Drome/Chapter 24
Chapter 24
What Next?
For a mile or more, the way led amongst pillars and stalagmites. Oh, the wonders that we saw in that great cavern! The exigencies of space, however, will not permit me to dwell upon them. There is, I may remark, no deposition of sinter going on now; undoubtedly many centuries have rolled over this old globe since the drip ceased, perhaps thousands upon thousands of years. Who can say? How little can scientists ever know, even when their knowledge seems so great, of those dim lost ages of the earth!
"One thing that puzzles me," I remarked, "is that each of these Hypogeans has nothing but a canteen. So far as I can see, the whole party hasn't the makings of a lunch for a ladybug. Can it be that we have not far to go, after all?"
"I think, Bill, that we'll find the way a long one. My explanation is that, on starting for the bridge, they disencumbered themselves of the provision-supply (if they were not in camp) so that, of course, they could make greater speed. That the angel had a companion back there, we know. We know, too, that that companion—in all likelihood it was one of the girls—went for help."
"What on earth were they doing there, with the men off some place else?"
"I wish I could tell you, Bill. And what was the angel doing up in the Tamahnowis Rocks all by her lovely lonesome? I wish you could tell me that."
"I wish that I could. And that isn't the only thing that I wish I could tell you. What on earth are they doing here? And what at the Tamahnowis Rocks?"
"What, Bill, are we?"
"But women!" said I. "Our explorers don't take women along."
"Lewis and Clark took a woman along and took her papoose to boot. And this isn't our world, remember. Things may be very different here. Maybe, in this subterranean land, the lady is the boss."
"Where," I exclaimed, "isn't she the boss? You don't have to come down here to find a—what do you call it?—a gynecoeracy. Which reminds me of Saxe."
"What does Saxe say, sweet misogynist?"
"This, sweet gyneolator:
"Men, dying, make their wills,
But wives escape a work so sad;
Why should they make, the gentle dames,
What all their lives they've had?"
"Bravo!" cried Milton Rhodes.
And I saw the angel, who, with the older man, was leading the way, turn and give us a curious look.
"And that," said Rhodes, "reminds me."
"Of what?"
"Who is the leader of this little party—that man or our angel?"
"I'd say the angel if I could only understand why she should be the leader."
At length we passed the last pillar and the last stalagmite. All this time we had been descending at a gentle slope. The way now led into a tunnel, rather wide and lofty at first. The going was easy enough for a mile or so; the descent was still gentle, and the floor of the passage was but little broken. The spot was then reached where that tunnel bifurcates; and there were the packs of our Hy-pogeans—or, rather, their knapsacks. There were five, one for each, the men's being large and heavy.
"You see, Bill?" queried Milton. "Evidently our little hypothesis was correct."
"I see," I nodded. "We have far to go."
"Very far, I fancy."
Also, in this place were the phosphorus-lamps of the Dromans, one for each. These were somewhat similar to the ones that Rhodes and I carried, save that the Droman lamps could be darkened, whereas the only way we could conceal the light of ours was to put them into their cylinders. As was the case with our phials, the light emitted by these vessels was a feeble one. Undoubtedly, though, they would remain luminous for a long period, and hence their real, their very great value. Besides the lanterns, oil-burning, of which the Dromans had three, the phosphorus-lamps were pale and sorry things; but, when one remembered that they would shed light steadily for months perhaps, while the flames of the lanterns were dependent upon the oil supply, those pale, ghostly lights became very wonderful things.
"The light," I said as we stood examining one of these objects, "is certainly phosphorescent. But what is that fluid in the glass?"
"I can't tell you, Bill. It may be some vegetable juice. There is, by the way, a Brazilian plant, called Euplorbia phosphorea, the juice of which is luminous. This may be something similar. Who knows?"[1]
The men unbent their bows and thrust them into the, quivers; each took up his or her knapsack, and we were under way again. It was the right branch of the tunnel into which the route led us. That fact Rhodes put down in his notebook. I could see no necessity for such a record, for surely we could not forget the fact, even if we tried.
"We'll record it," said Milton, "certitude to the contrary notwithstanding. And we'll keep adding to the record as we go down, too. There's no telling, remember. It may not be so easy to find the way out of this place as it seems."
"You said," I reminded him, "that we may never want to return."
"And I say it again. But I say this too: we may be mighty I glad indeed to get out!"
Soon the slope of the passage was no longer gentle. An hour or so, and the descent was so steep and difficult that we had to exercise every caution and care in going down it. "Noon" found us still toiling down that steep and tortuous way. We then halted for luncheon. The Dromans ate and drank very sparingly—though this work gives one a most remarkable appetite. Rhodes and I endeavored to emulate their example.
As we sat there resting, the Dromans held a low and earnest colloquy. The girls, though, had but very little to say. The subject of the dialogue was an utter mystery to us. Only one thing could we tell, and that was that the matter which they were revolving was one of some gravity. Once and only once did we hear the word "Drome."
Also, it was then that we first heard the name of our angel. We could not be certain at the time that was her name, but there was no uncertainty about the name itself—Drorathusa. Ere the afternoon was far advanced, however, we saw our belief become a certitude. Drorathusa! I confess that there was in my mind something rather awesome about that name, and I wondered if that awesome something was existent only in my mind. Drorathusa. It seemed to possess some of that Sibylline quality which in the woman herself was so indefinable and mysterious.
Drorathusa. Sibylline certainly, that name, and beautiful too, I thought.
In our world, it would, in all likelihood, be shortened to Drora or Thusa. But it was never so here. No Droman, indeed, would be guilty of a barbarism like that. It was always Drorathusa—the accent on the penultimate and every syllable clear and full. Drorathusa. Milton Rhodes declared it was the most beautiful name he had ever heard in all his life!
It was about 4 o'clock when we issued from that passage, steep to the last, and found ourselves in a great broken cavern. The rock was granite, the place jagged and savage-looking as though seen in some strange and awful dream.
Here we rested for a while, and I, for one, was glad enough to do so. I was tired, sore and stiff from head to foot—especially to foot.
Just by the tunnel's mouth, there was some writing on the wall. Before this, Drorathusa and the older man (his name, we had learned, was Narkus) stood for some moments. This examination, and the short dialogue which followed it, left them, I noticed, even more grave of aspect and demeanor than we had ever seen them. I wondered what it could mean. I felt a vague uneasiness; a nameless forboding was creeping over me.
It was futile to think and wonder what it meant, and yet I could not help doing it. Glad had I been to stop, but, strangely enough, glad I was to get under way once more. For 'twas only so that we could hope to get the answer.
Well, we got it—an answer that I wish never to know again.
- ↑ "One dark night, about the beginning of December, while passing along the streets of the Villa de Natividada, I observed some boys amusing themselves with some luminous object, which I at first supposed to be a kind of large firefly; but on making inquiry, I found it to be a beautiful phosphorescent fungus, belonging to the genus Agaricus. . . The whole plant gives out at night a bright phosphorescent light, of a pale greenish hue, similar to that emitted by the larger fireflies, or by those curious soft-bodied marine animals, the Pyrosomae. From this circumstance, and from growing on a palm, it is called by the inhabitants 'Flor de Coco.' The light given out by a few of these fungi in a dark room was sufficient to read by."—George Gardner.