stoodleaning upon his spear in the thick dark till the last of that strangehumming note had died away. Then, through a silence so thick it seemedto choke him, he called aloud:
"A-ya! where are you?"
"_Grom!_" came the girl's answer, a sobbing cry of relief and joy,from almost, as it seemed, beneath his outstretched hand.
"We are all here," came the voices of the three men.
They had fallen headlong at the second shock, as at the first; and inthe darkness they had not dared to rise again, but lay waiting fortheir leader to tell them what to do. In half a dozen cautious,groping steps he was among them, and sank down by A-ya's side,clutching her to him to stop her trembling.
"What are we to do now?" asked the girl, after a long silence. WithoutGrom, they would probably have died where they were, not daring tostir in the darkness. But their faith in their chief kept themcheerful even in this desperate plight.
"We must find a way out," answered Grom, with resolute confidence.
"If Hobbo had not dropped the fire!" said young Mo bitterly.
The giant groaned in self-abasement, and beat his chest with his greatfists. But Grom, who would allow no dissensions in his following,answered sternly:
"Be silent. You might have done no better yourself."
Then for a time there was no more said, while Grom, sitting therein the dark with the girl's face buried in his great shaggy chest,thought out his plans. It w
as plain to him, from what he had seen inthat last instant of daylight, that the entrance was blockedimpregnably. Moreover, he judged that any attempt to work anopening in that direction would be likely, for the present, to bringmore rocks down upon them. It would be better, first, to feel theirway on into the cave in the hope of finding another exit. He wasnot afraid of getting lost, no matter how absolute the dark, becausehe possessed that sixth sense, so long ago vanished from modernman's equipment--the sense of direction. He knew that, as a matter ofcourse, he could find his way back to this starting-point wheneverhe would.
"Come on!" he ordered at last, lifting A-ya and holding her hand inhis grasp. Reaching out with his spear, he kept tapping the groundbefore him as he went, and occasionally the wall upon his left.Sometimes, too, he would reach upwards to assure himself that therewas no lowering of the rocky ceiling. A spear's length to the right,more or less, he got always a splash of water.
With their fine senses intensely alert, they were able to make fairprogress, even though unaided by their eyes. But Grom checked hisadvance abruptly. He had a perception of some obstacle before him. Hereached out his spear as far as he could. It touched a soft object.The object, whatever it was, surged violently beneath the touch. Hisflesh crept, and the shaggy hair uplifted on his neck. "Back!" hehissed, thrusting A-ya off to arm's length and bracing his spear pointbefore him to receive the expected attack. A pair of faintlyphosphorescent eyes, small, but so wide apart as to show that theirowner's head must have been enormous, flashed round upon them. Therewas a hoarse squeal of alarm, and a heavy body went floundering offinto the water. They could hear it swimming away in hot haste.
Every one drew a long breath. Then, after a few moments, A-ya laughedsoftly:
"It's good to find something at last that runs away from us instead ofafter us!" said she.
A little further on the cave wall turned to the left. A few steps, andtheir path came to an end. There was water ahead of them, and on bothsides. Grom's exploring spear assured them that it was deep water.
"We must swim," said he. "Leave your clubs behind." And leading theway down into the unknown tide, he struck out straight ahead.
It was nerve-testing work swimming thus through that unseen water toan unguessed goal; but Grom was unhesitating, and his companionsrested upon his steady will. The water was of a summer warmth, andslightly salt, which convinced him that it had free communication withthe sunlit tides outside. Several times he came within touch of therocky walls of the cavern, and found that they went straight down to adepth he could not guess. But he kept on with hope and confidence at aleisurely pace, which, in that bland and windless flood, he knew thatevery member of his party could have maintained for half a day.
Suddenly there appeared ahead of them a faint, bluish gleam upon thewater's surface. It was something elusive and unreal, and vaguelymenacing.
"Daylight!" exclaimed young Mo eagerly. But Grom said nothing. He didnot think it was daylight, and he was apprehensive of some new peril.
The strange light grew and spread. It was evident now that it rosefrom the water, and also that it was advancing rapidly to meet theastonished swimmers. After a few moments it was bright enough in itsblue pallor to show the swimmers that they were traversing a vast hallof waters, whose roof was lost in darkness. Some fifty yards ahead ofthem, and a little to the right, a low spit of rock, half awash forthe greater part of its length, ran out slantingly from the wall ofthe stupendous chamber.
Toward this ledge Grom now led the way, hurling himself through thewater on his side at top speed. He could not fathom this mysteriousphosphorescence, and he wished to get his people out upon dry landbefore it reached them. But fast as the adventurers swam, the ghostlyradiance spread faster. Before they got to the ledge, the light wasall about them; but it seemed to be coming from a great depth.
Nervously they all glanced down, and a low cry of horror broke fromtheir lips. The depths were swarming with monstrous, luminous forms, amoon-bright, crawling, sliding field of claws and feelers, and broad,flat backs, and dreadful, protruding eyes.
The eyes all stared straight up at them with a fixed malignancy thatfroze even Grom's blood. They seemed innumerable, and all togetherthey came suddenly floating upwards.
Already the fugitives were dragging themselves out upon the ledge, infrantic haste, when the diabolical swarm reached the surface. ButHobbo, who was the slowest swimmer, was merely clutching at the rockwhen the water boiled all about him in a froth of light. A pair ofhuge, pincer-like claws seized him by the neck, and another pair byone arm, plucking him back. His convulsed face stared upward for aninstant, and then, with a choked scream, he was dragged under. Hedisappeared in a swirl of pale blue, frantically waving claws, andeyes, and feelers, and black-fringed, chopping mouths.
Beside himself with rage and horror, Grom stabbed down wildly into thewhirling struggle, and his example was followed at once by Loob andyoung Mo. Some of their random blows went home, and as one or anotherof the gigantic crabs turned over in its death-throes, its nearestfellows seized it, tore it to pieces, and devoured it.
But A-ya, who had taken no part in this vengeance, now snatched Gromby the arm, shrieking wildly:
"Look! They are coming out!"
Recovering their senses, the three half-maddened men stared aboutthem. On every side the gigantic crabs--some with claws eight or tenfeet long, and eyes upon the ends of long waving stalks--were crawlingup upon the ledge.
The ledge, fortunately, was of some width. At its landward end it roseinto a mass of tumbled rocks perhaps twenty or thirty feet above thewater. Toward this post of vantage the adventurers fought their way,striking and thrusting desperately with their spears as the monsters,crowding up from the water on either side, snatched at them with theirterrible mailed claws. Over and over again one or another of the partywas seized by the foot or the leg; but his companions would beat thelong, jointed limb to fragments, or drive their spear-points deep intothe awful, drooling mouth, and set him free.
At last, bleeding from many wounds, they reached the end of the ledgeand clambered to the top. Here but three or four of the giantcrustaceans tried to follow them. These were easily speared fromabove, and hurled back disabled among their ravening kin. And thewhole swarm, apparently forgetting their intended victims as soon asthey were out of reach, fell to fighting hideously among themselvesover the convulsed bodies of these wounded. The lower portion of theledge, and the water all about it, was a crawling mass of horror thatseemed to froth with blue light. And a confused noise of crackling,snapping and hissing arose from it.
Every eye but Grom's was glued in fascination to the baleful scene.But Grom now thought only of using that pervasive light to bestadvantage while it should last. The wall of the cavern at this pointwas so broken and fissured that it was not unscalable; and a littleway off to the right he marked, at some height above the water, whatlooked like the entrance to a lateral gallery.
"Come! While the light lasts," he ordered, setting off over the rocks.The others followed close. Now sidling along knife-like ledges, nowclinging by fingers and toes to almost imperceptible projections, theymade their way across the face of the steep, and gained the mouth ofthe gallery. It was spacious, and easy to traverse, its floor slopingupwards somewhat steeply. They plunged into it with confidence. Andthe blue light of the Hall of Terrors faded out behind them.
Not many minutes later, another light, as it were a white star,gleamed ahead of them. It grew as they went, and turned to gold. Thena patch of turquoise sky, flecked sweetly with small fleeces of cloud,opened before them, and in a moment more they came out upon a high,blossoming down, blown over by a breeze that smelt of honey and salt.Below them was a lovely, land-locked bay, with a herd of deerpasturing among scattered trees by the shore. Away behind themundulated the gracious line of the downs, inviting their feet.
"It is a pleasant land," said Grom, "and we will surely come back toit. But I think we must find another way than that by which we came."
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