Chapter 6
"What was that? The angel's voice again, seeming to issue from the very heart of that mass of rocks. A loud cry and a succession of sharp cries—cries that, I thought, ended in a sobbing sound. Then silence. But no. What was that, that rustling, that flapping in the air?
"Long and I looked wildly—overhead, and then I knew a fear that sent an icy shudder into my heart.
"I cried out—probably it was a scream that I gave—and sprang backward. My soles were well calked, but this could not save me, and down I went flat on my back. The revolver was knocked from my hand and went sliding along the ice for many feet. I sprang up. At this instant the thing came driving down at Long.
"He fired, but he must have missed. The thing struck him in the throat and chest and drove him to the ice. I sprang for my weapon. Long screamed, screamed as White had done, and fought with the fury of a fiend. I got the revolver and started back. The thing had its teeth buried in Long's throat. So fierce was the struggle that I could not fire for fear lest I should hit my companion. As I came up, the monster loosened its hold and sprang high into the air, flapping its bat wings, then it came diving straight at me.
"I fired, but the bullet must have gone wild. Again, and it screamed and went struggling upward. I emptied my revolver, but I fear that I missed with every shot, except that second one. A few seconds, and that winged monster had disappeared.
"I turned to Long. I have seen some horrible sights in my time but never anything so horrible as what I saw now. For there was Long, my companion, my friend—there he was raised up on his hands, his arms rigid as steel, and the blood pouring from his throat. And I—I could only weep and watch him as he bled to death. But it did not last long. In Heaven's mercy, the horror was ended soon.
"And then—well, what followed is not very clear in my mind. I know that a madness seemed to come over me. But I did not flee from that place of mystery and death; the madness, if madness it was, was not like that. It was not of myself that I was thinking; it was not of escape. It was as though a bloody mist had fallen upon the place. Vengeance was what I wanted—vengeance and blood, vengeance and slaughter. I reloaded my revolver, picked up Long's and thrust it into my pocket, then caught up White's weapon with my left hand and started for the rocks, shouting defiance and curses as I went.
"I reached that pile of stone, found the tracks of the angel and the man and of that winged beast; but, at the edge of the rocks, the tracks vanished, and I could not follow farther. But I did not stop there. I went on, clear around that pile, and again and yet again. I climbed it, clear to the summit, searched everywhere; but I could not find a single trace of them I sought. Once, indeed, I thought that I heard a voice, the voice of the angel—thought that I heard that cursed wordDrome.
"But I can not write any more now. Why, oh, why didn't we listen to Sklokoyum and keep away from this hellish mountain? That, of course, would have been foolish; but it would not have been this thing which will haunt me to my dying hour."