Part 17 (1/2)
Her voice was blotted out in a mighty crash from the lake. Appalled, I whirled on my heel, just in time to see another huge jet of water rise high in the starlight, another, another, until the entire lake was but a cl.u.s.ter of gigantic geysers exploding a hundred feet in the air, while through them, falling back into the smother of furious foam, great silvery bulks dropped cras.h.i.+ng, one after another.
I don't know how long the incredible vision lasted; the woods roared with the infernal pandemonium, echoed and re-echoed from mountain to mountain; the tree-tops fairly stormed spray, driving it in sheets through the leaves; and the sh.o.r.es of the lake spouted surf long after the last vast, silvery shape had fallen back again into the water.
As my senses gradually recovered, I found myself supporting Mrs. Batt on one arm and the Reverend Dr. Jones upon my bosom. Both had fainted. I released them with a shudder and turned to look for Brown.
Somebody had swooned in his arms, too.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Somebody had swooned in his arms, too.”]
He was not noticing me, and as I approached him I heard him say something resembling the word ”kitten.”
In spite of my demoralization, another fear seized me, and I drew nearer and peered closely at what he was holding so n.o.bly in his arms. It was, as I supposed, Angelica White.
I don't know whether my arrival occultly revived her, for as I stumbled over a tent-peg she opened her blue eyes, and then disengaged herself from Brown's arms.
”Oh, I am _so_ frightened,” she murmured. She looked at me sideways when she said it.
”Come,” said I coldly to Brown, ”let Miss White retire and lie down. This meteoric shower is over and so is the danger.”
He evinced a desire to further soothe and minister to Miss White, but she said, with considerable composure, that she was feeling better; and Brown came unwillingly with me to inspect the heavy artillery lines.
That formidable battery was wrecked, the pieces dismounted and lying tumbled about in their emplacements.
But a vigorous course of cold water in dippers revived them, and we herded them into one tent and quieted them with some soothing prevarication, the details of which I have forgotten; but it was something about a flock of meteors which hit the earth every twelve billion years, and that it was now all over for another such interim, and everybody could sleep soundly with the consciousness of having a.s.sisted at a spectacle never before beheld except by a primordial protoplasmic cell.
Which flattered them, I think, for, seated once more at the base of our tree, presently we heard weird noises from the reconcentrados, like the moaning of the harbour bar.
They slept, the heavy guns, like unawakened engines of destruction all a-row in battery. But Brown and I, fearfully excited, still dazed and bewildered, sat with our fascinated eyes fixed on the lake, asking each other what in the name of miracles it was that we had witnessed and heard.
On one thing we were agreed. A scientific discovery of the most enormous importance awaited our investigation.
This was no time for temporising, for deception, for any species of polite s.h.i.+lly-shallying. We must, on the morrow, tear off our masks and appear before these misguided and feminine victims of our duplicity in our own characters as scientists. We must boldly avow our ident.i.ties and flatly refuse to stir from this spot until the mystery of this astounding lake had been thoroughly investigated.
And so, discussing our policy, our plans for the morrow, and mutually rea.s.suring each other concerning our common ability to successfully defy the heavy artillery, we finally fell asleep.
III
Dawn awoke me, and I sat up in my blanket and aroused Brown.
No birds were singing. It seemed unusual, and I spoke of it to Brown.
Never have I witnessed such a still, strange daybreak. Mountains, woods, and water were curiously silent. There was not a sound to be heard, nothing stirred except the thin veil of vapour over the water, shreds of which were now parting from the sh.o.r.e and steaming slowly upward.
There was, it seemed to me, something slightly uncanny about this lake, even in repose. The water seemed as translucent as a dark crystal, and as motionless as the surface of a mirror. Nothing stirred its placid surface, not a ripple, not an insect, not a leaf floating.
Brown had lugged the pneumatic raft down to the sh.o.r.e where he was now pumping it full: I followed with the paddles, pole, and hydroscope. When the raft had been pumped up and was afloat, we carried the reel of gossamer piano-wire aboard, followed it, pushed off, and paddled quietly through the level cobwebs of mist toward the centre of the lake. From the sh.o.r.e I heard a gruesome noise. It originated under one of the row of tents of the heavy artillery. Medusa, snoring, was an awesome sound in that wilderness and solitude of dawn.
I was uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the centre-plug from the raft and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g into the empty socket the lens of the hydroscope and attaching the battery, while Brown started his sounding; and I was still busy when an exclamation from my companion started me: