Tales of the Wonder Club Volume I Part 23

"I am so far able to free myself from it as to speak with you in the spirit, but I much fear that the sympathy which to some extent must exist between my spirit and the fulsome mask that awaits me in the world above, may so influence the organs of the foul body as to cause it to correspond audibly to the voice of my spirit, and so alarm the victim in whose chamber it sleeps, and scare him into flight.

"Therefore my discourse must be brief. There is no time to be lost. At once ye must commence to stir up the internal fires in this earth's centre, and cause a powerful earthquake. The external crust which these mortals inhabit must crack and gape into chasms. I will lead him into the mountains to-morrow when he will be your prey; till then, farewell."

No sooner had the orator concluded his harangue than I began to feel a curious sensation. It was as if the floor on which I had been lying were lifted up under me, and I felt myself rolling from side to side, much in the same manner as if I were at sea. This motion continued and increased, and was accompanied by a low rumbling sound. After a time this grew louder, and I heard an explosion, and then a heavy crash, as if the mountains were being riven asunder, and were now toppling headlong into the valleys, sweeping away whole villages with a force inconceivable.

The whole chalet rocked like an open boat in a storm. I was panic struck, and trembled in every limb. It was then really true all that I had seen and heard; it was no disordered dream. The gnomes were really at work.

Louder and louder grew the rumbling. Crash followed upon crash. All the inmates of the chalet were aroused, and screams of women and children resounded from every quarter. I sprang to my feet, hurriedly donned my coat and boots, and rushed out of the hut, but my fiendish companion was at my heels.

Upon gaining the outside of the cottage I found the face of the country much changed. Huge crags had been loosened, and tumbled quite close to us. Many chalets had been completely crushed under them, and as far as the eye could see all was one scene of desolation.

The terror and the consternation of my poor hostess was pitiable. She gathered her children together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and remained stupefied with despair.

As for myself, having escaped the danger of being crushed alive, my only thought now was to escape my tormentor in the best way I could. The earthquake was at an end, so I strode on in the direction I had followed on the previous day, taking advantage of the momentary absence of the dwarf, who had entered the hut for some purpose or other, and imagined for a moment that I should not be overtaken. Alas! vain hope; hardly had I proceeded for ten minutes, when I heard steps behind me, and lo! there was the hideous elf running after me on all fours, his physical conformation rendering this mode of progression the easiest. I started, and my blood ran cold.

"What do you want?" I asked, angrily, still striding on.

But it was useless. Raising himself on his short legs, he beckoned to me, and I immediately felt myself spellbound.

"Follow me," he signed with a gesture.

"I do not want a guide," I replied. "I am neither in search of crystals, fossils, nor of shining stones; no, nor even of gold."

"Never mind," he seemed to say; "come all the same; I will show you what the earthquake has done."

"I am much obliged to you; but I have seen enough of the earthquake, and I repeat I do not want a guide."

"I do not want your money; I will follow you for friendship," he appeared to say.

"Not even for friendship," I said; "I prefer to walk alone."

"What!" he intimated, "when you can get a companion for nothing?"

"Don't you see, my good man," said I, "that your presence is a bore to me--that I'd rather be alone?"

"Nevertheless, yesterday evening you were glad enough of a guide, and I asked you for no reward for my trouble," he seemed to say with his eye.

"It is false," I replied; "I did not want a guide. I could have found the hut myself."

"That is ungrateful," he said, in his dumb manner. "Did you not ask me?"

"If I asked you," I replied, "I did so for the sake of not pa.s.sing you without a word; besides, I offered you money, and you refused it. I won't be under any obligation to you," said I. "Here, take your nuggets; I want them not," and I threw them at him. "I'll have nothing to do with one who feigns to be dumb in the daytime, and yet can talk well enough at night."

The cretin gazed scrutinisingly at me for some time, as much as to say, "Ha! ha! my friend, you have overheard my discourse. I thought as much, but no matter; escape me if you can."

He then walked rapidly on in front of me with his short legs, every now and then beckoning to me with his long arms, and I immediately felt myself impelled by a power not my own, and found myself forced to follow the wretch in spite of all my efforts.

"I will not, I will _not_ follow you like a victim to the altar," I cried, straining every nerve to control myself. "Vile gnome, thou shalt _not_ feast on _my_ blood!"

The fiend nodded his huge head slowly with a complacent smile, as if to say, "We shall see, we shall see."

On, and still on, up, further up the mountain, through thick pine forests and gigantic clumps of rock the demon guide led his unresisting prey. Breathless, footsore, over the most impa.s.sable places the relentless fiend magnetically dragged me after him; at a rate, too, that thoroughly surprised me; until, to my horror, I found myself close to a deep chasm formed in the rock by the late earthquake.

The demon halted, and now speaking for the first time since our walk together, he asked with a malicious smile if I desired any fossils or any gold, observing that all sorts of curiosities were to be found down there. He then made a strange gesture with his hand towards my face, and I suddenly perceived I was under a spell.

I had no memory of anything that had happened up to that time. I bore no malice against my guide; on the contrary, he appeared to me my best friend. He did not even seem any longer ugly in my eyes, and when he asked me if I would descend into the chasm, I replied cheerfully.

"Yes; but how shall we manage it?"

"I have brought a rope on purpose," said my friend.

"Bravo!" said I.

He then began to unwind a long rope from his waist, and adjusted it underneath my shoulders.

I then descended gradually, my companion holding the rope and letting it out by degrees, until I had descended a very considerable distance, when he fastened the other end to a stump. I then began chipping out various geological specimens, and experienced an intense delight in my novel situation.

Soon, however, while busily occupied in extracting a bone of an ichthyosaurus, I was interrupted by a cry of many voices from below.

"Secure the victim! Down with him, down with him! Our feast of blood is at hand."

Then followed a hungry roar, as of wild beasts unfed. The charm was broken in an instant, and I awoke to a sense of my awful position. To drop my hammer and clamber up the rope as fast as I could was my first step; but what was my horror, when, on raising my eyes aloft, I descried the fiend in the act of deliberately cutting the rope. How fortunate I happened to look upwards just at that moment.

The rope was already half cut through; in another moment I must have been launched into the abyss, to be devoured by the bloodthirsty monsters below. There was no time to lose; I was desperate, so thrusting one foot into a c.h.i.n.k in the walls of the chasm, I looked about for another, then for some projecting stone to grasp hold of, and thus by slow degrees, at the imminent peril of my life, I climbed up until I gained the ledge of the chasm.

It was a terrific struggle for life. The rope was of immense length, and, deep as I had descended, there was yet an immeasurable gulf below me. The darkness of the chasm prevented the gnome above from seeing his victim, though I could see him well enough. When he severed the rope he knew none other than that I had already been precipitated into the maws of the gnomes below. When, therefore, lacerated and exhausted, I reappeared at the top, the utmost consternation and chagrin were visible in the features of the wretch. Too astonished, perhaps, to think of working another charm upon me, the ogre pounced upon me like a tiger on his prey, and a terrific tussle ensued--a tussle for life and death.

I soon found I was no match for my misshapen, but powerful, adversary. I was soon worsted. Every moment I expected to be my last.

"Can the Almighty allow the fiends to triumph over His own?" I asked myself, in my dying moments.

I offered up a short prayer, and gave myself up for lost. Suddenly a crash. A huge ma.s.s of rock above me had loosened. The demon let go his hold to save himself, but it was too late.

The deformed body of the cretin lay crushed beneath the weight of the enormous fragment.

I myself escaped with but a slight graze on the head and shoulder. Had I been one whit less active, I must have shared the fate of my guide. For a moment I stood rooted to the spot, stupefied, bewildered; then, offering up a prayer of thanksgiving for my miraculous salvation, I departed on my way rejoicing.

The last sounds which rang in my ears were the voices of the hungry gnomes, calling out, "Give us our victim; we famish."

But I heeded them not, and continued my journey with a buoyant step. I had a long and tedious walk before me. At sundown, however, I reached the hotel from which I had started.

My friend, of course, had not arrived, as I had returned before the time specified. I know not how it was, whether from the effects of over-fatigue or excessive fright, but I was seized immediately upon my arrival with a prolonged illness. A leech was sent for, the best that the mountains could produce, and after feeling my pulse and looking at my tongue, shook his head gravely. He asked me the symptoms of my case, and to what I attributed it. I told him the story that I have just retailed to you, gentlemen; but he only shook his head again, and said that I was in a high state of fever, that these ravings were but the offspring of delirium, that I had been deluded by my senses, etc. But I knew better, for previous to meeting with the monster I had never enjoyed better health in my life.

Need the reader be told that at the conclusion of this narrative the professor was greeted with murmurs of applause from his gratified audience?

"Well, Helen," said our artist, to his fair neighbour, "what do you think of the professor's story?"