Drome/Chapter 25
Chapter 25
The Labyrinth—lost
We soon saw that we had entered not a cavern but a perfect labyrinth of caverns. I could never have imagined a place like that. It was bewildering, dreadful, forsooth, in the possibilities that it limned on the canvas of one's imagination. How on earth could anyone ever have found his way through it? But somebody had, for these were the inscriptions and signs on the wall. For these Dromans kept a keen watch, and the relief evinced whenever one was sighted showed what a frightful thing it might be to lose the way.
An hour passed, another, and still we were moving in that awful maze.
"Great Erebus," said I, "do you think that we can ever find our way back through this?"
"I've got it all down here, Bill," returned Rhodes, tapping his notebook. "The angel, the leader now, is finding her way through it: what she can do can't we do also?"
"She isn't through it yet! It is some time, too, since we saw one of those directions on the wall. The fact is, unless I am greatly mistaken, our Dromans are becoming uneasy."
"Think so, Bill? I confess I thought that myself, but I was not sure that it wasn't only a fancy."
"I wish that I could believe so."
As Rhodes had remarked, Drora-thusa was the leader now. And a striking sight it was—her tall white figure leading the way, the shadows quivering, swaying, rushing over the broken, savage walls and deepening to inky blackness in the secret places we passed.
Farther and farther we went, deeper and deeper; but never another inscription was seen. The advance became broken, irresolute. Then suddenly there was a halt. And at that instant the last vestige of uncertainly vanished: Drorathusa had lost the way.
There was a sudden panicky fear in the eyes of the girls, but it soon was gone. The little party met this most unpleasant truth with exemplary philosophy. There was a short consultation, and then we began to retrace our way. The object was, of course, to return to the last mark on the wall. If we missed it, then heaven help us!
"Perhaps," I thought, "it will be heaven help us, anyway!"
And it was.
We reached our objective without misadventure, and then a new start was made. Rhodes and I were greatly puzzled, for it was patent that neither the angel nor anyone else knew how they had gone astray. And, not knowing that, how could anyone tell which way to go?
"Better get it clear in that notebook," I admonished Rhodes. "It's a queer business, and I don't pretend to understand it at all."
We came along for a half-mile or so, carefully and with no little apprehension, and then, hurrah, there was a sign on the wall! The route to Drome again! But for how long?
Drorathusa quickened her pace. She was moving along now as though in confidence, certitude even. I have never been able to explain what followed. For a time, an hour or more, that confidence of hers certainly was fully justified. Then came the change. Suddenly we became aware of an unpleasant fact—there was something wrong. Not that we remained in doubt as to what that something was which was wrong. A few minutes, and we had a fact even more unpleasant presented to our contemplation—again we had gone astray.
Once more there was a consultation, and once more we retraced our steps—I mean we started to retrace them. Neither I, nor anyone else, could tell how it happened. Not that I marveled at our failure to return, even though I could not explain just how we had missed the way. However, it was no longer possible to blink the fact that we were utterly lost in this maze of passages, caverns and chambers.
I raised my canteen and shook it; my heart sank at that feeble wish-wash sound. The canteen was almost empty. Nor was any one of the others, in this respect, much more fortunate than myself. Our position truly was an unpleasant one—appalling even in the grisly possibilities which it presented to the mind.