Chapter XIV
The Under-world
That night we slept well and without fear, being quite certain
that after their previous experience the Orofenans would make no
further attempts upon us. Indeed our only anxiety was for Tommy,
whom we could not find when the time came to give him his supper.
Bastin, however, seemed to remember having seen him following the
Glittering Lady into the cave. This, of course, was possible, as
certainly he had taken an enormous fancy to her and sat himself
down as close to her as he could on every occasion. He even
seemed to like the ancient Oro, and was not afraid to jump up and
plant his dirty paws upon that terrific person's gorgeous robe.
Moreover Oro liked him, for several times I observed him pat the
dog upon the head; as I think I have said, the only human touch
that I had perceived about him. So we gave up searching and
calling in the hope that he was safe with our supernatural
friends.
The next morning quite early the Lady Yva appeared alone; no,
not alone, for with her came our lost Tommy looking extremely
spry and well at ease. The faithless little wretch just greeted
us in a casual fashion and then went and sat by Yva. In fact when
the awkward Bastin managed to stumble over the end of her dress
Tommy growled at him and showed his teeth. Moreover the do was
changed. He was blessed with a shiny black coat, but now this
coat sparkled in the sunlight, like the Lady Yva's hair.
"The Glittering Lady is all very well, but I'm not sure that I
care for a glittering dog. It doesn't look quite natural," said
Bastin, contemplating him.
"Why does Tommy shine, Lady?" I asked.
"Because I washed him in certain waters that we have, so that
now he looks beautiful and smells sweet," she answered, laughing.
It was true, the dog did smell sweet, which I may add had not
always been the case with him, especially when there were dead
fish about. Also he appeared to have been fed, for he turned up
his nose at the bits we had saved for his breakfast.
"He has drunk of the Life-water," explained Yva, "and will want
no food for two days."
Bickley pricked up his ears at this statement and looked
incredulous.
"You do not believe, O Bickley," she said, studying him
gravely. "Indeed, you believe nothing. You think my father and I
tell you many lies. Bastin there, he believes all. Humphrey? He
is not sure; he thinks to himself, I will wait and find out
whether or ho these funny people cheat me."
Bickley coloured and made some remark about things which were
contrary to experience, also that Tommy in a general way was
rather a greedy little dog.
"You, too, like to eat, Bickley" (this was true, he had an
excellent appetite), "but when you have drunk the Life-water you
will care much less."
"I am glad to hear it," interrupted Bastin, "for Bickley wants
a lot of cooking done, and I find it tedious."
"You eat also, Lady," said Bickley.
"Yes, I eat sometimes because I like it, but I can go weeks and
not eat, when I have the Life-water. Just now, after so long a
sleep, I am hungry. Please give me some of that fruit. No, not
the flesh, flesh I hate."
We handed it to her. She took two plantains, peeled and ate
them with extraordinary grace. Indeed she reminded me, I do not
know why, of some lovely butterfly drawing its food from a
flower.
While she ate she observed us closely; nothing seemed to escape
the quick glances of those beautiful eyes. Presently she said:
"What, O Humphrey, is that with which you fasten your
neckdress?" and she pointed to the little gold statue of Osiris
that I used as a pin.
I told her that it was a statuette of a god named Osiris and
very, very ancient, probably quite five thousand years old, a
statement at which she smiled a little; also that it came from
Egypt.
"Ah!" she answered, "is it so? I asked because we have figures
that are very like to that one, and they also hold in their hands
a staff surmounted by a loop. They are figures of Sleep's
brother--Death."
"So is this," I said. "Among the Egyptians Osiris was the god
of Death."
She nodded and replied that doubtless the symbol had come down
to them.
"One day you shall take me to see this land which you call so
very old. Or I will take you, which would be quicker," she added.
We all bowed and said we should be delighted. Even Bastin
appeared anxious to revisit Egypt in such company, though when he
was there it seemed to bore him. But what she meant about taking
us I could not guess. Nor had we time to ask her, for she went
on, watching our faces as she spoke.
"The Lord Oro sends you a message, Strangers. He asks whether
it is your wish to see where we dwell. He adds that you are not
to come if you do not desire, or if you fear danger."
We all answered that there was nothing we should like better,
but Bastin added that he had already seen the tomb.
"Do you think, Bastin, that we live in a tomb because we slept
there for a while, awaiting the advent of you wanderers at the
appointed hour?"
"I don't see where else it could be, unless it is further down
that cave," said Bastin. "The top of the mountain would not be
convenient as a residence."
"It has not been convenient for many an age, for reasons that I
will show you. Think now, before you come. You have naught to
fear from us, and I believe that no harm will happen to you. But
you will see many strange things that will anger Bickley because
he cannot understand them, and perhaps will weary Bastin because
his heart turns from what is wondrous and ancient. Only Humphrey
will rejoice in them because the doors of his soul are open and
he longs--what do you long for, Humphrey?"
"That which I have lost and fear I shall never find again," I
answered boldly.
"I know that you have lost many things--last night, for
instance, you lost Tommy, and when he slept with me he told me
much about you and--others."
"This is ridiculous," broke in Bastin. "Can a dog talk?"
"Everything can talk, if you understand its language, Bastin.
But keep a good heart, Humphrey, for the bold seeker finds in the
end. Oh! foolish man, do you not understand that all is yours if
you have but the soul to conceive and the will to grasp? All,
all, below, between, above! Even I know that, I who have so much
to learn."
So she spoke and became suddenly magnificent. Her face which
had been but that of a super-lovely woman, took on grandeur. Her
bosom swelled; her presence radiated some subtle power, much as
her hair radiated light.
In a moment it was gone and she was smiling and jesting.
"Will you come, Strangers, where Tommy was not afraid to go,
down to the Under-world? Or will you stay here in the sun?
Perhaps you will do better to stay here in the sun, for the
Under-world has terrors for weak hearts that were born but
yesterday, and feeble feet may stumble in the dark."
"I shall take my electric torch," said Bastin with decision,
"and I advise you fellows to do the same. I always hated cellars,
and the catacombs at Rome are worse, though full of sacred
interest."
Then we started, Tommy frisking on ahead in a most provoking
way as though he were bored by a visit to a strange house and
going home, and Yva gliding forward with a smile upon her face
that was half mystic and half mischievous. We passed the remains
of the machines, and Bickley asked her what they were.
"Carriages in which once we travelled through the skies, until
we found a better way, and that the uninstructed used till the
end," she answered carelessly, leaving me wondering what on earth
she meant.
We came to the statue and the sepulchre beneath without
trouble, for the glint of her hair, and I may add of Tommy's
back, were quite sufficient to guide us through the gloom. The
crystal coffins were still there, for Bastin flashed his torch
and we saw them, but the boxes of radium had gone.
"Let that light die," she said to Bastin. "Humphrey, give me
your right hand and give your left to Bickley. Let Bastin cling
to him and fear nothing."
We passed to the end of the tomb and stood against what
appeared to be a rock wall, all close together, as she directed.
"Fear nothing," she said again, but next second I was never
more full of fear in my life, for we were whirling downwards at a
speed that would have made an American elevator attendant turn
pale.
"Don't choke me," I heard Bickley say to Bastin, and the
latter's murmured reply of:
"I never could bear these moving staircases and tubelifts. They
always make me feel sick."
I admit that for my part I also felt rather sick and clung
tightly to the hand of the Glittering Lady. She, however, placed
her other hand upon my shoulder, saying in a low voice:
"Did I not tell you to have no fear?"
Then I felt comforted, for somehow I knew that it was not her
desire to harm and much less to destroy me. Also Tommy was seated
quite at his ease with his head resting against my leg, and his
absence of alarm was reassuring. The only stoic of the party was
Bickley. I have no doubt that he was quite as frightened as we
were, but rather than show it he would have died.
"I presume this machinery is pneumatic," he began when suddenly
and without shock, we arrived at the end of our journey. How far
we had fallen I am sure I do not know, but I should judge from
the awful speed at which we travelled, that it must have been
several thousand feet, probably four or five.
"Everything seems steady now," remarked Bastin, "so I suppose
this luggage lift has stopped. The odd thing is that I can't see
anything of it. There ought to be a shaft, but we seem to be
standing on a level floor."
"The odd thing is," said Bickley, "that we can see at all.
Where the devil does the light come from thousands of feet
underground?"
"I don't know," answered Bastin, "unless there is natural gas
here, as I am told there is at a town called Medicine Hat in
Canada."
"Natural gas be blowed," said Bickley. "It is more like
moonlight magnified ten times."
So it was. The whole place was filled with a soft radiance,
equal to that of the sun at noon, but gentler and without heat.
"Where does it come from?" I whispered to Yva.
"Oh!" she replied, as I thought evasively. "It is the light of
the Under-world which we know how to use. The earth is full of
light, which is not wonderful, is it, seeing that its heart is
fire? Now look about you."
I looked and leant on her harder than ever, since amazement
made me weak. We were in some vast place whereof the roof seemed
almost as far off as the sky at night. At least all that I could
make out was a dim and distant arch which might have been one of
cloud. For the rest, in every direction stretched vastness,
illuminated far as the eye could reach by the soft light of which
I have spoken, that is, probably for several miles. But this
vastness was not empty. On the contrary it was occupied by a
great city. There were streets much wider than Piccadilly, all
bordered by houses, though these, I observed, were roofless, very
fine houses, some of them, built of white stone or marble. There
were roadways and pavements worn by the passage of feet. There,
farther on, were market-places or public squares, and there,
lastly, was a huge central enclosure one or two hundred acres in
extent, which was filled with majestic buildings that looked like
palaces, or town-halls; and, in the midst of them all, a vast
temple with courts and a central dome. For here, notwithstanding
the lack of necessity, its builders seemed to have adhered to the
Over-world tradition, and had roofed their fane.
And now came the terror. All of this enormous city was dead.
Had it stood upon the moon it could not have been more dead. None
paced its streets; none looked from its window-places. None
trafficked in its markets, none worshipped in its temple. Swept,
garnished, lighted, practically untouched by the hand of Time,
here where no rains fell and no winds blew, it was yet a howling
wilderness. For what wilderness is there to equal that which once
has been the busy haunt of men? Let those who have stood among
the buried cities of Central Asia, or of Anarajapura in Ceylon,
or even amid the ruins of Salamis on the coast of Cyprus, answer
the question. But here was something infinitely more awful. A
huge human haunt in the bowels of the earth utterly devoid of
human beings, and yet as perfect as on the day when these ceased
to be.
"I do not care for underground localities," remarked Bastin,
his gruff voice echoing strangely in that terrible silence, "but
it does seem a pity that all these fine buildings should be
wasted. I suppose their inhabitants left them in search of fresh
air."
"Why did they leave them?" I asked of Yva.
"Because death took them," she answered solemnly. "Even those
who live a thousand years die at last, and if they have no
children, with them dies the race."
"Then were you the last of your people?" I asked.
"Inquire of my father," she replied, and led the way through
the massive arch of a great building.
It led into a walled courtyard in the centre of which was a
plain cupola of marble with a gate of some pale metal that
looked like platinum mixed with gold. This gate stood open.
Within it was the statue of a woman beautifully executed in white
marble and set in a niche of some black stone. The figure was
draped as though to conceal the shape, and the face was stern and
majestic rather than beautiful. The eyes of the statue were
cunningly made of some enamel which gave them a strange and
lifelike appearance. They stared upwards as though looking away
from the earth and its concerns. The arms were outstretched. In
the right hand was a cup of black marble, in the left a similar
cup of white marble. From each of these cups trickled a thin
stream of sparkling water, which two streams met and mingled at a
distance of about three feet beneath the cups. Then they fell
into a metal basin which, although it must have been quite a foot
thick, was cut right through by their constant impact, and
apparently vanished down some pipe beneath. Out of this metal
basin Tommy, who gambolled into the place ahead of us, began to
drink in a greedy and demonstrative fashion.
"The Life-water?" I said, looking at our guide.
She nodded and asked in her turn:
"What is the statue and what does it signify, Humphrey?"
I hesitated, but Bastin answered:
"Just a rather ugly woman who hid up her figure because it was
bad. Probably she was a relation of the artist who wished to have
her likeness done and sat for nothing."
"The goddess of Health," suggested Bickley. "Her proportions
are perfect; a robust, a thoroughly normal woman."
"Now, Humphrey," said Yva.
I stared at the work and had not an idea. Then it flashed on me
with such suddenness and certainity that I am convinced the
answer to the riddle was passed to me from her and did not
originate in my own mind.
"It seems quite easy," I said in a superior tone. "The figure
symbolises Life and is draped because we only see the face of
Life, the rest is hidden. The arms are bare because Life is real
and active. One cup is black and one is white because Life brings
both good and evil gifts; that is why the streams mingle, to be
lost beneath in the darkness of death. The features are stern and
even terrifying rather than lovely, because such is the aspect of
Life. The eyes look upward and far away from present things,
because the real life is not here."
"Of course one may say anything," said Bastin, "but I don't
understand all that."
"Imagination goes a long way," broke in Bickley, who was vexed
that he had not thought of this interpretation himself. But Yva
said:
"I begin to think that you are quite clever, Humphrey. I wonder
whence the truth came to you, for such is the meaning of the
figure and the cups. Had I told it to you myself, it could not
have been better said," and she glanced at me out of the corners
of her eyes. "Now, Strangers, will you drink? Once that gate was
guarded, and only at a great price or as a great reward were
certain of the Highest Blood given the freedom of this fountain
which might touch no common lips. Indeed it was one of the causes
of our last war, for all the world which was, desired this water
which now is lapped by a stranger's hound."
"I suppose there is nothing medicinal in it?" said Bastin.
"Once when I was very thirsty, I made a mistake and drank three
tumblers of something of the sort in the dark, thinking that it
was Apollinaris, and I don't want to do it again."
"Just the sort of thing you would do," said Bickley. "But, Lady
Yva, what are the properties of this water?"
"It is very health-giving," she answered, "and if drunk
continually, not less than once each thirty days, it wards off
sickness, lessens hunger and postpones death for many, many
years. That is why those of the High Blood endured so long and
became the rulers of the world, and that, as I have said, is the
greatest of the reasons why the peoples who dwelt in the ancient
outer countries and never wished to die, made war upon them, to
win this secret fountain. Have no fear, O Bastin, for see, I will
pledge you in this water."
Then she lifted a strange-looking, shallow, metal cup whereof
the handles were formed of twisted serpents, that lay in the
basin, filled it from the trickling stream, bowed to us and
drank. But as she drank I noted with a thrill of joy that her
eyes were fixed on mine as though it were me she pledged and me
alone. Again she filled the cup with the sparkling water, for it
did sparkle, like that French liqueur in which are mingled little
flakes of gold, and handed it to me.
I bowed to her and drank. I suppose the fluid was water, but to
me it tasted more like strong champagne, dashed with Chateau
Yquem. It was delicious. More, its effects were distinctly
peculiar. Something quick and subtle ran through my veins;
something that for a few moments seemed to burn away the
obscureness which blurs our thought. I began to understand
several problems that had puzzled me, and then lost their
explanations in the midst of light, inner light, I mean.
Moreover, of a sudden it seemed to me as though a window had been
opened in the heart of that Glittering Lady who stood beside me.
At least I knew that it was full of wonderful knowledge,
wonderful memories and wonderful hopes, and that in the latter
two of these I had some part; what part I could not tell. Also I
knew that my heart was open to her and that she saw in it
something which caused her to marvel and to sigh.
In a few seconds, thirty perhaps, all this was gone. Nothing
remained except that I felt extremely strong and well, happier,
too, than I had been for years. Mutely I asked her for more of
the water, but she shook her head and, taking the cup from me,
filled it again and gave it to Bickley, who drank. He flushed,
seemed to lose the self-control which was his very strong
characteristic, and said in a rather thick voice:
"Curious! but I do not think at this moment there is any
operation that has ever been attempted which I could not tackle
single-handed and with success."
Then he was silent, and Bastin's turn came. He drank rather
noisily, after his fashion, and began:
"My dear young lady, I think the time has come when I should
expound to you--" Here he broke off and commenced singing very
badly, for his voice was somewhat raucous:
From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand,
Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand.
Ceasing from melody, he added:
"I determined that I would drink nothing intoxicating while I
was on this island that I might be a shining light in a dark
place, and now I fear that quite unwittingly I have broken what I
look upon as a promise."
Then he, too, grew silent.
"Come," said Yva, "my father, the Lord Oro, awaits you."
We crossed the court of the Water of Life and mounted steps
that led to a wide and impressive portico, Tommy frisking ahead
of us in a most excited way for a dog of his experience.
Evidently the water had produced its effect upon him as well as
upon his masters. This portico was in a solemn style of
architecture which I cannot describe, because it differed from
any other that I know. It was not Egyptian and not Greek,
although its solidity reminded me of the former, and the beauty
and grace of some of the columns, of the latter. The profuseness
and rather grotesque character of the carvings suggested the
ruins of Mexico and Yucatan, and the enormous size of the blocks
of stone, those of Peru and Baalbec. In short, all the known
forms of ancient architecture might have found their inspiration
here, and the general effect was tremendous.
"The palace of the King," said Yva, "whereof we approach the
great hall."
We entered through mighty metal doors, one of which stood ajar,
into a vestibule which from certain indications I gathered had
once been a guard, or perhaps an assembly-room. It was about
forty feet deep by a hundred wide. Thence she led us through a
smaller door into the hall itself. It was a vast place without
columns, for there was no roof to support. The walls of marble or
limestone were sculptured like those of Egyptian temples,
apparently with battle scenes, though of this I am not sure for I
did not go near to them. Except for a broad avenue along the
middle, up which we walked, the area was filled with marble
benches that would, I presume, have accommodated several thousand
people. But they were empty--empty, and oh! the loneliness of it
all.
Far away at the head of the hall was a dais enclosed, and, as
it were, roofed in by a towering structure that mingled grace and
majesty to a wonderful degree. It was modelled on the pattern of
a huge shell. The base of the shell was the platform; behind were
the ribs, and above, the overhanging lip of the shell. On this
platform was a throne of silvery metal. It was supported on the
arched coils of snakes, whereof the tails formed the back and the
heads the arms of the throne.
On this throne, arrayed in gorgeous robes, sat the Lord Oro,
his white beard flowing over them, and a jewelled cap upon his
head. In front of him was a low table on which lay graven sheets
of metal, and among them a large ball of crystal.
There he sat, solemn and silent in the midst of this awful
solitude, looking in very truth like a god, as we conceive such a
being to appear. Small as he was in that huge expanse of
buildings, he seemed yet to dominate it, in a sense to fill the
emptiness which was accentuated by his presence. I know that the
sight of him filled me with true fear which it had never done in
the light of day, not even when he arose from his crystal coffin.
Now for the first time I felt as though I were really in the
presence of a Being Supernatural. Doubtless the surroundings
heightened this impression. What were these mighty edifices in
the bowels of the world? When came this wondrous, all-pervading
and translucent light, whereof we could see no origin? Whither
had vanished those who had reared and inhabited them? How did it
happen that of them all, this man, if he were a man; and this
lovely woman at my side, who, if I might trust my senses and
instincts, was certainly a woman, alone survived of their
departed multitudes?
The thing was crushing. I looked at Bickley for encouragement,
but got none, for he only shook his head. Even Bastin, now that
the first effects of the Life-water had departed, seemed
overwhelmed, and muttered something about the halls of Hades.
Only the little dog Tommy remained quite cheerful. He trotted
down the hall, jumped on to the dais and sat himself comfortably
at the feet of its occupant.
"I greet you," Oro said in his slow, resonant voice. "Daughter,
lead these strangers to me; I would speak with them."
