The Mummy MEGAPACK®. Lafcadio Hearn
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hidden, though he could still see the moving light playing from the tunnel upon the wall of the vertical shaft. With the minutes that grew fainter. There came up a sharp cry of fright, and immediately the yellow glow vanished. The still menacing darkness of the centuries swooped once more, like the drop of a hawk, over the caverns.
With his back to the sun, the sailor listened intently at the edge, waiting for some explanation of that sudden shout and the succeeding silence. He called once or twice, but the sound echoed back to him raucously, mockingly. Presently apprehensions of the green thing, that had lain dormant for a time, swept over him.
His imagination pictured Rill in the grasp of some awful being, some green-tentacled, green-eyed chimera. That heavy darkness might hide any terror. Then he had a moment wherein common sense dictated that Rill had met with some natural accident; had fallen down a hole or dislodged a fall of rock.
It was good to look up at the placid sea and the two or three islands hazy in the distance, the lazy smoke of their signal-fire, the white birds floating and careering along the shore. The sense of freedom, the absence of the strain of always watching the other man, gave him a sort of pleasure.
He was almost glad that he was alone, and sauntered toward camp. But that act did not seem right; somehow he felt guilty; he felt that he had a duty, difficult and abhorrent, but nevertheless necessary. He went over to the rope and tested the firmness of the peg.
Rill had thrown down the extra torch. The sailor filled a pocket with dry leaves and twigs, enough to light it at the bottom. To slip over the side and descend hand under hand was not difficult. He had had a lifetime of that. But as he went down through the dusk-lit strata to the depths, his fear of that unknown enlarged.
The noise of his descent came back to him from the walls, almost maliciously, he imagined. From the bottom he looked up. He had never seen a sky of so intense a blue, clotted with winking stars. Though he had heard of this, nevertheless he wished that he had not looked up. It lent too much of an air of unreality to the whole undertaking. He sighed relievedly when he found the torch and got it flaring. The stale air smelt of the passage of Rill’s torch. Sweat came out on his forehead, perhaps caused as much by mental as by physical discomfort. He shouted and waited, but no answer came. The passage curved evidently, for he could not see far. Where it passed through soft strata the sides had been shored up with stone work, with great rocks patiently fitted into each other, narrowing toward the top.
He took a step forward and halted. If he could have found the smallest excuse he would have dropped the torch and the whole business. This adventure was trying him in his weakest part. He felt that his scalp was moving, there was a giddy nausea at the pit of his stomach The crux of his hesitation lay in his doubt as to whether there existed a green thing in there or whether Rill had met with a natural accident. Some low instinct of superstitious belief insisted on the former, and years of common sense scoffed.
He nerved himself to go forward somewhat as a swimmer brings himself to the point of the first plunge into water that he fears is cold. With sweat pouring from him he edged into the passage, holding aloft the blazing pine-knot, ready to dash back. After the first slight curve the tunnel straightened to such length that his light did not carry to the end. As he advanced he grew more confident; the action involved in keeping his feet occupied him.
The air grew heavier, his lungs worked as if caught in the stricture of a great snake.
The torch burned lower and redly. Once more he called. This time he was startled by an answer, a dull moan that issued a few feet beyond, from between two great boulders. He stooped over Rill, but could find no signs of harm or violence.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
Rill rolled his head weakly and muttered. He tried it again, muttering the second time plainly enough for the other to hear:
“Be careful—knocked me out—”
Pug’s torch was nearly gone. He stood up and searched for the one that Rill must have dropped. His eyes wandered up the passage, and abruptly held, dilating. He stood woodenly, nerveless with terror.
His pale light glimmered vaguely upon the green thing that half-sat, half-reclined in a heap of earth a few feet from them. In the quivering light the twisted limbs appeared to move and contort. The green skin upon the skull, drawn back until the cruel mouth grinned insanely, the hollowed cheeks, the deep eye-sockets that stared at him, the taut, glistening parchment upon the forehead—these fascinated the sailor so that he could not look away. He expected it to stand over him to point its skinny, withered arm at him or to open its jaws, in a shattering laugh.
He heard a coughing choke behind him, and jumped backward, ramming against the wall of the passage. But it was merely Rill.
“Water,” he was trying to articulate, “Some water.”
Swept from his immobility, Pug acted feverishly. He backed over to Rill. In such, case as this prayer might be efficacious. He remembered one his mother had taught him that invoked God against devils. He recited it quickly and ran his arm around Rills shoulders. Nothing happened; obviously the magic had done its work!
He spelled it out again and backed off, dragging the limp body with one arm while the other held the light upon the green thing, until the returning gloom blotted it out. Then he turned about and, with Rill on his shoulder, strode heavily and hurriedly back. The torch went out and he stumbled along, caroming from side to side, slipping, gasping harshly in the close fetid air.
When he got to the vertical shaft he was forced to lay Rill down and to rest for several moments. The blood-vessels in his neck and head throbbed from the pressure in the lungs. Rill began to talk:
“I was following along the vein in the roof,” he said. “Climbed up on the rock. I saw the green thing. I think the rock wobbled with me, and I fell. I’ll be all right with a drink of water.”
The sailor moved Rill over to the rope and succeeded in knotting it around his shoulders. That was fairly difficult as it was necessary to lift him into the air while he tied. But still, that was easy compared with his next move. He began to climb the rope hand over hand. With Rill weighting the end he mounted painfully inch by inch the long stretch. If he could have rested midway it would have helped, but that was impossible. The skin began to tear from his hands, a numbness entered the arm muscles, so terribly three times he wrapped his legs in the rope and in a way eased the strain, but his strength appeared to evaporate with these rests.
He had been fatigued before he undertook the climb, from the violent work in the vitiated air. The last ten feet drew from him as much energy and pain as the first half of the feat. He became dizzy, black spots moved before his eyes, the rope in his hands appeared as tenuous as a fine thread, and as difficult to grasp. He had climbed to where the rope went over the edge. He would have to spring his body up two feet and catch the rope beyond the edge before he fell back. How easy to coil about the rope and slide again to the bottom!
He considered that for a long time, but he knew that if he fell he would not be able again to get that far. He summoned all his reserve, worked up till one hand was wedged tightly between the rope and the rock, and made the supreme effort. The hand that reached over for the new hold slipped, he began to fall back, the knuckles scraping along the rock. They passed over a ledge, a fissure. He let go the rope and held to that with the ends of his fingers, got the other arm up, and slowly worked his body over.
He lay there on his back, his feet hanging over the shaft, for another period of time. Pain began to enter his skinned hands, a sign of recuperation. There remained the task of pulling up the weak man. The signal fire was nearly out, they had no food on hand, they had found no water.
Dusk was settling before the sailor stood up and essayed to haul on the rope. He brought up a few feet, but the torture in his hands was excruciating. It was common sense, he decided, to wait until he could surely finish the job. Rill, below, was too far gone to protest. Pug mentally could see him hanging there, swaying loosely in the rope, head hanging to his flat chest.
The sailor shuffled over to their dead campfire. There had been scraps on the fish-bones they had thrown away at their midday meal. He needed