CHAPTER VI.
THE LAND OF ETERNAL TWILIGHT.
Crack! The Yankee’s revolver spoke viciously, and the foremost, with a shuddering death-sob, dropped in his tracks.
Two others, stumbling over his prostrate form, also fell to Haverly’s unerring aim; whereupon the rest, gibbering savagely, paused in their advance, seeming to be undecided whether to resume the attack or no.
At that instant, whilst they still hesitated, and the American was hoping that they would retire, Garth—aroused from his swoon by the din—sat up.
One glimpse he caught of the nightmare-like forms clustered beyond the doorway, then a terrified cry burst from his lips.
“Great Heavens! What devils!”
He leapt to his feet, and at that, as though aroused to fresh fury by his movement, the river-creatures burst en masse through the doorway.
Never will Garth forget that terrible moment!
Often, long afterwards, he would awake, trembling in every limb, from some hideous dream, wherein he was once more at close grips with the loathsome inhabitants of the subterranean river.
The whole thing was a nightmare of glaring eyes and grabbing, misshapen limbs, and through it all the inventor, scarcely yet recovered from his long period of insensibility, was conscious of but one thing, the intermittent cracking of the millionaire’s weapons.
The turret was filled with smoke, through which the ghastly forms of the attackers loomed monstrous and terrible.
Suddenly the sound of Haverly’s revolvers ceased: his last chamber was empty!
But the creatures had had enough. Eight of their number lay dead, while two or three of the rest were badly wounded, and, obeying a common impulse, they dragged themselves through the doorway, shambled across the deck, and plunged overboard.
“Thank Heaven!” Haverly’s voice was a trifle shaky as he mopped his smoke-grimed brow.
“Amen!” Garth responded fervently; then, fearing that his nerve would give way unless he exerted himself, he applied his energies to the restoration of his unconscious friends; while the Yankee, dragging the hideous relics of the narrowly-averted disaster to the rail, flung them far out into the stream.
Soon Garth had the satisfaction of seeing his three friends once more upon their feet. Badly shaken they were by their terrible plunge over the cataract, yet thankful that they had been spared the ordeal which had fallen to the lot of Garth and the Yankee.
“I guess there’s no call to make a fuss,” the latter said as they crowded round him. “I couldn’t have been knocked about so badly as you, or I wouldn’t have come to in time to check those brutes.”
“Thank God you did!” the scientist cried. “This must be a warning to us in the future. Knowing that this subterranean river contains such monstrous creatures, we must be ever upon our guard, lest upon another occasion they should succeed in overcoming us.”
His listeners shuddered at his words.
Though none but Silas and the inventor had seen the river-creatures—mud devils, Garth called them—yet the latter’s vivid description of the things had aroused in the three an unspeakable horror and loathing.
For a week the Seal remained aground on the mud-bank, while Garth and the engineer, often up to the waist in water, thoroughly overhauled her, fixing duplicate propellers in place of those broken, and replacing the shattered glass with new panes from the store-room.
Numerous minor damages which the Seal had sustained in her leap they also repaired.
And over them, while they worked, Haverly and the baronet took turns on guard, but no further sign came from the river-creatures, save that once a hideous head rose out of the mud fifty feet from the Seal, to vanish like a flash ere Seymour, who was on guard at the time, could draw trigger.
No attack followed this appearance, however, and at length all was completed. The last rivet had been driven into place, the last bolt fixed, and nothing remained but to get the Seal afloat once more.
Grasping the wheel, Haverly signalled for full speed astern; the propellers began to revolve, and, slowly but surely, the submarine glided off the mud-bank into deep water. An instant’s pause while the engines were reversed, and then the Seal moved forward on the bosom of the subterranean river at ten knots to the hour. Between the heaving mud-flats she glided, from the surfaces of which arose a nauseous odour of decaying matter, and a dense, malarial vapour ascended, to lose itself in the inky darkness that veiled the cavern roof.
For here neither walls nor roof were visible. Nought met the eye but the water—wherein slimy water-snakes writhed and twisted—and the seething mud. Scarce a wave rippled the placid surface of the stream, save those occasioned by the passage of the Seal, and not a sound broke the profound stillness of the vast cavern but the purring note of the engines.
So two days went by, with nothing to disturb the dreary monotony of the depressing voyage. Ever the same muddy, grey prospect stretched before the explorers, and they had begun to wonder whether they should ever find a way out of this loathsome river, when something happened.
Haverly was at the wheel, the others being below, engaged in their several duties, when a shout brought them rushing into the turret.
“Look!” cried the American, pointing ahead.
The Seal had passed out of the river, and, before them, shimmering in the rays of the searchlight, rolled a vast, subterranean sea.
To starboard, a cable length away, a low, sandy shore was visible, clothed almost to the water’s edge with a weird and curious vegetation which sparkled and gleamed with a dazzling lustre.
Flinging open the door, Seymour stepped out on deck, quickly followed by Garth and the professor.
“The heart of the globe!” the latter cried excitedly. “A subterranean world! My friends, we have the honour to be the discoverers of an unknown world. Steer her close in, Silas; I am curious to know what manner of growths those are.”
There was cause for the old scientist’s excitement. An absolutely unknown world lay before them, untrodden—for aught they knew—by any human foot, a world whose stupendous size was veiled as yet from their knowledge by its weird and ghostly twilight.
Above them the gloom hung thick as a funeral pall, a dense eternal canopy of midnight darkness.
How far down they were beneath the earth’s surface they dared not think. Sufficient for them to know that, somewhere above them, perhaps thousands upon thousands of feet, was the vast dome which formed the inner roof of this subterranean world. They could but stare upward into the darkness, open-mouthed, and marvel at the immensity of it all.
The weird growths ashore puzzled them not a little, even Mervyn for a while being perplexed to give a name to the things. Fleshy as a cactus, and having a somewhat similar branching habit of growth, each glowed throughout its entire length, as though an electric bulb were hidden within its pulpy heart.
The things were weirdly beautiful as they towered there—many of them over twenty feet in height—flashing a rainbow-hued challenge to the great arc lamp of the Seal. They were Nature’s own illuminants, without which this underworld would have been dark as Hades.
Suddenly a cry came from Mervyn.
“I have it!” he cried. “They are fungi—luminous fungi!”
“Fungi!” exclaimed his comrades in a breath.
“Luminous fungi!” repeated the scientist triumphantly, “but of such vast size that they more nearly resemble trees. If we ever succeed in making our way back to civilisation our news will astonish the world.”
“I don’t know,” Garth murmured. “It seems to me that you will have great difficulty in getting anyone to believe your statements. For instance, who will believe that the interior of the globe is hollow and contains an immense sea, and probably a great continent. See, there is a range of hills.”
It was true. Far away in the distance, their existence betrayed by the glittering vegetation which clothed their slopes, rose a line of hills; and between them and the shore stretched a vast forest of luminous fungi—a gleaming jungle of fleshy growths.
“I’m afraid you’re right, Garth,” said the professor somewhat ruefully, “yet that will not prevent me revealing my knowledge should we ever return.”
“Do you think there is any game in the jungle there, Mervyn?” asked the baronet at this point.
“Probably,” returned the scientist, “but I would not build upon it if I were you, lest you are disappointed. A run ashore will be acceptable to all of us, I expect?”
“Rather!” replied Garth. “See, there’s a little bay into which we might run the vessel.”
Already Silas had sighted the spot the inventor mentioned, and, putting the wheel over, he steered the submarine for the entrance.
Ere long she was lying securely moored to a huge black rock which thrust its scarred surface some feet above the wave-crests; then Haverly and the engineer joined the group on deck, and they fell to discussing the proposed trip ashore.
“We must go well armed,” the baronet said.
“That goes without saying,” replied Haverly, “and I guess yer Uncle Sile ’ud better go along with you to see as you don’t get into trouble. You see, you might get lost in this yer plaguey jungle without the guidance of yer humble.”
“Oh. come, Silas!” Seymour laughingly retorted, “draw it mild, you know.”
“As legal adviser to this yer outfit,” returned Silas drily, “I feel kinder called on to keep an eye on you young fellers.”
“Oh, dry up, you old fraud,” Garth cried, rolling up a pellet of paper and dexterously flipping it on to the tip of the Yankee’s nose.
“See here, sonny,” the latter remarked in mock severity, rubbing his offended nasal organ the while, “I reckon you’re considerable lackin’ in due and proper respect for yer elders. What was yer mommer thinkin’ about to bring you up in such a style? I’m shocked, young feller, real shocked!”
A roar of laughter greeted this quaint speech.
“Well, if you don’t take the proverbial biscuit, Silas,” the engineer said; then a gigantic ripple passed over the water alongside.
“What was that?” Mervyn cried sharply.
Quick as a flash came the answer, but in a terrible and unexpected manner.
A long, lithe, whip-like tentacle, its under-side armed with hundreds of terrible suckers, writhed up over the rail, swayed for an instant high above the Seal, then fell heavily across the deck.
The startling suddenness of this attack paralysed the explorers for a moment, and, ere they could recover their wits, a second great arm hissed upward, and flung its wet and glistening length around the rail.
“A squid!” gasped the Yankee.
As he spoke, a third tentacle wriggled into view, and the Seal listed slightly beneath the grip of those terrible arms.
Recovering from his stupor, Haverly made a dash for the turret; but, ere he could reach it, with a curling snap—for all the world like the crack of a whiplash—a giant feeler coiled about his waist.
High above the deck he was lifted, struggling desperately, yet vainly, against the grip of the suckers which seared his flesh like red-hot iron.
His fearful plight aroused his comrades to a sense of their own peril, and, as two more tentacles flashed over the rail, Seymour leapt into the wheelhouse.
Escaping by a miracle the writhing, groping arms of the cephalopod, and urged to action by the feeble groans of the American—fast becoming exhausted by the unequal struggle—Seymour entered the turret. Snatching down a couple of axes from the rack, he skimmed them towards his friends; then, with a third, he commenced a furious attack upon the nearest tentacle.
Two lusty blows, with all the baronet’s giant strength behind them, and the great arm fell with a whack across the deck, wriggling still, although severed from the monstrous, pulpy body which gave it life. Springing forward, the baronet was about to lop in twain the tentacle which held his friend, when the Seal heeled over, almost flinging him from the deck. With great difficulty he regained his balance; then a cry escaped him. Out of the water alongside came a huge, black body, armed with many more feelers. Slowly it dragged itself, clutching and clawing, over the rail, falling heavily inboard with a shock which threatened to capsize the Seal.
The octopus had come aboard!
There was something so weird, so uncanny in the appearance of the brute; something so diabolical about the writhing, twisting arms, as they groped and waved over the deck, that Seymour stood for an instant, half fascinated.
The creature’s great eyes glared like green lamps, and its parrot-like beak snapped viciously, while from its pulpy body came an overpowering odour of musk.
Suddenly a shrill cry of terror burst from Wilson. One of the great thrashing feelers had gripped him, and, dropping his axe in his deadly fear, the unfortunate engineer strove with all his strength to dislodge the suckers.
As he was dragged slowly towards that terrible beak, an inspiration swept into his brain.
“Quick, Seymour!” he gasped. “Your elephant gun!”
Quick as thought the baronet leapt back into the turret, and took down the great gun from its rack.
Slipping a couple of shells into the breech, he took a quick aim at the great, glaring orbs of the cephalopod, and fired both barrels.
The recoil of the weapon sent him reeling backward against the wheelhouse wall, but he recovered himself in a moment, and sprang forward to note the result of his shot.
The explosive cartridges had almost shattered the monstrous, pulpy body, and the mighty tentacles were feebly beating the deck.
A few strokes with the hatchet quickly freed the two victims, both of whom were more dead than alive by this time.
Carefully they bore them below to their cabins; then, leaving them in the care of the scientist, Garth and Seymour returned to the deck, to clear away the remains of their terrible visitor.
“What a brute!” the inventor exclaimed with a shudder, as he plied his axe upon the ghastly, slippery mass; “if it hadn’t been for that gun of yours, Seymour, he’d have had the lot of us.”
“True enough,” replied the baronet; “but who would have imagined the brute would board us?”
Three hours it took to clear the deck of the mass of jelly-like pulp, Garth chopping it into fragments, which Seymour shovelled over the rail. And even then there was life in the creature, the severed feelers twitching feebly when they were touched. Two of the longest of these latter they measured, finding both to be over twenty feet long.
Two days passed ere the Yankee and Wilson were able to resume their duties, and for long afterwards a great ring of scars about the waist of each testified to the narrowness of their escape from the grip of the giant octopus.
On the third day after this adventure—the explorers could but reckon days by the calendar in this gloomy subterranean world—the engines were once more started, and the Seal soon left the scene of the struggle far behind.
Along the low, sandy shore she sped for many miles, until Seymour, no longer able to restrain his restlessness, announced his intention of going ashore.
“I’m with you,” Garth said, and rushed below to make preparations.
Steering the vessel close inshore, Haverly brought her to. Seymour ran out the gangway, then followed Garth below, returning shortly with a magazine rifle slung over his shoulder, while from his pocket bulged the grim outline of a revolver.
“Who is coming?” he asked.
“I guess I’ll stay and look after the old boat,” returned Silas, and Wilson—still feeling somewhat shaky from his terrible adventure with the great cephalopod—decided to remain with him.
Strapping on a specimen case, the scientist joined Garth and Seymour, and the three, passing over the gangway, stepped ashore.
“Take care,” the engineer called after them.
“Never fear,” was Garth’s cheery reply; and so they departed, light-heartedly, on a trip which was to bring at least two of them face to face with death in its most terrible form, vanishing at length from the sight of their friends amid the towering growths of fungi jungle.
Around them the strange and lustrous growths rose in lavish confusion, the ground between being thickly carpeted with glorious mosses, the flowers of which gleamed like pearls on a background of dark green velvet.
The professor was in raptures over the rare treasures of this subterranean world, and soon his specimen case was packed full as possible, and his pockets were in a like condition.
New beauties dawned upon them with every step they took. Fungi in every fantastic shape towered around, shimmering silver-like through the ghostly twilight.
“It is a land of eternal twilight!” Mervyn exclaimed, pausing for a moment to rest. “Nowhere else would these strange, uncanny fungi grow to advantage; but here, in this dim land, they fulfil a useful mission. See what curious forms some of the growths take!”
Here rose a towering fungus, like nothing so much as a giant hand; there one like an immense mushroom; others there were like spectral palms, but all glowed with a brilliance that was dazzling to the eye.
The baronet, less interested than his companions in these natural beauties, kept a sharp look-out for game of any description, well knowing that fresh meat, were it obtainable, would be a welcome addition to their stores. But the jungle seemed silent as the grave. No form moved amid the fungi, and the scientist was not slow to remark upon this strange absence of life.
“It is very strange,” he said, “that hitherto we have seen neither reptile nor beast. One would have thought that amid these jungles many forms of life would have found a home; yet perhaps this absence of life is a peculiar feature of this weird world?”
“It’s a bit slow,” growled Seymour, “after the forests of the upper world, with their myriads of animals——”
The words died on his lips, as, out of the distance, trembled a weird howl.
“Wolves!” he cried grimly; “we were mistaken about the absence of life, Mervyn,” and, unslinging his rifle, he examined the magazine.
Again that thrilling cry vibrated through the silence, like the wail of a lost soul.
Mervyn paused irresolute, glancing anxiously at his comrades.
“Need we return?” he asked of Seymour. He was longing to penetrate further into this unknown land, yet his natural discretion suggested a speedy return to the safety of the vessel.
“It’s no use turning back now,” Seymour answered, “if the brutes have scented us, they’ll be down upon us before we can reach the boat. So forward, and let each of us keep a sharp look-out for a place where we can stand at bay if necessary.”
For the third time that wolfish howl broke upon the ears of the three comrades, then a grim silence fell once more upon the land.