Chapter 12
For a space we stood there in silence looking at that dark mass which reared itself up, like a temple in ruins I thought, in the midst of the crevassed ice.
Then I said:
"Who, looking at that pile, would ever dream that there was anything mysterious and terrible about it, anythingscientific?"
"The place," Milton Rhodes returned, "certainly has an innocent look; but looks, you know, are often deceiving. And how deceiving in this particular instance, that we know full well indeed. Besides Scranton, yourself and me, not a living soul knows how horrible was the death of that poor girl."
I made no response. Many were the thoughts that came and went as I stood there and looked at those Tamahnowis Rocks.
Of a sudden I noticed a slight smile in the eyes of my companion.
"Why the grin?" I queried. "This, I must say, is a sweet time for grins. I would suggest that, instead, you say your prayers."
Rhodes laughed. Then he pointed to my right hand. This, I now discovered, was resting on that pocket which held my revolver.
"I see," he said, "that you have your artillery very handy."
"Yes; and I notice that you have, too."
"I wish that I could have it even more so, Bill.
"You know, oldtillicum," he added, his brows contracting and a shadow seeming to pass athwart his face and then to return and linger there, "maybe I'll wish that I hadn't dragged you into this wild, unearthly business. And yet I wouldn't care to face it without you beside me."
"Draggedme into it?" I exclaimed. "Now, look here: please, Milton, don't say that again."
"I hope, Bill, that I haven't—"
"Not a bit, not a bit. But I hope you will never talk like that any more."
He raised a hand and placed it on my shoulder.
"Pardon me, oldtillicum," he said. "And yet, after all, I may regret it, for this business before us may prove a most terrible one—something even worse than that."
For a few moments there was silence, and then I said:
"Well, let'sklatawah."
"Yes," said he, turning and starting; "let'sklatawah.
"And," he added, "do you know what that reminds me of?"
"I wonder."
"Of Sluiskin's appeal to Stevens and Van Trump, down there at the falls that now bear his name:
"'Wake klatawah! Wake klatawah!'"
"But," said I, "they went, and theycame back. That's an augury."
"But," he answered, "if it hadn't been for those steam-caves up there in the crater, they might not have come back, might have perished on the summit that night in the bitter cold. And then the Siwash would have been a true prophet."
"Well, there may be something equivalent to those steam-caves somewhere in the place that we are going to. I don't mean, of course,inthat pile of rock over there."
"Of course not. But that isn't what's troubling me; it's the possibility that we may be too late."
"Too late?" I exclaimed.
"Just so. It is only at long intervals—so far as we know, that is—that these strange beings appear on the mountain."
"Well?" I queried.
"Well, Bill, glaciers, you know, move."
"I know that. But what on earth has the movement of the ice to do with the appearance of this angel on Mount Rainier?"
But Milton wouldn't tell me that. Instead, he told me to think. Think? I did. I thought hard; but I couldn't see it. However, we were drawing close to the rocks now, and soon I would have the answer. I felt that pocket again. Yes, the revolver was still there!
"Look here!" said I suddenly.
Milton Rhodes, who was on the point of springing across a fissure, turned and looked.
"How does this come?" I wanted to know. "I thought that the Tamahnowis Rocks were on the Cowlitz Glacier?"
"This is the Cowlitz, Bill."
"But we haven't left the Paradise yet."
"Oh, yes, we have. There is no cleaver between them, no anything; at this place it is all one continuous sheet of ice."
"Oh, that's it. Well, the ice is pretty badly crevassed before us. Glad it isn't all like this."
We worked our way forward, twisting and turning. Slowly but steadily we advanced, drawing near and nearer to that dark, frowning, broken mass, wondering (at any rate, I was) about the secrets that we should find there—unless, indeed, we were too late. What had Milton meant by that? How on earth could the apparition of the angel and the demon be in any manner contingent upon the movement of the ice?
Well, we were very near now; we were so near, in fact, that, if there was any one, anythinglurking there in the rocks, human or monster (or both) he or it could hear us.
We would soon know whether we had come too late.
Ere long we had got over the fissures and were moving over ice unbroken and smooth. I wondered if this was the spot where, so many years ago, White and Long had been killed. But I did not voice that thought. The truth is that this terrible place held me silent. And, when we moved into the shadow cast by the broken, towering pile, the scene became more weird and terrible than ever.
A few moments, and we halted, so close to the rocky wall, precipitous and broken, that I could have touched it with outstretched hand.
How cold it seemed here, how strange that sinister quality (or was it only my imagination?) of the enveloping shadows!
"Well," said Milton Rhodes, and I noticed that his voice was low and guarded, "here we are."
I made no response.
The silence there was as the silence of a tomb.