Chapter 31
They were visible for a few seconds only—those great eyes burning with a greenish fire.
"Where did they go?" exclaimed Rhodes.
"And," said I, "what can it be? An ape-bat?"
"That is no ape-bat."
He turned to Ondonarkus.
"Loopmuke?" he queried.
No; it was not aloopmuke. But what it was neither Ondonarkus's pantomime nor Drorathusa's could tell us.
"I don't think it's as bad as that. But the Dromans all know what it is themselves."
"There!" I cried, whirling round. "Did you hear that, Milton? There's that other thing again—that thing behind us!"
"I heard nothing."
"I heard something, I tell you. That mystery with the eyes is not the only thing that is watching us, watching us and waiting."
Some moments passed, perhaps minutes, in expectant watching, our glances incessantly darting about the cavern, through which the light-mist was moving in troubled, writhing streams, the nebulous, spectral glow of it seeming to enhance the fearsome gloom of that dreadful place.
"I see nothing," Rhodes said at last, "and the cavern is as silent as a tomb."
"But we areseen. And, if we don't get out of this, it may beourtomb."
"I don't think it's as bad as that. But the Dromans are signing to us to come on—let us hope to a place more pleasant than this one."
I had turned to quit the spot, my look, however, lingering in that direction whence had come those low, mysterious sounds, a direction right opposite to that in which the moving eyes had shone. And scarcely had I taken a step forward when I fetched up, cried out and pointed.
"See that! See it moving?"
A large fungus-tree, its form one indescribably grotesque, was quivering. It began to shake violently. Some heavy body, hidden from our eyes, was moving there, and it was moving toward us.
Of a sudden the tree was thrust far over, there was a squishy, sickening sound, then down it came, the spot where it fell involved in a cloud of phosphorescence, which thinned and faded in the air like dust or mist as it settles.
"Shades of the Gorgons," I cried, "what is in there?"
A sound from Milton Rhodes turned me round on the instant.
"The eyes again!" he cried. "There they are. See them? Have we at last got into Dante's Inferno itself?"
I was beginning to think that we had got into something worse.
Yes, there the eyes were, and they were nearer this time. But that was all we saw, eyes and nothing more. The thing itself was hidden in the fungoid growth and the shadows.
Rhodes raised his revolver, rested it on his left arm, took careful aim and fired.
The report seemed to bellow like thunder through the cavern. There was a scream from the Dromans, none of whom, save Drorathusa, had ever heard a firearm before; and I doubt that even Drorathusa knew what had killed her demon. On the instant, whilst the report of the weapon and the cry of the Dromans were ringing in our ears, came another sound; it was a shriek, high, piercing, unearthly, one that seemed to arrest and curdle the very blood in our hearts.
It sank, ceased. But almost instantaneously it came again; it rose until the air seemed to quiver to the sound.
The effect upon the Dromans was most sudden and pronounced.
A nameless fear, and something worse, seized upon me as I saw it.
They started from the spot as if in a panic, signing to us with frantic gestures to follow.
I started; but Rhodes, for some inexplicable reason, stood there, his look fixed on the spot whence came those demoniacal shrieks. The eyes had disappeared, but in almost that very instant that I turned, they shone again. I gazed at them as though in fascinated horror, forgetting for the moment that there was something behind me.
Up the eyes rose. A black thing was visible there in the darkness, but its shape was amorphous, mysterious. Up the eyes rose, seeming to dilate, and the fire in them grew brighter and brighter, became so unearthly that I began to wonder if I were going insane. The eyes swayed, swayed back and forth for some moments, then gave a sudden lurch into darkness. The shrieks broke, then came again, more horrible, if that were possible, than before.
"Come on!" I cried, starting. "For Heaven's sake, Milton, let's get out of this, or I'll go mad!"
"What in the world," said Rhodes, reluctantly turning to follow, "can that thing be?"
"Let's get out of this hellish place. Let's do it before it's too late. Remember, there is somethingbehind us. Maybe monsters in other directions too."
"Well," said Rhodes complacently as he followed along in my wake, "we have our revolvers."
"Revolvers? Just see what your revolver has done. A revolver is only a revolver, while that thing—who knows what that monster is?"
"The Dromans know, or at any rate, they think that they do."
"And look at the Dromans. Fear has them. Did you ever see fear like that before? See how they are signing to us to come on. Even Drorathusa is shaken to the very soul."
"After all, 'tis no wonder, Bill, that she is. Those shrieks! How can it continue to shriek and shriek like that?"
Ere long we had come up with the Dromans, who at once quickened their pace. On we went, casting apprehensive glances into the gloom about us. Those frightful sounds sank as we moved onward. They became faint, fainter still, and at last, to my profound thankfulness, they were no longer to be heard, even when we paused to listen.
"If that," said I during one of those pauses, "is a good sample of what we are to have here in Drome, then I wish that, instead of coming down here, I had stepped into a den of cobras or something."
Drorathusa's eyes were upon me. As I ceased speaking, she raised a hand and pointed in the direction whence we had come.
"Gogrugron!" she said.
And I saw fear and horror unutterable well up in her eyes as she said it.