Mirrikh, or, A Woman from Mars/Chapter 26
CHAPTER XXVI.
ON THE ROCK.
“The sun! The sun! God be praised! We see the sun again!”
And Maurice De Veber, as he thus exclaimed, stretched his hands out toward the eastern horizon, above which the first red glow of the sun’s great disk had become visible. We watched it in the moments which followed and saw it rise above that mighty chain of snow-clad peaks.
The night had passed away; the storm had fled with the dawning of the morning. One by one the stars which had appeared only to vanish, faded out of sight, and another day was upon us. Chaos had come and was gone again, and we were still alive to tell the tale.
But where were we?
It will not take long to tell it. Our abiding place is soon described.
We were high in the air, crouching upon a flat surface of rock, twenty-three feet in length, sixteen feet, eight inches at the widest part—the Doctor measured it—while down to the nearest foothold below was a hundred feet, at the very least, and this was but a mass of broken rocks and debris, with the water on every hand, rushing down the slope like mad.
Do not expect me to tell what had happened. We never definitely knew. I feel safe in asserting, however, that it was but a cutting away of the limestone rocks on that mountain slope, caused by the rush of water from the Dshambinor, which had been pent up in the ravines above us by the ice.
This, at least, is my idea of it; but it is only an idea. We were on the side of a mountain still. The whole country seemed to be one vast mountain, broken into ravines and separate peaks innumerable; the newly-formed ravine in which our pillar stood was wider than most of the others—that was all.
Only on the side of the rift, directly opposite to what had before been the mouth of the cave, no change had come. To the right, the left and behind us, the rocks had been torn away by that awful washout, landslide—or whatever you may be pleased to call it; but directly in front was the ledge to which the lamas had crossed, and there, still, the hide bridge lay before what had been the mouth of the passage, now appearing as a natural arch through which the sunlight came streaming, its radiance falling full upon Walla’s upturned face. Walla was upon her knees; she seemed to be praying, but whether to the God of the Christians or the God of her fathers, I cannot tell. That I rejoiced at the welcome sight equally with my friend need not be said.
Moments passed and I did not answer, but remained gazing off upon the sunlit landscape in gloomy silence, for a state of deep depression had succeeded my rapturous enthusiasm. Now I could see no possible avenue of escape; no cause for hope!
“What are you thinking of, George?” demanded Maurice. “You’re as solemn as an owl. Why don’t you act the true philosopher like the Doctor? See how peacefully he is sleeping there.”
It was true. Utterly worn out at last, Philpot had sunk off into slumber, and lay stretched out at full length at my feet; and this when we were expecting every moment to feel the pillar crumbling beneath us and to find ourselves whirling down to an awful fate.
“What do you suppose I am thinking of?” I said, sullenly.
“Of the same thing I was; the morning we met Mirrikh on the tower of the Nagkon Wat.”
“Indeed I was not! I only wish I had never known Mirrikh. I was thinking of this pillar which is all that stands between us and eternity, and wondering if this was the way those rock pillars around the grand cañon of the Colorado were formed.”
“Like enough; but if you love me do brace up, old man. For my part I don’t care much whether we get out of this or not. God knows I could never live as I am.”
“Do you know, Maurice, I find it very hard to believe you are as you claim to be, now that the sunlight has come. In the gloom of the cavern I was able to work myself up to it, but now it is a different thing.”
“I wish to God it was different with me then! If you could only change places with me for a couple of minutes! You’d know all about it if you could.”
“Thank you! I’m bad enough off as I am! You were able to eat that rice though. Last night you told me that your friend Merzilla didn’t like rice.”
“Don’t—don’t, for heaven’s sake, George! Your lightness of speech wounds me dreadfully. Have you forgotten that divine creature who rose up before you last night? George, you and I no longer are as other men. To deny the existence of the spirit now as you denied in our old discussions would be but a sorry stand for a man of your common sense to take. Look at me, George! As God hears me, I never expect to see another earthly sunrise; yet I am happy in the thought, for how much brighter—ah, how much brighter—the rise into the light of the heavenly sun, the Lord of life and light itself; the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end!”
A rapt expression had now come upon his countenance, he stretched his arms open toward the sun, and bowed low before it just as we saw Mr. Mirrikh do on the tower of the Nagkon Wat.
Recalled in a measure to my former mental condition by the allusions to the happenings of those strange moments, I spoke quite calmly, even lightly, in reply.
“What? You haven’t turned sun worshipper, Maurice?”
“We are all sun worshippers on Mars, George. As the natural sun rules the visible world, so does the spiritual sun, which is the creative power of the universe, rule the spheres innumerable of the world unseen. Sun worship was the worship of all primitive peoples, because they possessed knowledge in matters spiritual of which we have no conception. Thus knowing the harmony existing between things natural and things spiritual, they bowed before the natural sun as the visible representation of the universal Creator, and this even while they worshipped his attributes, his differing aspects toward mankind, under a thousand forms.”
“There may be much in what you say; but tell me, Maurice, when Walla seemed to be controlled and you spoke with her—the time you walked, I mean—do you claim that the woman was then out of your body and in the body of that unfortunate girl? I have had no opportunity to ask you of this until now."
“Claim is hardly the word, George; it was so. But for heaven’s sake don’t let the Doctor hear.”
“He is sound asleep.”
“Don’t be too sure.”
“But I am sure,” I answered, when suddenly the Doctor raised his head.
“You are mistaken, George. I am wide awake and listening, though I did drop off for awhile. I will not be mean enough to listen any longer to your secrets, Maurice, since you do not wish me to hear them, but I have heard enough already to show me in what particular direction your brain disturbance runs.”
Maurice was furious; it was as much as he could do to restrain himself; as for me, I was sincerely sorry that the subject had been brought to the Doctor’s notice. He kept right on talking, for neither of us spoke.
“You may think that yours is altogether a new disease, my boy, but allow me to correct you. It’s as old as Adam, whose case is the first on record, and you must admit that Adam was a deuced sight better off with Mrs. Eve inside of him than after she was let out to go apple stealing and fooling round with snakes, instead of attending to her domestic duties, as she should. During the Middle Ages such cases were common; and they are not undiscoverable now; almost any first-class lunatic asylum ought to produce three or four, at least. I remember when I had my last charge in London—it was an old church down among the watermen, on the very banks of the Thames—for a certain reason I’d rather not locate it exactly—there was a man who used to bother the life out of me insisting that he had a woman inside of him and wanting my advice as to how to get her out. I suggested an emetic, but”
He paused for he caught the look upon Maurice's face. It was terrible! I knew what my friend was in anger for I had seen him angry in the old days at Panompin. He was furiously angry now, but before he could explode I interposed in the interest of peace.
“For God’s sake Doctor, have a care what you say.” I cried. “Here we are perched on top of this pinnacle expecting to be hurled to death at any moment. Are we to spend our last hours in senseless quarrels? Look! Look yonder through the arch on the other side of the cañon and tell me what you see.”
“By Jove! It’s a city!” cried the Doctor. “It’s Lh’asa!”
And so it was. I had espied it while the Doctor was talking. There, far in the distance, lay the metropolis of the Buddhist world. Its low houses of snowy whiteness, interspersed in every direction with the gilded roofs of numerous temples, reminded me not a little of the city I had seen in my first Martian vision; high above all towered the majestic palace of the Tale Lama.
If there was any reliance to be placed upon the statements of geographers, this could be no other city than the far-famed Lh’asa.
And if this was true, then how far were we from Psam-dagong? The length of those remarkable underground passages must have been greater even than we had supposed.
But we had ample time to ponder over the problem, for the day passed and darkness fell upon us. Still our rock stood firm.
It was a fearful day for me.
Added to the horrors of our situation was the dissension among us and poor Walla’s condition.
The girl would neither speak nor eat; she would not even respond to Maurice, but remained in what I think must have been a half entranced condition, muttering in her own language at times. At first I thought she was praying, but afterward I rather came to doubt it. As for Maurice, he positively declined to hold any communication with the Doctor—would not even answer him when he offered an apology.
Then again in that old earthen pot we had perhaps five pounds of cooked rice and not a drop of water.
The horrors of thirst were already upon us and starvation stared us in the face.
Long before night came all hope had departed, and I prayed most devoutly that the rock might fall and hurl us to our doom.