Best Fantasy Stories

Chapter 5 THE TORRENT SWEEPING UNDER THE MOUNTAINS

Chapter 5

THE TORRENT SWEEPING UNDER THE MOUNTAINSThe boat drifted on. The light given by the aurora and the low

moon seemed to grow fainter; and as I looked behind I saw that the

distant glow from the volcanic fires had become more brilliant in

the increasing darkness. The sides of the channel grew steeper,

until at last they became rocky precipices, rising to an unknown

height. The channel itself grew narrower, till from a width of two

miles it had contracted to a tenth of those dimensions; but with

this lessening width the waters seemed to rush far more swiftly.

Here I drifted helplessly, and saw the gloomy, rocky cliffs sweep

past me as I was hurled onward on the breast of the tremendous

flood. I was in despair. The fate of Agnew had prepared me for my

own, and I was only thankful that my fate, since it was inevitable,

would be less appalling. Death seemed certain, and my chief thought

now was as to the moment when it would come. I was prepared. I felt

that I could meet it calmly, sternly, even thankfully; far better

was a death here amid the roar of waters than at the hands of those

abhorrent beings by whose treachery my friend had fallen.

As I went on, the precipices rose higher and seemed to overhang,

the channel grew narrower, the light grew fainter, until at last

all around me grew dark. I was floating at the bottom of a vast

chasm, where the sides seemed to rise precipitously for thousands

of feet, where neither watery flood nor rocky wall was visible, and

where, far above, I could see the line of sky between the summits

of the cliffs, and watch the glowing stars. And as I watched them

there came to me the thought that this was my last sight on earth,

and I could only hope that the life which was so swiftly

approaching its end might live again somewhere among those

glittering orbs. So I thought; and with these thoughts I drifted

on, I cannot tell how long, until at length there appeared a vast

black mass, where the open sky above me terminated, and where the

lustre of the stars and the light of the heavens were all swallowed

up in utter darkness.

This, then, I thought, is the end. Here, amid this darkness, I

must make the awful plunge and find my death I fell upon my knees

in the bottom of the boat and prayed. As I knelt there the boat

drew nearer, the black mass grew blacker. The current swept me on.

There were no breakers; there was no phosphorescent sparkle of

seething waters, and no whiteness of foam. I thought that I was on

the brink of some tremendous cataract a thousand times deeper than

Niagara; some fall where the waters plunged into the depths of the

earth; and where, gathering for the terrific descent, all other

movements—all dashings and writhings and twistings—were obliterated

and lost in the one overwhelming onward rush. Suddenly all grew

dark—dark beyond all expression; the sky above was in a moment

snatched from view; I had been flung into some tremendous cavern;

and there, on my knees, with terror in my heart, I waited for

death.

The moments passed, and death delayed to come. The awful plunge

was still put off; and though I remained on my knees and waited

long, still the end came not. The waters seemed still, the boat

motionless. It was borne upon the surface of a vast stream as

smooth as glass; but who could tell how deep that stream was, or

how wide? At length I rose from my knees and sank down upon the

seat of the boat, and tried to peer through the gloom. In vain.

Nothing was visible. It was the very blackness of darkness. I

listened, but heard nothing save a deep, dull, droning sound, which

seemed to fill all the air and make it all tremulous with its

vibrations. I tried to collect my thoughts. I recalled that old

theory which had been in my mind before this, and which I had

mentioned to Agnew. This was the notion that at each pole there is

a vast opening; that into one of them all the waters of the ocean

pour themselves, and, after passing through the earth, come out at

the other pole, to pass about its surface in innumerable streams.

It was a wild fancy, which I had laughed at under other

circumstances, but which now occurred to me once more, when I was

overwhelmed with despair, and my mind was weakened by the horrors

which I had experienced; and I had a vague fear that I had been

drawn into the very channel through which the ocean waters flowed

in their course to that terrific, that unparalleled abyss. Still,

there was as yet no sign whatever of anything like a descent, for

the boat was on even keel, and perfectly level as before, and it

was impossible for me to tell whether I was moving swiftly or

slowly, or standing perfectly still; for in that darkness there

were no visible objects by which I could find out the rate of my

progress; and as those who go up in balloons are utterly insensible

of motion, so was I on those calm but swift waters.

At length there came into view something which arrested my

attention and engrossed all my thoughts. It was faint glow that at

first caught my gaze; and, on turning to see it better, I saw a

round red spot glowing like fire. I had not seen this before. It

looked like the moon when it rises from behind clouds, and glows

red and lurid from the horizon; and so this glowed, but not with

the steady light of the moon, for the light was fitful, and

sometimes flashed into a baleful brightness, which soon subsided

into a dimmer lustre. New alarm arose within me, for this new sight

suggested something more terrible than anything that I had thus far

thought of. This, then, I thought, was to be the end of my voyage;

this was my goal—a pit of fire, into which I should be hurled!

Would it be well, I thought, to wait for such a fate, and

experience such a death-agony? Would it not be better for me to

take my own life before I should know the worst? I took my pistol

and loaded it, so as to be prepared, but hesitated to use it until

my fate should be more apparent. So I sat, holding my pistol,

prepared to use it, watching the light, and awaiting the time when

the glowing fires should make all further hope impossible. But time

passed, and the light grew no brighter; on the contrary, it seemed

to grow fainter. There was also another change. Instead of shining

before me, it appeared more on my left. From this it went on

changing its position until at length it was astern. All the time

it continued to grow fainter, and it seemed certain that I was

moving away from it rather than toward it. In the midst of this

there occurred a new thought, which seemed to account for this

light—this was, that it arose from these same volcanoes which had

illuminated the northern sky when I was ashore, and followed me

still with their glare. I had been carried into this darkness,

through some vast opening which now lay behind me, disclosing the

red volcano glow, and this it was that caused that roundness and

resemblance to the moon. I saw that I was still moving on away from

that light as before, and that its changing position was due to the

turning of the boat as the water drifted it along, now stern

foremost, now sidewise, and again bow foremost. From this it seemed

plainly evident that the waters had borne me into some vast cavern

of unknown extent, which went under the mountains—a subterranean

channel, whose issue I could not conjecture. Was this the beginning

of that course which should ultimately become a plunge deep down

into some unutterable abyss? or might I ever hope to emerge again

into the light of day—perhaps in some other ocean—some land of ice

and frost and eternal night? But the old theory of the flow of

water through the earth had taken hold of me and could not be

shaken off. I knew some scientific men held the opinion that the

earth's interior is a mass of molten rock and pent-up fire, and

that the earth itself had once been a burning orb, which had cooled

down at the surface; yet, after all, this was only a theory, and

there were other theories which were totally different. As a boy I

had read wild works of fiction about lands in the interior of the

earth, with a sun at the centre, which gave them the light of a

perpetual day. These, I knew, were only the creations of fiction;

yet, after all, it seemed possible that the earth might contain

vast hollow spaces in its interior—realms of eternal darkness,

caverns in comparison with which the hugest caves on the surface

were but the tiniest cells. I was now being borne on to these. In

that case there might be no sudden plunge, after all. The stream

might run on for many thousand miles through this terrific cavern

gloom, in accordance with natural laws; and I might thus live, and

drift on in this darkness, until I should die a lingering death of

horror and despair.

There was no possible way of forming any estimate as to speed.

All was dark, and even the glow behind was fading away; nor could I

make any conjecture whatever as to the size of the channel. At the

opening it had been contracted and narrow; but here it might have

expanded itself to miles, and its vaulted top might reach almost to

the summit of the lofty mountains. While sight thus failed me,

sound was equally unavailing, for it was always the same—a

sustained and unintermittent roar, a low, droning sound, deep and

terrible, with no variations of dashing breakers or rushing rapids

or falling cataracts. Vague thoughts of final escape came and went;

but in such a situation hope could not be sustained. The thick

darkness oppressed the soul; and at length even the glow of the

distant volcanoes, which had been gradually diminishing, grew

dimmer and fainter, and finally faded out altogether. That seemed

to me to be my last sight of earthly things. After this nothing was

left. There was no longer for me such a thing as sight; there was

nothing but darkness—perpetual and eternal night. I was buried in a

cavern of rushing waters, to which there would be no end, where I

should be borne onward helplessly by the resistless tide to a

mysterious and an appalling doom.

The darkness grew so intolerable that I longed for something to

dispel it, if only for a moment. I struck a match. The air was

still, and the flame flashed out, lighting up the boat and showing

the black water around me. This made me eager to see more. I loaded

both barrels of the rifle, keeping my pistol for another purpose,

and then fired one of them. There was a tremendous report, that

rang in my ears like a hundred thunder-volleys, and rolled and

reverberated far along, and died away in endless echoes. The flash

lighted up the scene for an instant, and for an instant only; like

the sudden lightning, it revealed all around. I saw a wide expanse

of water, black as ink—a Stygian pool; but no rocks were visible,

and it seemed as though I had been carried into a subterranean

sea.

I loaded the empty barrel and waited. The flash of light had

revealed nothing, yet it had distracted my thoughts, and the work

of reloading was an additional distraction. Anything was better

than inaction. I did not wish to waste my ammunition, yet I thought

that an occasional shot might serve some good purpose, if it was

only to afford me some relief from despair.

And now, as I sat with the rifle in my hands, I was aware of a

sound—new, exciting, different altogether from the murmur of

innumerable waters that filled my ears, and in sharp contrast with

the droning echoes of the rushing flood. It was a sound that spoke

of life. I heard quick, heavy pantings, as of some great living

thing; and with this there came the noise of regular movements in

the water, and the foaming and gurgling of waves. It was as though

some living, breathing creature were here, not far away, moving

through these midnight waters; and with this discovery there came a

new fear—the fear of pursuit. I thought that some sea-monster had

scented me in my boat, and had started to attack me. This new fear

aroused me to action. It was a danger quite unlike any other which

I had ever known; yet the fear which it inspired was a feeling that

roused me to action, and prompted me, even though the coming danger

might be as sure as death, to rise against it and resist to the

last. So I stood up with my rifle and listened, with all my soul in

my sense of hearing. The sounds arose more plainly. They had come

nearer. They were immediately in front. I raised my rifle and took

aim. Then in quick succession two reports thundered out with

tremendous uproar and interminable echoes, but the long

reverberations were unheeded in the blaze of sudden light and the

vision that was revealed. For there full before me I saw, though

but for an instant, a tremendous sight. It was a vast monster,

moving in the waters against the stream and toward the boat. Its

head was raised high, its eyes were inflamed with a baleful light,

its jaws, opened wide, bristled with sharp teeth, and it had a long

neck joined to a body of enormous bulk, with a tail that lashed all

the water into foam. It was but for an instant that I saw it, and

then with a sudden plunge the monster dived, while at the same

moment all was as dark as before.

Full of terror and excitement, I loaded my rifle again and

waited, listening for a renewal of the noise. I felt sure that the

monster, balked of his prey, would return with redoubled fury, and

that I should have to renew the conflict. I felt that the dangers

of the subterranean passage and of the rushing waters had passed

away, and that a new peril had arisen from the assault of this

monster of the deep. Nor was it this one alone that was to be

dreaded. Where one was, others were sure to be; and if this one

should pass me by it would only leave me to be assailed by monsters

of the same kind, and these would probably increase in number as I

advanced farther into this realm of darkness. And yet, in spite of

these grisly thoughts, I felt less of horror than before, for the

fear which I had was now associated with action; and as I stood

waiting for the onset and listening for the approach of the enemy,

the excitement that ensued was a positive relief from the dull

despair into which I had sunk but a moment before.

Yet, though I waited for a new attack, I waited in vain. The

monster did not come back. Either the flash and the noise had

terrified him, or the bullets had hit him, or else in his vastness

he had been indifferent to so feeble a creature as myself; but

whatever may have been the cause, he did not emerge again out of

the darkness and silence into which he had sunk. For a long time I

stood waiting; then I sat down, still watchful, still listening,

but without any result, until at length I began to think that there

was no chance of any new attack. Indeed, it seemed now as though

there had been no attack at all, but that the monster had been

swimming at random without any thought of me, in which case my

rifle-flashes had terrified him more than his fearful form had

terrified me. On the whole this incident had greatly benefited me.

It had roused me from my despair. I grew reckless, and felt a

disposition to acquiesce in whatever fate might have in store for

me.

And now, worn out with fatigue and exhausted from long

watchfulness and anxiety, I sank down in the bottom of the boat and

fell into a deep sleep.