CHAPTER V
THE TORRENT SWEEPING UNDER THE MOUNTAINS
The boat drifted on. The light given by the aurora and the low moonseemed to grow fainter; and as I looked behind I saw that the distantglow from the volcanic fires had become more brilliant in theincreasing darkness. The sides of the channel grew steeper, until atlast they became rocky precipices, rising to an unknown height. Thechannel itself grew narrower, till from a width of two miles it hadcontracted to a tenth of those dimensions; but with this lesseningwidth the waters seemed to rush far more swiftly. Here I driftedhelplessly, and saw the gloomy, rocky cliffs sweep past me as I washurled onward on the breast of the tremendous flood. I was in despair.The fate of Agnew had prepared me for my own, and I was only thankfulthat my fate, since it was inevitable, would be less appalling. Deathseemed certain, and my chief thought now was as to the moment when itwould come. I was prepared. I felt that I could meet it calmly,sternly, even thankfully; far better was a death here amid the roar ofwaters than at the hands of those abhorrent beings by whose treacherymy friend had fallen.
As I went on, the precipices rose higher and seemed to overhang, thechannel grew narrower, the light grew fainter, until at last allaround me grew dark. I was floating at the bottom of a vast chasm,where the sides seemed to rise precipitously for thousands of feet,where neither watery flood nor rocky wall was visible, and where, farabove, I could see the line of sky between the summits of the cliffs,and watch the glowing stars. And as I watched them there came to methe thought that this was my last sight on earth, and I could onlyhope that the life which was so swiftly approaching its end might liveagain somewhere among those glittering orbs. So I thought; and withthese thoughts I drifted on, I cannot tell how long, until at lengththere appeared a vast black mass, where the open sky above meterminated, and where the lustre of the stars and the light of theheavens were all swallowed up in utter darkness.
This, then, I thought, is the end. Here, amid this darkness, I mustmake the awful plunge and find my death I fell upon my knees in thebottom of the boat and prayed. As I knelt there the boat drew nearer,the black mass grew blacker. The current swept me on. There were nobreakers; there was no phosphorescent sparkle of seething waters, andno whiteness of foam. I thought that I was on the brink of sometremendous cataract a thousand times deeper than Niagara; some fallwhere the waters plunged into the depths of the earth; and where,gathering for the terrific descent, all other movements--all dashingsand writhings and twistings--were obliterated and lost in the oneoverwhelming onward rush. Suddenly all grew dark--dark beyond allexpression; the sky above was in a moment snatched from view; I hadbeen flung into some tremendous cavern; and there, on my knees, withterror in my heart, I waited for death.
The moments passed, and death delayed to come. The awful plunge wasstill put off; and though I remained on my knees and waited long,still the end came not. The waters seemed still, the boat motionless.It was borne upon the surface of a vast stream as smooth as glass; butwho could tell how deep that stream was, or how wide? At length I rosefrom my knees and sank down upon the seat of the boat, and tried topeer through the gloom. In vain. Nothing was visible. It was the veryblackness of darkness. I listened, but heard nothing save a deep,dull, droning sound, which seemed to fill all the air and make itall tremulous with its vibrations. I tried to collect my thoughts. Irecalled that old theory which had been in my mind before this, andwhich I had mentioned to Agnew. This was the notion that at each polethere is a vast opening; that into one of them all the waters of theocean pour themselves, and, after passing through the earth, come outat the other pole, to pass about its surface in innumerable streams.It was a wild fancy, which I had laughed at under other circumstances,but which now occurred to me once more, when I was overwhelmedwith despair, and my mind was weakened by the horrors which I hadexperienced; and I had a vague fear that I had been drawn into thevery channel through which the ocean waters flowed in their course tothat terrific, that unparalleled abyss. Still, there was as yet nosign whatever of anything like a descent, for the boat was on evenkeel, and perfectly level as before, and it was impossible for me totell whether I was moving swiftly or slowly, or standing perfectlystill; for in that darkness there were no visible objects by whichI could find out the rate of my progress; and as those who go up inballoons are utterly insensible of motion, so was I on those calmbut swift waters.
At length there came into view something which arrested my attentionand engrossed all my thoughts. It was faint glow that at first caughtmy gaze; and, on turning to see it better, I saw a round red spotglowing like fire. I had not seen this before. It looked like the moonwhen it rises from behind clouds, and glows red and lurid from thehorizon; and so this glowed, but not with the steady light of themoon, for the light was fitful, and sometimes flashed into a balefulbrightness, which soon subsided into a dimmer lustre. New alarm arosewithin me, for this new sight suggested something more terrible thananything that I had thus far thought of. This, then, I thought, was tobe the end of my voyage; this was my goal--a pit of fire, into which Ishould be hurled! Would it be well, I thought, to wait for such afate, and experience such a death-agony? Would it not be better for meto take my own life before I should know the worst? I took my pistoland loaded it, so as to be prepared, but hesitated to use it until myfate should be more apparent. So I sat, holding my pistol, prepared touse it, watching the light, and awaiting the time when the glowingfires should make all further hope impossible. But time passed, andthe light grew no brighter; on the contrary, it seemed to growfainter. There was also another change. Instead of shining before me,it appeared more on my left. From this it went on changing itsposition until at length it was astern. All the time it continued togrow fainter, and it seemed certain that I was moving away from itrather than toward it. In the midst of this there occurred a newthought, which seemed to account for this light--this was, that itarose from these same volcanoes which had illuminated the northern skywhen I was ashore, and followed me still with their glare. I had beencarried into this darkness, through some vast opening which now laybehind me, disclosing the red volcano glow, and this it was thatcaused that roundness and resemblance to the moon. I saw that I wasstill moving on away from that light as before, and that its changingposition was due to the turning of the boat as the water drifted italong, now stern foremost, now sidewise, and again bow foremost. Fromthis it seemed plainly evident that the waters had borne me into somevast cavern of unknown extent, which went under the mountains--asubterranean channel, whose issue I could not conjecture. Was this thebeginning of that course which should ultimately become a plunge deepdown into some unutterable abyss? or might I ever hope to emerge againinto the light of day--perhaps in some other ocean--some land of iceand frost and eternal night? But the old theory of the flow of waterthrough the earth had taken hold of me and could not be shaken off. Iknew some scientific men held the opinion that the earth's interior isa mass of molten rock and pent-up fire, and that the earth itself hadonce been a burning orb, which had cooled down at the surface; yet,after all, this was only a theory, and there were other theories whichwere totally different. As a boy I had read wild works of fictionabout lands in the interior of the earth, with a sun at the centre,which gave them the light of a perpetual day. These, I knew, were onlythe creations of fiction; yet, after all, it seemed possible that theearth might contain vast hollow spaces in its interior--realms ofeternal darkness, caverns in comparison with which the hugest caves onthe surface were but the tiniest cells. I was now being borne on tothese. In that case there might be no sudden plunge, after all. Thestream might run on for many thousand miles through this terrificcavern gloom, in accordance with natural laws; and I might thus live,and drift on in this darkness, until I should die a lingering death ofhorror and despair.
There was no possible way of forming any estimate as to speed. All wasdark, and even the glow behind was fading away; nor could I make anyconjecture whatever as to the size of the channel. At the opening ithad been contracted and narro
w; but here it might have expanded itselfto miles, and its vaulted top might reach almost to the summit ofthe lofty mountains. While sight thus failed me, sound was equallyunavailing, for it was always the same--a sustained and unintermittentroar, a low, droning sound, deep and terrible, with no variationsof dashing breakers or rushing rapids or falling cataracts. Vaguethoughts of final escape came and went; but in such a situation hopecould not be sustained. The thick darkness oppressed the soul; andat length even the glow of the distant volcanoes, which had beengradually diminishing, grew dimmer and fainter, and finally faded outaltogether. That seemed to me to be my last sight of earthly things.After this nothing was left. There was no longer for me such a thingas sight; there was nothing but darkness--perpetual and eternal night.I was buried in a cavern of rushing waters, to which there would be noend, where I should be borne onward helplessly by the resistless tideto a mysterious and an appalling doom.
The darkness grew so intolerable that I longed for something to dispelit, if only for a moment. I struck a match. The air was still, and theflame flashed out, lighting up the boat and showing the black wateraround me. This made me eager to see more. I loaded both barrels ofthe rifle, keeping my pistol for another purpose, and then fired oneof them. There was a tremendous report, that rang in my ears like ahundred thunder-volleys, and rolled and reverberated far along, anddied away in endless echoes. The flash lighted up the scene for aninstant, and for an instant only; like the sudden lightning, itrevealed all around. I saw a wide expanse of water, black as ink--aStygian pool; but no rocks were visible, and it seemed as though Ihad been carried into a subterranean sea.
I loaded the empty barrel and waited. The flash of light had revealednothing, yet it had distracted my thoughts, and the work of reloadingwas an additional distraction. Anything was better than inaction. Idid not wish to waste my ammunition, yet I thought that an occasionalshot might serve some good purpose, if it was only to afford me somerelief from despair.
And now, as I sat with the rifle in my hands, I was aware of asound--new, exciting, different altogether from the murmur ofinnumerable waters that filled my ears, and in sharp contrast withthe droning echoes of the rushing flood. It was a sound that spoke oflife. I heard quick, heavy pantings, as of some great living thing;and with this there came the noise of regular movements in the water,and the foaming and gurgling of waves. It was as though some living,breathing creature were here, not far away, moving through thesemidnight waters; and with this discovery there came a new fear--thefear of pursuit. I thought that some sea-monster had scented me inmy boat, and had started to attack me. This new fear aroused me toaction. It was a danger quite unlike any other which I had ever known;yet the fear which it inspired was a feeling that roused me to action,and prompted me, even though the coming danger might be as sure asdeath, to rise against it and resist to the last. So I stood up withmy rifle and listened, with all my soul in my sense of hearing. Thesounds arose more plainly. They had come nearer. They were immediatelyin front. I raised my rifle and took aim. Then in quick succession tworeports thundered out with tremendous uproar and interminable echoes,but the long reverberations were unheeded in the blaze of sudden lightand the vision that was revealed. For there full before me I saw,though but for an instant, a tremendous sight. It was a vast monster,moving in the waters against the stream and toward the boat. Its headwas raised high, its eyes were inflamed with a baleful light, itsjaws, opened wide, bristled with sharp teeth, and it had a long neckjoined to a body of enormous bulk, with a tail that lashed all thewater into foam. It was but for an instant that I saw it, and thenwith a sudden plunge the monster dived, while at the same moment allwas as dark as before.
Full of terror and excitement, I loaded my rifle again and waited,listening for a renewal of the noise. I felt sure that the monster,balked of his prey, would return with redoubled fury, and that Ishould have to renew the conflict. I felt that the dangers of thesubterranean passage and of the rushing waters had passed away, andthat a new peril had arisen from the assault of this monster of thedeep. Nor was it this one alone that was to be dreaded. Where one was,others were sure to be; and if this one should pass me by it wouldonly leave me to be assailed by monsters of the same kind, and thesewould probably increase in number as I advanced farther into thisrealm of darkness. And yet, in spite of these grisly thoughts, Ifelt less of horror than before, for the fear which I had was nowassociated with action; and as I stood waiting for the onset andlistening for the approach of the enemy, the excitement that ensuedwas a positive relief from the dull despair into which I had sunk buta moment before.
Yet, though I waited for a new attack, I waited in vain. The monsterdid not come back. Either the flash and the noise had terrified him,or the bullets had hit him, or else in his vastness he had beenindifferent to so feeble a creature as myself; but whatever may havebeen the cause, he did not emerge again out of the darkness andsilence into which he had sunk. For a long time I stood waiting; thenI sat down, still watchful, still listening, but without any result,until at length I began to think that there was no chance of any newattack. Indeed, it seemed now as though there had been no attack atall, but that the monster had been swimming at random without anythought of me, in which case my rifle-flashes had terrified him morethan his fearful form had terrified me. On the whole this incidenthad greatly benefited me. It had roused me from my despair. I grewreckless, and felt a disposition to acquiesce in whatever fate mighthave in store for me.
And now, worn out with fatigue and exhausted from long watchfulnessand anxiety, I sank down in the bottom of the boat and fell into adeep sleep.