Part 49 (1/2)
”Get you gone, and quickly, before ive you your lives, who otherwise should certainly have died She who has gone pointed out to you, I doubt not, a road that runs to the upper air I think that it is still open Indeed,” he added, closing his eyes for aand difficult Follow it, and should you win through, take your boat and sail away as swiftly as you can Whether you die or live I care nothing, but h yours are stained with Yva's Begone! andfor further words ent to fetch our lanterns, water-bottles and bag of food which we had laid down at a little distance As we approached theht frolobes of fire which passed close above his head, shone upon hih approaching death had written its name upon his malevolent countenance
I turned my head away, for about his aspect in those sinister surroundings there was so and repellent to man and of hilanced in that direction again Oro was gone I suppose that he had retreated into the shadohere no light played
We gathered up our gear, and while the others were relighting the lanterns, I walked a few paces forward to the spot where Yva had been dissolved in the devouring fire Soht , or rather the reht e declared our love amidst the ruins by the crater lake She had never worn it on her hand but for her own reasons, as she told me, suspended it upon her breast beneath her robe It was an ancient ring that I had bought in Egypt, fashi+oned of gold in which was set a very hard basalt or other black stone On this was engraved the ank or looped cross, which was the Egyptian symbol of Life, and round it a snake, the syold was for theso hard and protected by the shi+eld and asbestos cloak, for such I suppose it was, had resisted the fury of the flash Only nohite instead of black, like a burnt onyx that had known the funeral pyre Indeed, perhaps it was an onyx I kissed it and hid it away, for it see and with it a promise
Then we started, a very sad and dejected trio Leaving with a shudder that vast place where the blue lights played eternally, we ca stone pursued its endless path, and saw it arrive and depart again
”I wonder he did not send us that way,” said Bickley, pointing to it
”I alad it never occurred to him,” answered Bastin, ”for I aain without our guide, Yva”
I looked at him and he ceased Somehow I could not bear, as yet, to hear her beloved nae that she pointed out to us, and began a e, for we lost any exact count of time, took us about sixty hours The road, it is true, was smooth and unblocked, but the ascent was fearfully steep and slippery; so ed to pull each other up it and lie down to rest
Had it not been for those large, felt-covered bottles of Life-water, I ah But this orated us and gave us strength to push on Also we had some food, and fortunately our spare oil held out, for the darkness in that tunnel was coth we must carry him by turns He would have died had it not been for the water; indeed I thought that he was going to die
After our last rest and a short sleep, however, he see in his ested to us that he knew himself to be not far from the surface of the earth towards which we had crawled upwards for thousands upon thousands of feet, fortunately withoutwith any zone of heat which was not bearable
We were right, for e had staggered forward a little further, suddenly To but where we could not see, since the tunnel appeared to take a turn and continue, but this time on a doard course, while the sound of the barks caht We searched with the lanterns which were now beginning to die and found a little hole almost filled with fallen pieces of rock We scooped these aith our hands, h A few ht of thehoarsely Next we heard the sound of the sea We struggled on desperately and presently pushed our way through bushes and vegetation on to a steep declivity
Down this we rolled and scra upon a sandy beach, whilst above us the full moon shone in the heavens
Here, with a prayer of thankfulness, we flung ourselves down and slept
If it had not been for To the tunnel, which I have little doubt stretched on beneath the sea, where, I wonder, should we have slept that night?
When oke the sun was shi+ning high in the heavens Evidently there had been rain towards the dawn, though as ere lying beneath the shelter of some broad-leaved tree, from it we had suffered little inconvenience Oh! how beautiful, after our sojourn in those unholy caves, were the sun and the sea and the sweet air and the raindrops hanging on the leaves
We did not wake of ourselves; indeed if we had been left alone I am sure that we should have slept the clock round, for ere terribly exhausted What woke us was the chatter of a crowd of Orofenans ere gathered at a distance frohtened way, also the barks of To the people I recognised our old friend the chief Mara up, beckoned to hiood deal of hesitation he ca froh he were not sure that ere real
”What frightens you, Marahten us, O Friend-from-the-Sea Whence did you and the Healer and the Bellower cohosts and why is the little black beast so large-eyed and so thin? Over the lake we know you did not coht; moreover there is no canoe upon the shore Also it would not have been possible”
”Why not?” I asked idly
”Coed from beneath the tree and perceived that ere at the foot of the cliff against which the rereat tempest Indeed there it ithin a couple of hundred yards of us
Following Mara path which ran up the cliff and ascended a knoll whence we could see the lake and the cone of the volcano in its centre At least we used to be able to see this cone, but now, at any rate with the naked eye, we could , except a small brown spot in the midst of the waters of the lake
”The ht you to Orofena, Friend-from-the-Sea, has now sunk till only the very top of it is to be seen,” said Maras has vanished beneath the water, and with it the house that we built for you”
”Yes,” I said, affecting no surprise ”But when did that happen?”