CHAPTER XIV.
THE SUBTERRANEAN RIVER.
The sudden shooting of the cataract, the wild plunge into the water beneath, had taken away their breath, and neither Max nor Ibrahim was able to speak.
Instinctively, the three men caught hold tightly of the sides of the dugout, and it was well that they did so, and maintained their grip like grim death.
The boat rolled over and over, constantly righting itself, and its occupants got more baths in a few minutes than they cared for.
They found the water quite warm, which was some consolation, for had it been icy cold they would have been unable to retain their hold upon the boat.
How the water came tumbling down! All sorts of strange noises were made in its descent.
To Max and Ibrahim it seemed that ten thousand peals of thunder had impressed themselves on the tympanum of their ears. The Arab might have been a statue of marble.
He clutched the boat with both hands, but his features were as rigid as death. He had his eyes and mouth closed tightly, and had it not been for the swelling of his bosom he might have been thought dead.
Every time the boat was submerged it was carried further away from the cataract, and in a very few minutes—but the few minutes seemed an eternity—the water grew calmer and the boat more steady.
Then it was that they opened their eyes.
“Am I blind?” asked Ibrahim.
“Am I?” echoed Max.
The Arab was asked if he could see anything, and he answered in the negative.
“Then we are blind!” Max solemnly asserted.
“Why so?”
“We cannot see.”
“True.”
“Is not that sufficient evidence?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because we may be underground.”
“You mean——?”
“That we are on the breast of a subterranean river, flowing under the desert.”
“You mean it?”
“Is it not as probable as that we are all blind?”
“Perhaps so.”
The water was as calm as a stagnant pool. Scarcely a ripple passed over its surface.
And yet the boat was borne along quietly and slowly.
Max had recovered his good spirits, and with them his appetite.
“I am hungry.”
“So am I.”
“Let us refresh.”
Fortunately the packages of food were all incased in waterproof covering, a precaution which should always be taken by explorers. One of the packages was unfastened from the Arab’s back, and a thoroughly good repast was partaken by all three.
“I feel ever so much braver,” said Ibrahim.
“Yes, there is a great satisfaction in having a full stomach.”
“How do you feel, Selim?”
The man groaned, wearily, and in a quaint manner told his master that he felt bad.
“I shall die,” he said, “and I don’t want to do so. Before I ate salt with your excellency I wanted to die, but now—I don’t like it at all.”
The Arab had been so miserable that all terror had been removed from the thought of death. His appetite satisfied, his love of life grew stronger, and the very thought of his impending fate was horrible.
“Hold my hand,” suddenly exclaimed Max.
“What are you going to do?”
“Never mind; I want to stand up, and this confounded boat is so shaky I am afraid I’ll fall over into the water.”
Ibrahim grasped Max around the legs, while Selim held one hand.
Max raised the other above his head.
He was trying if he could touch anything which would satisfy him that they were really drifting through a tunnel.
But he could not reach anything. If he really were in a subterranean cave or passage, the roof was too lofty for him to reach.
On went the boat, its speed gradually increasing.
Its occupants were victims of fate.
They were without paddle or oar, and had positively no means of guiding or directing the boat.
Ibrahim put his hand into the water, and exclaimed:
“It is hot!”
Max repeated the experiment, and found that the water was many degrees warmer than it had been.
“What do you make of it?” Max asked.
“That the air being more confined causes the water to be warmer.”
“Absurd! It would be the exact opposite of that. The water ought to be colder.”
“What is your theory?”
“We are approaching a boiling spring.”
“That is a pleasant reflection—see, can you discern anything?”
Max looked all around, but failed to see anything.
“Am I imagining a rosy tint in the distance?”
“Excellency, pasha, bey!” exclaimed Selim, utterly bewildered as to his choice of titles.
“What is it, Selim?”
“Fire!”
“Where?”
“Right ahead!”
All three looked in the direction the boat was drifting, and saw unmistakable evidences of a big fire.
“Klatchee was right, the water runs to the fire,” said Max.
“We are not blind, are we?”
“No; see the falls. Jewilikins, what beauty!”
The light from the fire was now so great that they could see the walls and roof of the immense tunnel they were in.
The rocks glistened as if bestudded with millions of gems; huge stalactites hung from the roof, each one like a glittering diamond or dazzling emerald.
The water was a river of precious stones, for every gem, every stalactite, each piece of quartz, was reflected in the clear, pellucid stream, giving it the appearance of a sheet of glass besprinkled with gems of the greatest value.
“The palace of Aladdin contained not so many gems!” Ibrahim exclaimed.
“I wish this was in America and belonged to me,” said Max.
“Why?”
“I would make millions out of it.”
“Inshallah! Isn’t it hot?”
The perspiration poured from them in pints.
They steamed as the heat dried their wet clothes, and, as the vapor arose, it acted like a prism, and made innumerable rainbows in the cave.
“Better be drowned than burned,” said Ibrahim. “I shall jump overboard.”
“And be boiled,” laughed Max, who had just put his hand into the water and felt that the skin had been taken off.
Ibrahim put down his hand, but gave a shriek, weird and unearthly, as he found the water was many degrees hotter than human flesh could stand.
The heat was getting unbearable, but escape there was none.
“Ib, old fellow, I brought you to this.”
“By Allah! it is not so.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, old chap. Uncle Sherif suggested it.”
“But he did not know——”
“Did you?”
“No, but——”
“Well, then, how can you be responsible?”
“What are we to do?”
“Say our prayers and die.”
“I should like—you won’t mind, will you, Ib?—it is a custom—I should like to shake hands with you.”
“You silly fellow, give me your hand. You feel better now?”
“Yes—and yours, Selim. We are all in the same boat.”
They were nearly suffocated.
The air was filled with sulphur.
“Throw your coat over your head, Max, and let us die like men.”
The three hastily muffled up their faces and awaited death.
Each mumbled something—perhaps their prayers.
“I shall soon be with you, father,” Max said.
“Poor Girzilla! how bright life seemed by your side,” were the last words Max heard Ibrahim utter, as he muffled up his face.
Selim called on Allah, and with Oriental indifference waited the solution of the great mystery of the hereafter.
The boat began to rock violently. Something was agitating the water.
“Good-by, Ib,” Max called out, but there was no answer.
The Persian was unconscious.
A strange, nervous fear took possession of Max.
How can it be accounted for?
He was afraid the boat would capsize, and he would be drowned.
And as he clutched the side of the boat with tenacious grip, he prayed that he might not fall overboard, and yet he felt certain his life would be ended by fire in a few minutes.
It is recorded by one of the great English generals who was in India at the time of the mutiny—1859—that a sepoy on his way to execution, was scared at the thought of accidental death.
The sentence had been, that he was to be tied to the muzzle of a cannon, and blown to pieces.
Horrible as the death was to be, the man saw, or fancied he saw, an English soldier level his gun at him.
He became hysterical.
His shrieks rent the air.
He was asked what had so suddenly unnerved him.
He pointed to the soldier, who was only practicing the manual of arms, and gasped out nervously that he was afraid the gun might go off and he would be killed.
And yet ten minutes later that very man assisted his executioners to strap him to the cannon which was to blow him into eternity.
It was so with Max.
He had nerved himself for death in the flames to which the boat was speeding, but he was afraid he might fall overboard and be drowned.
Selim sat as rigid as stone.
Save the movement of his chest no sign of life was perceptible.
As if by magic the air became cooler, the boat rocked less violently, there was but a slight rumbling to be heard, but in its place a sizzing, as if gas was being forced through an open pipe.
“What does it mean?” thought Max. “The end has come. Good-by, world—good-by.”