Two Thousand Miles Below Part 13

Only a moment--a matter of seconds--while he vented his fury upon this white-skinned man who had dared to oppose him. Dean felt the hand close about his throat. So limp he was, so drained of strength, he made no effort to tear it loose. He was _dead_--what mattered a few seconds more or less of life? And then a thrill shot through him as he knew his right hand was free.

That hand made fumbling work of drawing a gun from its smoking, leather holster. He could hardly control the numbed, blistered fingers, yet somehow he crooked one about the trigger; and dimly, as from some great distance, he heard the roar of the forty-five....

Then, from some deep recess within him, he summoned one last ounce of strength that threw him clear of the falling body.

Instinctively he had heaved himself away from the fiery rocks; the same effort had sent his big coppery antagonist staggering, stumbling, backward. And Dean, sprawled on the stone floor, whose heat where he lay was just short of redness, heard one long, despairing shriek as the giant figure wavered, hung in air for a moment in black outline against the fierce red of a rocky wall above a white-hot pit, then toppled, pitched forward, and vanished.

Sick and giddy, he forced himself to draw his body up on hands and knees. Then he straightened, came to his feet, and staggered forward.

Below him was pandemonium. The sea of faces wavered and blurred before his eyes. From a distant archway other figures were coming. He saw the gleam of metal, heard the wild blare of trumpets, and knew that the hundreds of red ones below him were standing stiffly, both hands raised upright in salute as another barbaric figure entered. The air was clamorous with a shrill repeated call. "Phee-e-al!" the red ones shrieked. "Phee-e-al!"

But Rawson did not wait to see more. Behind him, the flames that had been fed with human flesh--if indeed these red ones were human--roared again into life. He had returned the pistol to its holster when first he came to his feet; his weak hands had seemed unable to hold it. And now his two hands were thrust outward before him as he staggered blindly toward the tunnel mouth.

It was where he had emerged upon the platform. His reaching hands found the side entrance where the stairs led down to the main hall.

In the darkness he made his way past. Stumbling weakly he pushed on down the long tunnel whose floor slanted gently away.

Ahead of him was a light. The comparative coolness of these rocks had served to revive him somewhat. He had no hope of escape, yet the light seemed comforting, somehow.

He stopped. His stinging eyes were wide open. He stared incredulously at the glowing spot on a distant wall, where a flame must have touched, and at the figure beneath it.

The figure of a woman! A young woman, tall, slender, fair-haired, whose skin was white, a creamy white, whiter than snow.

A woman? It was a mere girl, slender and beautiful, her graceful young body poised as if, in quick flight, she had been caught and held for a moment of stillness.

What was she doing here? His exhausted brain could not comprehend what it meant. He had seen women of the Mole-men tribe mingling with the men. Like them their heads were pointed, their faces grotesque and hideous. Rawson gave an inarticulate cry of amazement and staggered forward.

Between him and the distant figure a crowd of Reds swarmed in. They came from a connecting pa.s.sage. Above their heads the lava tips of flame-throwers were spitting jets of green fire. Every face was turned toward him at his cry.

Beyond them the white figure vanished. Dean, leaning weakly against the wall, told himself dully that it had been a phantom, a product of his own despairing brain and his own weakness. Then that weakness overcame him; and the red Mole-men, their white and hideous eyes, the threatening jets of green flame, all vanished in the quick darkness that swept over him....

CHAPTER XII

_Dreams_

The black curtain of unconsciousness which descended so quickly upon Rawson was not easily thrown off. For hours, days or weeks--he never knew how long he lay in the citadel of the Reds--it was to wrap him around.

Nor was his waking a matter of a moment. Many and varied were the impressions which came to him in times of semiconsciousness, and which of them were realities and which dreams, he could not tell.

He was being tortured with knives, lances tipped with pain that dragged him up from the black depths in which he lay. Dimly he realized that his clothes were being stripped from him and that the piercing knives were none the less real for being only the touch of hands and rough cloth upon his blistered body. Then from head to foot he was coated with a substance cool and moist. The pain died to a mere throbbing and again he felt himself sinking back into unconsciousness.

There were other visions, many others, some of them plain and distinct, some blurred and terrifying to his fevered brain trying vainly to bring order and reason into what was utterly chaotic.

Once a bedlam of shrieking voices roused him. He tried to open his eyes, whose lids were too heavy for his strength. And by that he knew he was dreaming. Yet from under those lowered lids he seemed to see a wild medley of red warriors, their faces blotched and ghastly in the green light of their weapons. They were carrying a charred body which they threw heavily upon the floor beside him as if to compare the two.

He saw the face which the flames had not touched, the face of Jack Downer--Downer, the sheriff of Cocos County. His sandy hair had been scorched to the scalp.

Dreams ... and the steady beat of metal-shod feet of marching men. He saw them pa.s.sing some distance away. The repeated _thud-thud_ of metal on stone echoed maddeningly through his brain for hours.... Dreams, all of them.

And once there came to him a vision which beyond all doubt was unreal.

Silence had surrounded him. For what seemed hours not one of the red mole-men had come near. And then, in the silence, he heard whisperings and the sound of stealthy feet; and, for a moment, the same white figure that had met him in his flight stood where he could see.

Only the merest trace of dim light relieved the utter darkness of the room. The girl's figure was ghostly, unreal. Yet he saw the dull sparkle of jeweled breast-plates against her creamy white skin. Loose folds of cloth were gathered about her waist; her golden hair was drawn back except for vagrant curls that only accentuated the perfect oval of her face.

There were others with her, dim shapes of men; how many Rawson could not tell. They looked down at him, whispering softly, excitedly, amongst themselves; but their words were like nothing he had ever heard.

For an instant Dean felt his stupefied mind coming almost to wakefulness. Phantom figures, ghostly and unreal--but the faces were human, and the eyes looked down upon him pityingly. He tried to rouse himself, tried to call out, then settled limply back, for the girl was speaking--or he was catching her thoughts. It seemed almost that he heard her whispered words:

"They take him to _Gevarro_, to the Lake of Fire which never dies!

Gor told me--he overheard their plans. But, by the Mountain I swear...." Then footsteps echoed in a far-off pa.s.sage, and the white ones vanished like drifting smoke.

Dreams, all of them. Yet the time came when Dean knew that he was awake--knew too that further experiences awaited him in this demoniac land.

Again red guards came. The wicked breath of their weapons filled the great room where Rawson had been with green, flickering light. Dean, dragged to his feet, was unable to stand. One of the giant yellow workers came forward at a whistled order and held him erect. Another brought a bowl carved from rock crystal and filled with a liquid golden-green with reflected light. He put it to Rawson's lips and with the first touch Dean knew that he must have been filled with a burning thirst beyond anything he had ever known. He gulped greedily at the liquid, drained the bowl to the last drop, then marveled at the thrilling fire of strength that flowed through him.

"Wine," he thought, "wine of the G.o.ds--or devils." He came to himself with a start. He knew that he was naked and that his body was encased in a coating of stiff gray plaster. It was this that prevented his arms and legs from flexing.

Another order and the giant worker picked him up in his arms and carried him where the others led to a distant room. A stream trickled through a cut in the rocky floor. At the center of the room was a pool. Unable to resist, Dean felt the giant arms toss him out and down.

The water was warm. At its first touch the hard plaster melted like snow. Sputtering and choking for breath, Rawson came to the surface.

He found he could move freely, then reaching hands hauled him out upon the floor, and through all his dread he found time to marvel at his own firm muscles and the healthy white of his skin that had been seared and blistered.

He obeyed when the red guards pointed and motioned him into a dark pa.s.sageway. He tried to keep up with them as they hurried him on.

Evidently his pace was too slow, for again the big worker picked him up, swung him into the air and seated him firmly on one broad shoulder, and, with red guards ahead and behind them, hurried on.

To find himself a child in the hands of this big yellow man was disconcerting. To be calmly lugged off was almost humiliating. No one who was not a good sport could have grinned as Rawson did at his own predicament.

"Not exactly a triumphal procession," he told himself, then his lips set grimly. "They've got my gun," he thought, "and now, whatever comes, all I can do is stand and take it. Still, they've saved my life. But what for?"

Always the way led downward, and Rawson, perched on his strange, half-human steed, let his gaze follow up every branching tunnel and widespread cave. Not all of these were as dark as the broad thoroughfare they followed. In some, strange lights glowed, and Rawson saw weird, towering plant growths that yellow workers were harvesting.

Life, life, everywhere, and seemingly this underground world was endless.

Troops of red warriors pa.s.sed them, upward bound. The dancing flames of their weapons, where occasional ones were in action, glowed from afar. They bobbed and waved like green fireflies as the Mole-men came on at a half-run.

"And this means trouble up top," he thought. "There's going to be h.e.l.l to pay up there."

But workers, fighters, everyone they met stood aside to let the red guard pa.s.s. Again Rawson heard the strange word or call that had come to him in the temple of fire. One of the guides would give a whistling call that ended in the same strange shrill cry of "Phee-e-al," and instantly the way was cleared.