"What on earth is it?" I said.
"Queer place, this!" said Milton Rhodes.
"What can it mean?"
He did not answer. He sent a questioning look toward Drorathusa and her companions. Mine followed. The faces of the Dromans seemed to glimmer ghostlike in the thickening, awful darkness. Upon those pale features, however, was no discoverable sign of alarm, uneasiness even.
The gloom deepened. Pitchy darkness came down with a rush. Far away, and up along the roof, there were pale flickerings and flashes. Then the light burst out, so sudden and so strong that pain shot through the eyes.
Came a cry, and I turned to see Drorathusa pointing, pointing down toward the cycads.
"There it is, Bill!" said Mil ton. "There it is again! See it moving?"
I saw it but for a fleeting moment only. And, I thought, I saw something else.
"Nearer this time," Rhodes told me.
"It is moving over," I said, "to lie in wait for us. And, unless I'm much deceived, it isn't alone."
"Hum," said Rhodes. "Queer place, Bill, to go into. Our Hypogeans don't seem to know what to make of this apparition."
They were conversing in low tones, casting searching, apprehensive looks along the ragged margin of the forest.
The gloom was falling again. Denser and denser it grew about us. Fainter, more and more dreadful became those distant flickerings. The stillness was utter, terrible. There was not the gentlest movement of air. The light gave a last faint, angry gleam and went out altogether.
Abruptly, from out of the darkness, a voice came sounding, and, though I knew that the voice was Drorathusa's, I started violently and almost gave a cry. I pressed the button, and the rays of the lamp flashed out, lighting up the spot and showing the tall figure of Drorathusa with arms extended upward in some mystic invocation. The others were kneeling, and the words that Drorathusa spoke were echoed, as it were, in their low responsive voices. It was a strange scene—the dark, savage masses of rock, the tall Sibylline figure of the woman, the kneeling forms of the others and we two men from the sunlit world looking on in wonder and in awe.
Minutes passed. The wondrous, eery voice of Drorathusa never ceased, though there were moments when those echoing voices were silent.
Look! Far away, there was a faint, ghostly flicker. Another and another. Brighter they became and brighter still, at last opalescent; soon rocks and forest, the whole weird landscape was again bathed in the mystic pearly light.
"What in the world," I said, "was it?"
"An eclipse," smiled Rhodes. "Queer place, this."
"Queer place? Can't you hit another tune? You don't have to keep telling me that this is a queer place. I am not likely to forget that fact. And I wonder if these 'eclipses' are a frequent phenomenon. Certainly I hope that they arc not."
"I wish that I could tell you, Bill."
"And," I added, "that forest, when the light goes, must be a queer place truly—gosh, I'm catching it from you! But I'll tell you what: I wouldn't like to find myself, in the depths of those woods, face to face with a loopmuke or a gogrugron or something and in that instant have the darkness come down."
"It would be rather unpleasant, I fancy. But unfortunately our likes or our dislikes are not likely to alter in any way the scheme of things."
