Part 16 (1/2)
The next moment both were swept right into the gloomy cavernous place, to what was evidently certain death.
CHAPTER NINE.
THE HORRORS OF A SCHLUCHT.
Saxe stood now paralysed with horror, and it was not until Dale had shaken him twice that his fixed, wild manner began to pa.s.s off.
”Stop here,” cried Dale: ”you are too much unnerved to come.”
”Where--where are you going?” cried the lad; and before an answer could be given, he cried: ”Yes; yes, go on: I'm ready.”
”I tell you that you are too much unnerved to venture!” cried Dale angrily. ”Am I to lose you both?”
He turned and hurried out of sight; but he had not gone fifty yards along the narrow ledge into the gloomy crack before he heard a hoa.r.s.e sound, and turning sharply back, there was Saxe close behind.
”Don't send me back,” cried the lad: ”I can't stand here doing nothing.
I must come and help.”
”Come, then!” shouted Dale, his voice sounding smothered and weak in the echoing rush of the waters, which glided in at the funnel-like opening smooth and gla.s.sy, now leaped forward and roared as they careered madly along, leaping up and licking at the rugged but smoothly polished walls, charging into cracks and crevices, and falling back broken up into foam, and ever forced onward at a tremendous rate by the ma.s.s of water behind.
The place itself would in bright suns.h.i.+ne have made the stoutest-hearted pause and draw breath before adventuring its pa.s.sage; but seen in the weird subdued light which came down filtered through the trees which overhung the chasm a thousand feet above, it seemed terrible. For only at intervals could a glimpse of the sky be seen, while as they penetrated farther, the walls, which almost exactly matched in curve, angle and depression, came nearer together, and the place darkened.
”Take care--take care!” Dale cried from time to time, as he found portions of the ledge narrower and more difficult; but Saxe did not speak, only crept on, with his left hand grasping every inequality of the rock, and, like his leader, glancing down into the mad race of foaming water, in the hope of catching sight of Melchior's upturned face and outstretched hands.
It never occurred to him that they could render no help, even if they did catch sight of their unfortunate companion; for they were never less than twenty feet above the narrow hissing and roaring stream, and there was not a spot where a rock could be grasped: everything was worn too smooth by the constant pa.s.sage of the water, which doubtless carried with it stones from the lake as well as those ever loosened by frost and crumbling down from above, to aid in grinding the walls quite smooth.
But there was the possibility of the unfortunate man being thrown into one of the vast pot-holes or cauldrons formed cavern-like in bends of the chasm, where as it rushed along past the zigzag of the broken rock the water glanced from one side, and shot almost at right angles across to the other, to whirl round and round, ever enlarging a great well-like hole, the centre of which looked like a funnel-like whirlpool, with the water s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g its way apparently into the bowels of the earth, and down whose watery throat great b.a.l.l.s of foam were constantly being sucked.
From time to time, as Dale rested for a few moments to peer into one of these, he raised his eyes to look back hopelessly at Saxe, who could only shake his head in his utter despair, knowing only too well that it was hopeless.
Then on and on again, with the horror of the terrible place seeming to crush them down, while to Saxe it was as if the waters were trying to leap at him to wash him from the narrow ledge and bear him away. And the farther they went on the more fearful the place seemed to grow. The walls dripped with moisture, as a result of the spray which rose from the hurrying race, and shut them in back and front with a gloomy mist, which struck cold and dank as it moistened their faces and seemed choking to breathe.
Again Dale paused, to peer down at one of the great whirling pools beneath the rock, which was being undermined in this place more than ever; and as Saxe clung by him and gazed down too, there was the perfectly round pool of water, with its central pipe, which, by the optical illusion caused by the gloom and mist, looked reversed--that is, as if the concavity were convex, and he were gazing at the eye of some subterranean monster, the effect being made more realistic by the rock overhanging it like a huge brow.
”Come on,” cried Dale. But Saxe was fascinated, and did not hear his voice in the hollow, echoing, pipe-like roar.
”Come on, boy--quick!” he shouted again. But Saxe still bent down over the racing waters, to stare at that awful similitude of an eye, which moved strangely and bemused and fascinated him so that he looked as if he would be drawn down into it and be a victim to the awful place.
”Saxe! Saxe!” shouted Dale, seizing him by the arm; and the boy started and gazed at him wildly. ”Can you see him!”
”No, no,” cried the boy.
”What were you looking at!”
”That! that!” gasped Saxe.
”Ah! yes. Like some terrible eye. Come along. I can't think that anything would stay here. It would be swept along at a tremendous rate.