Part 16 (1/2)

Quick as thought, Grom drew his bow and shot at the appalling head.

The arrow drove straight into the gaping throat, eliciting a thunderous bellow of rage, but producing no other effect. Then Grom sprang after his fleeing companions, and raced for his life toward the cave mouth. The cave might be nothing more than a death-trap for them all; but it seemed to offer the one possibility of escape.

As they dashed into the cave the awful, gaping head was close behind them. They had a flas.h.i.+ng glimpse, through the gloom, of high-arched distance melting into blackness, of a strip of black water along the right, and to the left a gentle ascent of smooth white sand, whose end was out of sight.

Up this slope they raced, with the clas.h.i.+ng of monstrous fangs close behind them. But they had not gone a dozen strides when the slope quivered, and heaved upwards shudderingly beneath them; and they all fell forward flat upon their faces. From all but Grom there went up a shriek so piercing that in their own ears it disguised the stupendous rending roar which at that moment seemed to stun the air. The mighty arch of the cave mouth had slipped and crashed down, completely jamming the entrance, and opening up a gash of blue heaven above their heads.

To Grom's unshaken wits, it was clear on the instant what had happened. He staggered to his feet and looked back through a rain of falling rock-splinters. He had a vision of their colossal pursuer, its jaws stretched to their utmost width, the vast globes of its eyes protruding from their armored sockets, its ponderous, bowed fore-legs pawing the air aimlessly in the final convulsion. The falling rock-ma.s.s had caught it on the middle of the back, crus.h.i.+ng its mighty frame like an eggsh.e.l.l.

For a second or two, Grom stood there rigid, staring, his gnarled fingers clenched upon his weapons. Then a second earthquake tremor beneath his feet warned him. With an unerring instinct, he sprang on up the slope after his companions, who had fled as soon as they could pick themselves up. And in the next moment the rock above his head, fissured deep by the rains, slipped again. With a growling screech, as if torn from the bowels of the mountain, it settled slowly down, and sealed the mouth of the cave to utter blackness.

Grom stopped short, having no mind to dash out his brains against the rock. There was stillness at last, and silence save for the faint, humming moan of the earthquake which seemed to come from vast depths beneath his feet. Profoundly awed, but master of his spirit, he stood leaning upon his spear in the thick dark till the last of that strange humming note had died away. Then, through a silence so thick it seemed to choke him, he called aloud:

”A-ya! where are you?”

”_Grom!_” came the girl's answer, a sobbing cry of relief and joy, from almost, as it seemed, beneath his outstretched hand.

”We are all here,” came the voices of the three men.

They had fallen headlong at the second shock, as at the first; and in the darkness they had not dared to rise again, but lay waiting for their leader to tell them what to do. In half a dozen cautious, groping steps he was among them, and sank down by A-ya's side, clutching her to him to stop her trembling.

”What are we to do now?” asked the girl, after a long silence. Without Grom, they would probably have died where they were, not daring to stir in the darkness. But their faith in their chief kept them cheerful even in this desperate plight.

”We must find a way out,” answered Grom, with resolute confidence.

”If Hobbo had not dropped the fire!” said young Mo bitterly.

The giant groaned in self-abas.e.m.e.nt, and beat his chest with his great fists. But Grom, who would allow no dissensions in his following, answered sternly:

”Be silent. You might have done no better yourself.”

Then for a time there was no more said, while Grom, sitting there in the dark with the girl's face buried in his great s.h.a.ggy chest, thought out his plans. It was plain to him, from what he had seen in that last instant of daylight, that the entrance was blocked impregnably. Moreover, he judged that any attempt to work an opening in that direction would be likely, for the present, to bring more rocks down upon them. It would be better, first, to feel their way on into the cave in the hope of finding another exit. He was not afraid of getting lost, no matter how absolute the dark, because he possessed that sixth sense, so long ago vanished from modern man's equipment--the sense of direction. He knew that, as a matter of course, he could find his way back to this starting-point whenever he would.

”Come on!” he ordered at last, lifting A-ya and holding her hand in his grasp. Reaching out with his spear, he kept tapping the ground before him as he went, and occasionally the wall upon his left.

Sometimes, too, he would reach upwards to a.s.sure himself that there was no lowering of the rocky ceiling. A spear's length to the right, more or less, he got always a splash of water.

With their fine senses intensely alert, they were able to make fair progress, even though unaided by their eyes. But Grom checked his advance abruptly. He had a perception of some obstacle before him. He reached out his spear as far as he could. It touched a soft object.

The object, whatever it was, surged violently beneath the touch. His flesh crept, and the s.h.a.ggy hair uplifted on his neck. ”Back!” he hissed, thrusting A-ya off to arm's length and bracing his spear point before him to receive the expected attack. A pair of faintly phosph.o.r.escent eyes, small, but so wide apart as to show that their owner's head must have been enormous, flashed round upon them. There was a hoa.r.s.e squeal of alarm, and a heavy body went floundering off into the water. They could hear it swimming away in hot haste.

Every one drew a long breath. Then, after a few moments, A-ya laughed softly:

”It's good to find something at last that runs away from us instead of after us!” said she.

A little further on the cave wall turned to the left. A few steps, and their path came to an end. There was water ahead of them, and on both sides. Grom's exploring spear a.s.sured them that it was deep water.

”We must swim,” said he. ”Leave your clubs behind.” And leading the way down into the unknown tide, he struck out straight ahead.

It was nerve-testing work swimming thus through that unseen water to an unguessed goal; but Grom was unhesitating, and his companions rested upon his steady will. The water was of a summer warmth, and slightly salt, which convinced him that it had free communication with the sunlit tides outside. Several times he came within touch of the rocky walls of the cavern, and found that they went straight down to a depth he could not guess. But he kept on with hope and confidence at a leisurely pace, which, in that bland and windless flood, he knew that every member of his party could have maintained for half a day.