The Moon Terror/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
THE JAWS OF DEATH
WE did not pause in our flight from the temple until we reached the foot of the mountain; then, still shaken by the horror of the scene we had witnessed, we sat down to rest until the climbing moon should send its light into the depths of the gorge.
We could discern little of our surroundings, but close at hand we could hear the river rushing between its rocky walls.
Not a word was spoken until finally I inquired: "What next?"
In a low voice that indicated the need of caution even here, Dr. Gresham announced:
"The real work of the night still is before us. I would not have taken the risk of visiting the temple but for the hope that we would learn more of the Seuen-H'sin's layout than we did. Since nothing was gained there, we must reconnoiter the country."
"That sacrifice of human life," I asked—"what was its purpose?"
"To propitiate their god," the astronomer told me. "Every month, on the night of the full moon—in every Seuen-H'sin temple in the world—that hideous slaughter takes place. At certain times the ceremony is elaborated into a thing infinitely more horrible."
At this juncture the moon lifted itself clear of the valley's eastern rim, and the depression was bathed in silvery radiance. This was the signal for our start.
Heading toward the sound of the river, we soon came to the road that led to the Nippon's wharf. Beside this highway was an electric transmission line, running on up into the canyon. Turning away from the wharf and the village, we proceeded to follow this line toward its source.
Instead of traversing the road, however, we kept in the shadows of the timber at its side; and it was well that we did so, for we had not gone far before a group of Chinamen appeared around a bend in the highway, walking rapidly toward the town. They wore dark clothes of the same pattern as our own outer garments; and they passed without seeing us.
For fully two miles we followed the power line, until we began to pass numerous groups of Chinamen in close succession—like crowds of men getting off work.
To diminish the chance of our being discovered, Dr. Gresham and I turned up the mountainside. We climbed until we had reached a considerable height above the floor of the gorge, and then, keeping at this elevation, we again pursued the course of the electric line.
Another half-hour passed in this scramble along the steep slope, and my companion began to betray uneasiness lest the road and its paralleling copper wires, which we could not see from here, had ended or had turned off up some tributary ravine—when suddenly there came to our ears a faint roaring, as of a distant waterfall. At once Dr. Gresham was all alertness, and with quickened steps we pressed forward in the direction of the sound.
Five minutes later, as we rounded a shoulder of the mountain, we were stricken suddenly speechless by the sight, far below us, of a great, brilliantly lighted building!
For a few moments we could only stand and gaze at the thing; but presently, as the timber about us partly obstructed our view, we moved forward to a barren rocky promontory jutting out from the mountainside.
The moon now was well up in the heavens, and from the brow of this headland a vast expanse of country was visible, its every feature standing out almost as clearly as in the daylight. But, to take advantage of this view, we were obliged to expose ourselves to discovery by any spies the Seuen-H'sin might have posted in the region. The danger was considerable, but our curiosity regarding the lighted building was sufficient to outweigh our caution.
The structure was too far distant to reveal much to the naked eye, so we quickly brought our field glasses into use; then we saw that the building was directly upon the bank of the river, and that from its lower wall spouted a number of large, foaming streams of water, as if discharged under terrific pressure. From these torrents, presumably, came the sound of the waterfall. The angle at which we were looking down upon the place prevented our seeing inside the building except at one corner, where, through a window, we could catch a glimpse of machinery running.
But, little as we could see, it was enough to convince me that the place was a hydro-electric plant of enormous proportions, producing energy to the extent of probably hundreds of thousands of horsepower.
Even as I was reaching this conclusion, Dr. Gresham spoke:
"There," he said, "is the source of the Seuen-H'sin's power, which is causing all these upheavals throughout the world! That is where the yellow devils are at work upon their second moon!"
Just as he spoke another of the great ground-shocks rocked the earth. Too much amazed for comment, I stood staring at the plant until my companion added:
"There is where those brilliant flashes in the heavens came from last night. They were due to some accident in the machinery, causing a short circuit. For two nights I had been circling over this entire range of mountains in the hydroplane, in search of the sorcerers' workshop. The flashes were a fortunate circumstance that led me to the place."
"At last I understand," I remarked presently, "why you were so deeply interested, back there in Washington, in the steamship Nippon and the electric plant she was transporting to Hong-kong. I suppose that is where the sorcerers obtained all this machinery!"
"Precisely!" agreed the astronomer. "That morning in Washington, when I got you to look up the inventory of the Nippon's cargo, I had this solution of the mystery in mind. I knew from my years in Wu-yang that electricity was the force the sorcerers would employ, and I was certain I had seen mention in the newspapers of some exceptionally large electrical equipment aboard the Nippon. Those supposed pirates of the Yellow Sea were in reality the murderous hordes of the Seuen-H'sin, who had come out to the coast after this outfit."
"But why," I asked, "should these Chinamen, whose development of science is so far in advance of our own, have to get machinery from an inferior people? I should think their own appliances would have made anything from the rest of the world seem antiquated."
"You forget what I told you that first night we spoke of the Seuen-H'sin. Their discoveries never were backed up by manufacturing; they possessed no raw materials or factories or industrial instincts. They did not need to make machinery themselves. In spite of their tremendous isolation, they were watching everything in the outside world. They knew they could get plenty of machinery ready made—once they had perfected their method of operations."
I was still staring at the monster power plant below us when Dr. Gresham announced:
"I know now that my theory of the earthquakes' origin was correct, and if we get back to the Albatross the defeat of the sorcerers' plans is assured."
"Tell me one thing more," I put in. "Why did the Chinamen come so far from their own country to establish their plant?"
"Because," the doctor replied, "this place was so hidden—yet so easy to reach. And the further they came from their own country to apply their electric impulses to the earth, the less danger their native land would run."
"Still, for my part, the main point of the whole problem remains unsolved," I asserted. "How do the sorcerers use this electricity to shake the world?"
"That," replied the scientist, "requires too long an explanation for the present moment. On the way back to the ship I will tell you the whole thing. But now I must get a closer view of Kwo-Sung-tao's strange workshop."
As Dr. Gresham was speaking, some unexplained feeling of uneasiness—perhaps some faint sound that had registered itself upon my subconscious thoughts without my ears being aware of it—led my gaze to wander over the mountainside in our vicinity. As my eyes rested for a moment upon some rocks about a hundred yards away, I fancied I saw something stir at the side of them.
At this moment Dr Gresham made a move to leave the promontory. Laying a detaining hand swiftly upon his arm, I whispered:
"Wait! Stand still!"
Unquestioningly the astronomer obeyed; and for a couple of minutes I watched the neighboring clump of rocks out of the corner of my eye. Presently I saw a darkly-clad figure crawl out of the shadow of the pile, cross a patch of moonlight, and join two other figures at the edge of the timber. The trio stood looking in our direction a moment, while apparently holding a whispered conference. Then all three disappeared into the shadow of the woods.
Immediately I announced to my companion:
"We have been discovered! There are three Chinamen watching us from the timber, not a hundred yards away!"
The scientist was silent a moment. Then:
"Do they know you saw them?" he asked.
"I think not," I replied.
Still without looking around, he asked:
"Where are they—directly behind us?"
"No; well to the side—the side nearest the power plant."
"Good! Then we'll move back toward the timber at once—go leisurely, as if we suspected nothing. If we reach the cover of the woods all right, we'll make a dash for it. Head straight up for the top of the ridge—cross over and descend into the gulch on the other side—then detour back toward the Albatross. Stick to the shadows—travel as fast as we can—and try to throw off pursuit!"
Moving off as unconsciously as if we were totally unaware that we had been observed, we struck out for the timber—all the time keeping a sharp lookout, for we half expected the spies to head us off and attempt a surprise attack. But we reached the darkness of the woods without even a glimpse of the Celestials; and instantly we broke into a run.
The ascent was too steep to permit much speed; moreover, the roughness of the ground and the fallen timber hampered us greatly—yet we had the consolation of knowing that it equally hampered our pursuers.
For nearly an hour we pressed on. The mountaintop was crossed, and we descended into a canyon on the other side. No sight or sound of the Chinamen had greeted us. Could they have surmised the course we would take, and calmly let us proceed, while they returned for reinforcements to head us off? Or were they silently stalking us to find out who we were and whence we came? We could not tell. And there was the other chance, too, that we had shaken off pursuit.
Gradually this latter possibility became a definite hope, which grew as our overtaxed strength began to fail. Nevertheless, we pushed on until we were so spent and winded that we could scarcely drag one foot after the other.
We had now reached a spot where the floor of the canyon widened out into a tiny level park. Here the timber was so dense that we were swallowed up in almost complete darkness; and in this protecting mantle of shadow we decided to stop for a brief rest. Stretching out upon the ground, with our arms extended at our sides, we lay silent, inhaling deep breaths of the cool, refreshing mountain air.
We were now on the opposite side of a long and high mountain ridge from the Chinese village, and, as nearly as we could estimate, not more than a mile or two from the Albatross.
Lying there on the ground, we could feel the earthquakes with startling violence. We noticed that they no longer occurred only at intervals of eleven minutes and a fraction—although they were particularly severe at those periods—but that they kept up an almost continuous quivering, as if the globe's internal forces were bubbling restlessly.
Suddenly, in the wake of one of the heavier shocks of the eleven-minute period, the intense stillness was broken by a sharp report, followed by a ripping sound from the bowels of the earth, that seemed to start close at hand and rush off into the distance, quickly dying out. From the mountainside above us came the crash of a falling tree and the clatter of a few dislodged rocks bounding down the slope. The earth swayed as if a giant gash had opened and closed within a few rods of us.
The occurrence made Dr. Gresham and me sit up instantly. Nothing, however, was visible through the forest gloom of any changes in the landscape. Again silence settled about us.
Several minutes passed.
Then abruptly, from a short distance away, came the sound of something stirring. Sitting motionless, alert, we listened. Almost immediately we heard it again, and this time the sound did not die out. Something off there in the timber was moving stealthily toward us!
Dropping back at full length upon the ground, with only our heads raised, we kept a sharp watch.
Only a few more moments were we kept in suspense; then, across a slit of moonlight, we saw five Chinamen swiftly moving. They were slinking along almost noiselessly, as if following a scent—and, with a shock, we realized that it was ourselves they were tracking! We had not shaken off our pursuers, after all!
Even before we could decide, in a whispered debate, what our next move should be, our nerves again were whipped taut by other sounds close at hand—but now on the opposite side of the little valley from the first ones. This time the sounds grew fainter—only to become louder again almost immediately, as if the intruders were searching back and forth across the flat. In a short while it became plain that they were drawing closer to us.
"What fools we were to stop to rest!" the astronomer complained.
"I have a hunch we would have run into some of those spies if we had kept on," I rejoined. "They must have headed us off and found that we didn't pass on down this canyon, else they wouldn't be searching here so thoroughly.
"Right!" my friend agreed. "And now they've got us in a tight place!"
"Suppose," I suggested, "we slip across the valley and climb part-way up that other mountainside—then try to work along through the timber up there until we're near the ship."
"Good!" he assented. "Come on!"
Lying at full length upon the ground and wriggling along like snakes, we headed between two groups of the searchers. It was slow work, but we did not dare even to rise to our knees to crawl. Twice we dimly made out, not fifty feet away, some of the Chinamen slinking along, apparently hunting over every foot of the region. We could not tell how many of them there were now.
After a time that seemed nearly endless we reached the edge of the flat. Here we rose to our feet to tackle the slope in front of us.
As we did so, two figures leaped out of the gloom close at hand and split the night with cries of "Fan kuei! Fan kuei!" ("Foreign devils!")
Then they sprang to seize us.
Further concealment being impossible, we darted back into the valley, no longer avoiding the patches of moonlight, but rather seeking them, so that we could see where we were going. We were heading for the fiord.
In a few seconds other cries arose on all sides of us. It seemed that we were surrounded and that the whole region swarmed with Chinamen. Dark forms began to plunge out of the woods ahead to intercept us; the leading ones were not sixty feet away.
"We'll have to fight for it!" called Dr. Gresham. And our hands flew to our revolvers.
But before we could draw the weapons a great ripping and crashing sound burst forth upon the mountainside above us—the terrifying noise of rocks splitting and grinding—an appalling turmoil! Terrified, pursued and pursuers alike paused to glance upward.
There, in the brilliant moonlight, we saw a monster avalanche sweeping downward, engulfing everything in its way!
Abandoning the astronomer and me, the Chinamen turned to flee farther from the path of the landslide—and we all began running together down the valley.
Only a few steps had we gone, however, when above the roaring of the avalanche a new sound rang out—short, sharp, booming, like the report of a giant gun.
As I glanced about through the blotches of moonlight and shadow, I saw several of the sorcerers just ahead suddenly halt, stagger and then drop from sight.
Dr. Gresham and I stopped instantly, but not before we beheld other Chinamen disappearing from view.
The earth had opened and they were falling in!
Even as we stood there, hesitating, the black maw yawned wider—to our very feet—and with cries of horror we tried to stagger back. But we were too late. The sides of the crack were crumbling in, and in another instant the widening gash overtook us.
As his eyes met mine, I saw the astronomer topple backward and disappear.
A second later the ground gave way beneath my own feet and I was plunged into the blackness of the pit.