Fire Mountain Part 36

Nor were his companions indifferent to the sound. The four sailors huddled quickly together and gazed fearfully into the dark opening.

Moto chopped off short the word he was saying, and Martin saw his body stiffen and his eyes dilate. Even Ichi betrayed agitation, and Martin saw a violent but quickly mastered emotion flit across his yellow features.

The eery wail died quite away, and Martin's scalp stopped crawling.

Ichi turned to him with a somewhat shaken smile; Martin saw that the j.a.panese gentleman's nostrils were twitching nervously, and that his voluble speech was really an effort to regain composure.

"Have no afraid. The sound of much strangeness is from the cave of the wind," said Ichi. "It is from the deep place. Now will come the shake, perhaps."

The shake came on the tail of Ichi's words. A heavy, ominous rumbling came out of the black depths. Martin recalled hearing the same sound the day before, when he was on the topgallant-yard. And suddenly the hard, packed sand began to crawl beneath his feet, things swayed dizzily before his eyes, and a sharp nausea attacked the pit of his stomach.

It was but a baby temblor, and it lasted but an instant.

Martin was not much disturbed--a lifetime in San Francisco had made quakes a commonplace experience--but he had the sudden thought that there were safer journeys in the world than the one he was about to take into the heart of a half-extinct volcano. Not that the probable danger of the trip impressed him sharply--he was too much occupied with his plight, and desperate plan--but it was evident the j.a.ps did not relish the undertaking.

The four sailors and Moto were plainly terrified, and, as the trembling and rumbling ceased, they exclaimed with awe and fear. Ichi held himself in hand, but his mouth sagged.

"Always comes the strange noise, and then the shake," he said to Martin. There was the hint of a quiver in his voice. "Out of the deep place, they come--like the struggles of Evil Ones!"

He broke off to speak sharply to his men, bracing them with words.

"They are of much ignorance," he continued to Martin. "They have much fear. They know a silly story their mothers have told them, about the Evil Ones calling from the deep pit; it is a--what you say?--a folk story of the j.a.panese. These men are of ignorance. But we gentlemen know it is of absurdness, and most untrue. It is a story of great unscientificness."

Ichi rolled the last word off his tongue with difficult triumph.

"Unscientificness," was evidently the club his Western education gave him, with which to combat the inbred superst.i.tion of centuries. But Martin saw it was a straw club.

But if Ichi were frightened, he mastered his fear.

"It will, perhaps, be some time till the next shake," he told Martin.

"We must haste. You shall follow me, please? And recall, as we walk, that Moto is but a pace behind you, and in fine readiness."

He chattered peremptory words to his followers. One of the sailors picked up a lantern, Moto stepped behind Martin, and Ichi lifted the other lantern and stepped toward the cave mouth.

"You might look well at the sky, dear Mr. Blake," he leered over his shoulder at Martin. "Who may say when you will see it again?"

But Martin was in no mood to be frightened. Indeed, if he had put his hot thoughts into words, he would have replied to the sinister hint by inviting Ichi to take _his_ last look at daylight. He did look at the sky, but it was for another purpose than bidding farewell to sunlight.

He brought his gaze down to the waters of the bay.

The _Coha.s.set_ was quiet, lying peacefully on the easy water. Figures on her deck were plainly visible. Martin saw the bow-legged lieutenant standing on the p.o.o.p, staring at the group on the beach. He saw more.

The tide had swung the vessel around during the past few moments. She now lay broadside on to the beach. From a cabin port, he saw a bit of fluttering white. A lump rose in his throat. It was Ruth, he knew, waving him good-by. Dear Ruth! Yes, it was farewell! Farewell to life, perhaps, and to love, to this wonderful love that made him almost happy in his misery. The thought of his sweetheart cooped up in that little room with the stricken blind man, with only her resourceful wit and high courage to combat the leaguering terrors, steeled his resolve.

He would play his part, he vowed to himself, no matter what the price he payed. G.o.d grant that his shipmates be enabled to play their part!

"Ah--we wait, Mr. Blake!" came Ichi's voice, and he was suddenly conscious that Moto's hand was pressing his shoulder.

Ichi was already inside, lantern held high. As Martin stepped for the opening, he cast a swift, sidelong glance down the beach, toward the big-mouthed cave. He saw nothing--which was what he expected.

"I must have been mistaken," he thought. "It must have been a trick of imagination."

He brushed past the man who had the watch-tackle coiled over a shoulder, and fell in behind Ichi. The last sound he heard from the outer world was the clear, vibrant sound of the ship's bell. Five bells!

CHAPTER XIX

THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS

During the voyage Martin had listened to many discussions between Little Billy and Captain Dabney concerning the formation of Fire Mountain, and their descriptions of the strange features of the island had made him impatient to see with his own eyes the grotesque sculptures, and with his own feet explore the mysterious caverns.

In some long past age, argued the captain, the volcano had erupted during the Arctic winter, and the flowing lava had been quickly chilled by the intense cold, and in the hardening formed the odd sculpting and the numberless caves. But, urged the captain, this lava cloak could not be very thick, and while the caves existed from base to summit and all the way around the mountain, it was unlikely that any of them penetrated into the heart of the mountain.

Little Billy disagreed. He cited John Winters's log in disproof; and he and Martin made plans to thoroughly explore the Island. The prospect charmed Martin. He felt he could hardly wait to reach Fire Mountain beach, and enter the gloomy depths through the portal of the Elephant Head on his errand of discovery.

And here at last he was on the very beach, stepping through the very opening! How different was reality from his bright dreams? Instead of friendly company, he was surrounded by alien, hostile figures; instead of Ruth's little hand snuggling confidingly in his, his arms were bound behind him; instead of inspecting his path with carefree, curious gaze, he looked about him with eyes of desperation.

He had little interest in discovery as he stepped through the Elephant Head. The details of the physical appearance of the pa.s.sageway were sharply impressed upon his mind, but they were subconscious impressions. His active mind was at the moment wholly concerned with his arms. They ached cruelly. Would they fail him? When he jerked them free, would he be able to use them? Or would they drop numb and useless by his sides? No, he decided after cautious experiment, they were not numbed. He could wriggle his fingers easily.

Ichi walked first, then Martin, the grim Moto next, and the four sailors trailed behind, the last man carrying the second lantern. The gallery they traversed was a deep fissure in the black rock, of uneven height and width. The walls narrowed until they could hardly squeeze through, and then widened until the lanterns' rays failed to reveal them; at times Martin had to bend his head to pa.s.s beneath the low roof; again the roof was lost in the gloom.

After a few steps, the sand underfoot gave place abruptly to a floor of hard, smooth lava rock. The gallery twisted, and the thin shaft of daylight from the entrance was lost. The way sloped gently upward.

The lanterns waged but a feeble battle against the darkness; Martin felt he was being crushed by that heavy, intense gloom. Their steps echoed upon the gla.s.slike, slippery rock underfoot.

Soon Martin was sensible of a sharp rise in temperature. There was a strong draft in the pa.s.sageway, and a hot, smelly air blew against his face, and ruffled his hair. And now he was also conscious of the low moaning, a vast, spine-p.r.i.c.kling moaning like the protest of a giant in pain, that came out of the darkness ahead.

They wound this way and that. Martin had lost count of the steps, but he thought they must have gone sixty or seventy yards into the mountain. They pa.s.sed an opening, but it was on the left hand.

The whaleman's directions were in Martin's mind: "4 starboard--windy cave." That must mean the fourth opening on the right hand. The cave of winds. Ichi said that was where the "deep place" was located. This horrible moaning must come from there. Ichi's "deep place" must be Winters's "bottomless hole"; the weird moaning must be the "Voice" that called the conscience-stricken Silva to his doom.

In quick succession they pa.s.sed three openings on the right hand. The hot wind blew more strongly; it was a moisture-laden breeze and Martin's clothes were damp. Suddenly the pa.s.sage angled obliquely. A few steps more and Ichi stopped. Over his head Martin saw the yawning mouth of the windy cave.

It was a large opening, and the agitated air rushed out through it as though expelled by a giant fan. The air smelled and tasted evilly of gas and sulphur. The moaning came with the air; it seemed to come from below, from an immense distance.

The group cl.u.s.tered at the mouth of the cave, and the two lanterns, held high, beat back the gloom for a few yards. Ichi shouted orders to his men, and his words were hardly audible above the deep, rhythmic moan that rose steadily from somewhere beneath their feet. Martin peered into the cavern; it was huge, he knew, but he could not even guess its dimensions.

But it was not the length or breadth of the windy cave that fastened his regard. It was the depth. There, at his feet, plainly revealed by the lanterns' light, was the "deep place," the "bottomless hole." It was a crack in the floor, its width and length lost in the gloom. Its near edge was but a couple of feet inside the cavern entrance. It was from this half revealed gaping slit that the wind came rushing; it was from somewhere in that hole, down, down, an immeasurable distance, that the eerie wailing came.

The lanterns revealed white vapors swirling upward out of the hole.

Everything was wet, water dripped from overhead, the black walls glistened with moisture, underfoot was wet and slippery as a waxed floor. Martin's clothes were wet through.

The four sailors huddled fearfully together, peering into the chasm.

Ichi's orders finally aroused them to action. The man with the tackle slipped it from his shoulder, and, with the aid of another, overhauled it. Martin had supposed the tackle was to be used in recovering the treasure, but now he saw it was intended for another purpose. This was not Ichi's first visit to the cave of winds, and he came prepared.

The opening in which they stood was near the left hand wall of the windy cave. A ledge, no more than six feet wide at the widest, ran between the wall and the edge of the pit. It sloped towards the gaping hole, and it was wet and shining like the walls. Martin could see it must be a most treacherous footing, and he knew from the words of the code--"windy cave--2 port--aloft"--that they must travel that dangerous path.

It was here, on this ledge, that the blocks and tackle were to be used.

The man who carried the second lantern, took the head block in his free hand, and stepped onto the ledge. He sidled along, hugging the wall, dragging the rope behind him.

A few feet inside he crept past the first opening in the wall. A score of feet beyond, man and lantern melted into the wall, and Martin knew the second opening was reached. In a moment, man and lantern reappeared, and the fellow sang out.