Drome/Chapter 22
Chapter 22
What Did It Mean?
The help is coming, Bill," said Milton Rhodes. "And that reminds me: I haven't reloaded my revolver."
"I would lose no time in doing so," I told him.
He got out the weapon and proceeded to reload it. It was not. by the way, one of these new-fangled things but one of your good old-fashioned revolvers—solid, substantial, one that would stand hard usage, a piece to be depended upon. And that was what we needed—weapons to be depended upon.
The angel was watching Rhodes closely. I wondered if she knew what had killed her demon—knew, I mean that this metal thing, with its glitter so dull and so cold, was a weapon. It was extremely unlikely that she had, in that horrible moment on the bridge, seen what actually had happened. However that might have been, it was soon plain that she recognized the revolver as a weapon—or, at any rate, guessed that it was.
With an interjection, she stepped to Rhodes' side, and, with swift pantomime, she assured us that there was nothing at all to apprehend from those advancing figures.
"After all," Milton said, slipping the revolver into his pocket, "why should we be so infernally suspicious? Maybe this world is very different from our own."
"It seems to me," I told him, my right hand in that pocket which contained my revolver, "that we have good cause to be suspicious. Have you forgotten what Grandfather Scranton saw up there at the Tamahnowis Rocks (and what he didn't see) and the horrible death there of Rhoda Dillingham, to say nothing of what happened to us here a few minutes ago? That we are not at the bottom of that chasm—well, I am not anxious to have another shave like that."
"I have not forgotten. Bill. I have an idea, though, that those awful tragedies up there were purely accidental. Certainly we know that the demon's attack upon ourselves was entirely so."
"Accidental? Great Scott, some consolation, that!"
I looked at Milton Rhodes, and I looked at the angel, who had taken a few steps forward and was awaiting those hurrying figures—a white-robed figure, still and tall, one lovely, majestic. And, if I didn't sigh, I certainly felt like doing so.
"No demon there, Bill," observed Milton at last, his eyes upon those advancing forms.
"I see none. Four figures."
"Four," nodded Rhodes. "Two men and two women."
A few moments, and they stepped out into a sort of aisle amongst the great limestone pillars. The figure in advance came to an abrupt halt. An exclamation broke from him and echoed and re-echoed eerily through the vast and gloomy cavern. It was answered by the angel, and, as her voice came murmuring back to us, it was as though fairies were hidden amongst the columns and were answering her.
But there was nothing fairy like in the aspect of that leader (who was advancing again) or his male companion. That aspect was grim, formidable. Each carried a powerful bow and had an arrow fitted to the string, and at the left side a short, heavy sword. That aspect of theirs underwent a remarkable metamorphosis, however, as they came on toward us, what with the explanations that our angel gave them. When they at last halted, a few yards from the spot where we stood, every sign of hostility had vanished. It was patent, however, that they were wary, suspicious. That they should be so was not at all strange, but just the same there was something in their manner that I could not understand—something that made me resolve to be on my guard whatever might betide.
The leader was a tall man, of sinewy and powerful frame. Though he had, I judged, passed the half-century mark, he had suffered, it seemed, no loss of youthful vitality or strength. His companion, tall and almost as powerful as himself, was a much younger man—in his early twenties. Their golden hair was bobbed, for all the world like your truly bobbified flapper's. The arms were bare, as were the legs from midway the thigh to half-way below the knee, the nether extremities being incased in buskins, light but evidently of excellent material.
As for the companions of the twain, one was a girl seventeen or eighteen years of age, the other a girl a couple of years older. Each had a bow and quiver, as did our angel. The older of these young ladies had golden hair, a shade lighter than the angel's, whilst the hair of the younger was white as snow. At first I thought that it must be powdered, but this was not so. And as I gazed with interest and wonder upon this lovely creature, I thought—of Christopher Columbus and Sir Isaac Newton. At thirty, they had hair like hers. That thought, however, was a fleeting one. This was no time, forsooth, to be thinking of old Christopher and Sir Isaac. Stranger, more wonderful was this old world of ours than even Columbus or Newton ever had dreamed it.
The age of our angel, by the way, I placed at about twenty-five years. And I wondered how they could possibly reckon time here in this underground world, a world that could have neither months nor years.
The quartet listened eagerly to the explanations given by our angel. Suddenly the leader addressed some question to Persephone, as Rhodes called her. And then we heard it!
"Drome," was her answer.
There it was, distinct, unmistakable, that mysterious word which had given us so many strange and wild thoughts and visions. Yes, there it was; and it was an answer, I thought, that by no means put the man's mind at ease.
Drome! Drome at last. But—what did it mean? Drome! There, we distinctly heard the angel pronounce the word again. Drome! If we could only have understood the words being spoken! But there was no mistaking, I thought, the manner of the angel. It was earliest, and yet, strangely enough, that Sibylline quality about her was now more pronounced than ever. But there was no mistaking her manner; she was endeavoring to reassure him, to al-lay, it seemed, some strange uneasiness or fear. I noticed, however, with some vague, sinister misgivings, that in this she was by no means as successful as she herself desired. Why did we see in the eyes of the leader, and in those of the others, so strange, so mysterious a look whenever those eyes were turned toward that spot where Milton Rhodes and I stood?
However, these gloomy thoughts were suddenly broken, but certainly not banished. With an acquiescent reply—at any rate, so I thought it—to the angel, the leader abruptly faced us. He placed his bow and arrow upon the ground, slipped the quiver from his back, drew his sword—it was double-bladed. I now noted—from its scabbard and deposited them, too, upon the ground. His companion was following suit, the two girls, who were now holding the lights, standing by motionless and silent.
The men advanced a few paces. Each placed his sword hand over his heart, uttered something in measured and sonorous tones and bowed low to us—a proceeding, I noted out of the corner of my eye, that not a little pleased our angel.