Part 18 (2/2)
”True; but you forget that Carmichael is the nominal leader, by your own agreement, and we are all to some extent under his orders. I, too, was bound in honour to bring you safe home if I could.”
”Bound in honour to take care of _me_! You treat me like a baby.”
”People don't come away on such an adventure as ours without a tacit if not a formal understanding to protect each other to the best of their ability, and besides, I had given my word to your friends that I would do my best to help you through. When you come to your senses you will acknowledge that we did right.”
Despite my excusable anger and vexation, the calm and friendly explanation of the professor was not without its effect on me. It was true that I had broken my promise to my fellow-travellers; true that Carmichael was commander of the expedition. I was myself at fault. And yet what a disappointment! What would Alumion think of me! After all my vows of eternal fidelity, uttered as they had been in that sacred spot, I had sneaked away like a thief in the night.
”I shall go back to Venus,” said I, in a determined manner.
”Tut, tut,” said Gazen, with a good-natured smile; ”you had better give up that idea. You are clearly the victim of hypnotic influence--of suggestion. By-and-by it will lose its hold on you, and you will regain your freedom of action.”
”Never!” I exclaimed, with all the energy of my soul. ”My dear Gazen, you are quite mistaken in supposing anything of the kind. I was never saner in my life. Nay, it is only now that I know what it is to be sane; what life was meant to be. Hypnotic suggestion! Pshaw! I know what I am doing as well as you do. I am not a fool. I am only seeking my own happiness--and hers--I tell you that a single moment in her society is worth a whole lifetime on the earth. What do I say? A lifetime? An eternity. Heaven itself were nothing to me without her. I would not take it as a gift. I shall go back. I must go back. I cannot live without her.”
”Take time to consider at all events,” said Gazen, somewhat impressed by my vehemence. ”In the meantime let us join Miss Carmichael. She is beyond the rocks there sketching the valley.”
We walked in that direction.
”You may return to the earth,” said I; ”but on the way you must drop me at Venus.”
Gazen had no opportunity of answering, for just at that moment we were startled by a piercing shriek from behind the crags, and rus.h.i.+ng, or rather bounding forward, saw a sight that made our very blood run cold.
A flying monster, with enormous bat-like wings and hanging legs, was evidently swooping down on Miss Carmichael, as she stood beside her easel on the brow of the cliff.
”Run for your life!” roared Gazen, das.h.i.+ng towards her with frantic speed.
Alas! she did not hear him, or else she was fascinated by the approaching horror, and rooted to the spot. He was still several hundred yards from her, but owing to the feebleness of gravity on the planet he was so preternaturally light and nimble that he might have covered the distance in a minute or so, had he been more accustomed to control his limbs, and the ground been smoother. As it was he leaped high into the air, and rebounded from the stones like an india-rubber ball, at the risk of spraining his ankles or breaking his neck, while brandis.h.i.+ng his arms, and firing his pistol, and hooting with all his force of lung to frighten away the monster.
Too late. The huge leathery wings of the dragon overshadowed the shrinking form of the girl, and the talons of its drooping feet caught in her dress. She made one desperate, but futile effort to free herself from its terrible clutch, and, screaming loudly for help, was borne away over the abyss of the valley as easily as a lamb is carried by an eagle.
”Oh, Heaven!” cried Gazen, stopping with a gesture of despair.
He was deeply moved, and pale as death; but he did not altogether lose his head.
What was to be done?
”The car--the car!” he exclaimed. ”We must follow her in the car. Keep your eye on the beast while I go for it.”
Carmichael was fast asleep in his cabin, after his long weary vigil during the pa.s.sage from Venus, but the car was quickly put in motion, and I jumped on board just as it cleared the brink of the precipice.
The dragon, which had the start of us by a mile or more, was apparently steering for the mountains on the other side of the valley.
Notwithstanding its enormous bulk, and the dead weight hanging from its claws, it flew with surprising speed, owing to the weakness of gravity and the vast spread of its wings.
I shall never forget that singular chase, which is probably unparalleled in the history of the universe. A prey to anxiety and the most distressing emotions, we did not properly observe the marvellous, the t.i.tanic, I had almost said the diabolical aspect of the country beneath us, and still we could not altogether blind ourselves to it. Colossal jungles, resembling brakes of moss and canes five hundred or a thousand feet in height--creeks as black as porter, gliding under their dank and rotting aisles--mountainous quadrupeds or lizards cras.h.i.+ng and tearing through their branches--one of them at least six hundred feet in length, with a ridgy back and long spiky tail, dragging on the ground, a baleful green eye, and a crooked mouth full of horrid fangs, which made it look the very incarnation of cruelty and brute strength--black lakes and grisly reeds as high as bamboo--prodigious black serpents troubling the water, and rearing their long spiry necks above the surface--gigantic alligators and crocodiles resting motionless in the shallows, with their snouts high in the air--hideous toads or such-like forbidding reptiles, many with tusks like the walrus, and some with glorious eyes, crouching on the banks or waddling in the reeds, and so enormous as to give variety to the landscape--volcanic craters, with red-hot lava simmering in their depths, and emitting fumes of sulphur, which might have choked us had we not closed the scuttles--while over all great dragons and other bat-like animals were flitting through the dusky atmosphere like demons in a nightmare.
Little by little we gained upon our quarry, but being afraid to run him too close for fear that he might drop his victim, we kept at a safe distance behind him, yet within rifle range, and near enough to make a prompt attack when he should settle on the ground.
At length we reached the other side of the valley, and found to our intense satisfaction that the monster was making for a rocky ledge on the shoulder of an extinct volcano, where we could see the yawning mouth of what appeared an immense cavern.
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