The Metal Monster Page 4

  CHAPTER III. RUTH VENTNOR

  The dawn, streaming into the niche, awakened us. A covey of partridgesventuring too close yielded three to our guns. We breakfasted well, anda little later were pushing on down the cleft.

  Its descent, though gradual, was continuous, and therefore I was notsurprised when soon we began to come upon evidences of semi-tropicalvegetation. Giant rhododendrons and tree ferns gave way to occasionalclumps of stately kopek and clumps of the hardier bamboos. We added afew snow cocks to our larder--although they were out of their habitat,flying down into the gorge from their peaks and table-lands for somechoice tidbit.

  All that day we marched on, and when at night we made camp, sleep cameto us quickly and overmastering. An hour after dawn we were on our way.A brief stop we made for lunch; pressed forward.

  It was close to two when we caught the first sight of the ruins.

  The soaring, verdure-clad walls of the canyon had long been steadilymarching closer. Above, between their rims the wide ribbon of sky waslike a fantastically shored river, shimmering, dazzling; every coveand headland edged with an opalescent glimmering as of shining pearlybeaches.

  And as though we were sinking in that sky stream's depths its lightkept lessening, darkening imperceptibly with luminous shadows of ghostlyberyl, drifting veils of pellucid aquamarine, limpid mists of glaucouschrysolite.

  Fainter, more crepuscular became the light, yet never losing itscrystalline quality. Now the high overhead river was but a brook; becamea thread. Abruptly it vanished.

  We passed into a tunnel, fern walled, fern roofed, garlanded with tawnyorchids, gay with carmine fungus and golden moss. We stepped out into ablaze of sunlight.

  Before us lay a wide green bowl held in the hands of the clusteredhills; shallow, circular, as though, while plastic still, the thumbof God had run round its rim, shaping it. Around it the peaks crowded,craning their lofty heads to peer within.

  It was about a mile in its diameter, this hollow, as my gaze thenmeasured it. It had three openings--one that lay like a crack in thenortheast slope; another, the tunnel mouth through which we had come.The third lifted itself out of the bowl, creeping up the precipitousbare scarp of the western barrier straight to the north, clinging to theochreous rock up and up until it vanished around a far distant shoulder.

  It was a wide and bulwarked road, a road that spoke as clearly as thoughit had tongue of human hands which had cut it there in the mountain'sbreast. An ancient road weary beyond belief beneath the tread ofuncounted years.

  From the hollow the blind soul of loneliness groped out to greet us!

  Never had I felt such loneliness as that which lapped the lip of theverdant bowl. It was tangible--as though it had been poured from somereservoir of misery. A pool of despair--

  Half the width of the valley away the ruins began. Weirdly were they itsvisible expression. They huddled in two bent rows to the bottom. Theycrouched in a wide cluster against the cliffs. From the cluster acurving row of them ran along the southern crest of the hollow.

  A flight of shattered, cyclopean steps lifted to a ledge and here acrumbling fortress stood.

  Irresistibly did the ruins seem a colossal hag, flung prone, lyinglistlessly, helplessly, against the barrier's base. The huddled lowerranks were the legs, the cluster the body, the upper row an outflungarm and above the neck of the stairway the ancient fortress, roundedand with two huge ragged apertures in its northern front was an aged,bleached and withered head staring, watching.

  I looked at Drake--the spell of the bowl was heavy upon him, his facedrawn. The Chinaman and Tibetan were murmuring, terror written largeupon them.

  "A hell of a joint!" Drake turned to me, a shadow of a grin lighteningthe distress on his face. "But I'd rather chance it than go back. Whatd'you say?"

  I nodded, curiosity mastering my oppression. We stepped over the rim,rifles on the alert. Close behind us crowded the two servants and theponies.

  The vale was shallow, as I have said. We trod the fragments of an oldenapproach to the green tunnel so the descent was not difficult. Here andthere beside the path upreared huge broken blocks. On them I thoughtI could see faint tracings as of carvings--now a suggestion of gaping,arrow-fanged dragon jaws, now the outline of a scaled body, a hint ofenormous, batlike wings.

  Now we had reached the first of the crumbling piles that stretched downinto the valley's center.

  Half fainting, I fell against Drake, clutching to him for support.

  A stream of utter hopelessness was racing upon us, swirling and eddyingaround us, reaching to our hearts with ghostly fingers dripping withdespair. From every shattered heap it seemed to pour, rushing down theroad upon us like a torrent, engulfing us, submerging, drowning.

  Unseen it was--yet tangible as water; it sapped the life from everynerve. Weariness filled me, a desire to drop upon the stones, to berolled away. To die. I felt Drake's body quivering even as mine; knewthat he was drawing upon every reserve of strength.

  "Steady," he muttered. "Steady--"

  The Tibetan shrieked and fled, the ponies scrambling after him. DimlyI remembered that mine carried precious specimens; a surge of angerpassed, beating back the anguish. I heard a sob from Chiu-Ming, saw himdrop.

  Drake stopped, drew him to his feet. We placed him between us, thrusteach an arm through his own. Then, like swimmers, heads bent, we pushedon, buffeting that inexplicable invisible flood.

  As the path rose, its force lessened, my vitality grew, and the terribledesire to yield and be swept away waned. Now we had reached the foot ofthe cyclopean stairs, now we were half up them--and now as we struggledout upon the ledge on which the watching fortress stood, the clutchingstream shoaled swiftly, the shoal became safe, dry land and the cheated,unseen maelstrom swirled harmlessly beneath us.

  We stood erect, gasping for breath, again like swimmers who have foughttheir utmost and barely, so barely, won.

  There was an almost imperceptible movement at the side of the ruinedportal.

  Out darted a girl. A rifle dropped from her hands. Straight she spedtoward me.

  And as she ran I recognized her.

  Ruth Ventnor!

  The flying figure reached me, threw soft arms around my neck, wasweeping in relieved gladness on my shoulder.

  "Ruth!" I cried. "What on earth are YOU doing here?"

  "Walter!" she sobbed. "Walter Goodwin--Oh, thank God! Thank God!"

  She drew herself from my arms, catching her breath; laughed shakily.

  I took swift stock of her. Save for fear upon her, she was the same RuthI had known three years before; wide, deep blue eyes that were nowall seriousness, now sparkling wells of mischief; petite, rounded andtender; the fairest skin; an impudent little nose; shining clusters ofintractable curls; all human, sparkling and sweet.

  Drake coughed, insinuatingly. I introduced him.

  "I--I watched you struggling through that dreadful pit." She shuddered."I could not see who you were, did not know whether friend or enemy--butoh, my heart almost died in pity for you, Walter," she breathed. "Whatcan it be--THERE?"

  I shook my head.

  "Martin could not see you," she went on. "He was watching the road thatleads above. But I ran down--to help."

  "Mart watching?" I asked. "Watching for what?"

  "I--" she hesitated oddly. "I think I'd rather tell you before him. It'sso strange--so incredible."

  She led us through the broken portal and into the fortress. It was moregigantic even than I had thought. The floor of the vast chamber wehad entered was strewn with fragments fallen from the crackling,stone-vaulted ceiling. Through the breaks light streamed from the levelabove us.

  We picked our way among the debris to a wide crumbling stairway, creptup it, Ruth flitting ahead. We came out opposite one of the eye-likeapertures. Black against it, perched high upon a pile of blocks, Irecognized the long, lean outline of Ventnor, rifle in hand, gazingintently up the ancient road whose windings were plain through theopening. He had not heard us.
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  "Martin," called Ruth softly.

  He turned. A shaft of light from a crevice in the gap's edge struck hisface, flashing it out from the semidarkness of the corner in which hecrouched. I looked into the quiet gray eyes, upon the keen face.

  "Goodwin!" he shouted, tumbling down from his perch, shaking me by theshoulders. "If I had been in the way of praying--you're the man I'd haveprayed for. How did you get here?"

  "Just wandering, Mart," I answered. "But Lord! I'm sure GLAD to seeyou."

  "Which way did you come?" he asked, keenly. I threw my hand toward thesouth.

  "Not through that hollow?" he asked incredulously.

  "And some hell of a place to get through," Drake broke in. "It cost usour ponies and all my ammunition."

  "Richard Drake," I said. "Son of old Alvin--you knew him, Mart."

  "Knew him well," cried Ventnor, seizing Dick's hand. "Wanted me to go toKamchatka to get some confounded sort of stuff for one of his devilishexperiments. Is he well?"

  "He's dead," replied Dick soberly.

  "Oh!" said Ventnor. "Oh--I'm sorry. He was a great man."

  Briefly I acquainted him with my wanderings, my encounter with Drake.

  "That place out there--" he considered us thoughtfully. "Damned if Iknow what it is. Thought maybe it's gas--of a sort. If it hadn't beenfor it we'd have been out of this hole two days ago. I'm pretty sure itmust be gas. And it must be much less than it was this morning, for thenwe made an attempt to get through again--and couldn't."

  I was hardly listening. Ventnor had certainly advanced a theory of ourunusual symptoms that had not occurred to me. That hollow might indeedbe a pocket into which a gas flowed; just as in the mines the deadlycoal damp collects in pits, flows like a stream along the passages. Itmight be that--some odorless, colorless gas of unknown qualities; andyet--

  "Did you try respirators?" asked Dick.

  "Surely," said Ventnor. "First off the go. But they weren't of any use.The gas, if it is gas, seems to operate as well through the skin asthrough the nose and mouth. We just couldn't make it--and that's allthere is to it. But if you made it--could we try it now, do you think?"he asked eagerly.

  I felt myself go white.

  "Not--not for a little while," I stammered.

  He nodded, understandingly.

  "I see," he said. "Well, we'll wait a bit, then."

  "But why are you staying here? Why didn't you make for the road up themountain? What are you watching for, anyway?" asked Drake.

  "Go to it, Ruth," Ventnor grinned. "Tell 'em. After all--it was YOURparty you know."

  "Mart!" she cried, blushing.

  "Well--it wasn't ME they admired," he laughed.

  "Martin!" she cried again, and stamped her foot.

  "Shoot," he said. "I'm busy. I've got to watch."

  "Well"--Ruth's voice was uncertain--"we'd been hunting up in Kashmir.Martin wanted to come over somewhere here. So we crossed the passes.That was about a month ago. The fourth day out we ran across what lookedlike a road running south.

  "We thought we'd take it. It looked sort of old and lost--but it wasgoing the way we wanted to go. It took us first into a country of littlehills; then to the very base of the great range itself; finally into themountains--and then it ran blank."

  "Bing!" interjected Ventnor, looking around for a moment. "Bing--justlike that. Slap dash against a prodigious fall of rock. We couldn't getover it."

  "So we cast about to find another road," went on Ruth. "All we couldstrike were--just strikes."

  "No fish on the end of 'em," said Ventnor. "God! But I'm glad to seeyou, Walter Goodwin. Believe me, I am. However--go on, Ruth."

  "At the end of the second week," she said, "we knew we were lost. Wewere deep in the heart of the range. All around us was a forest ofenormous, snow-topped peaks. The gorges, the canyons, the valleys thatwe tried led us east and west, north and south.

  "It was a maze, and in it we seemed to be going ever deeper. There wasnot the SLIGHTEST sign of human life. It was as though no human beingsexcept ourselves had ever been there. Game was plentiful. We had notrouble in getting food. And sooner or later, of course, we were boundto find our way out. We didn't worry.

  "It was five nights ago that we camped at the head of a lovely littlevalley. There was a mound that stood up like a tiny watch-tower, lookingdown it. The trees grew round like tall sentinels.

  "We built our fire in that mound; and after we had eaten, Martin slept.I sat watching the beauty of the skies and of the shadowy vale. I heardno one approach--but something made me leap to my feet, look behind me.

  "A man was standing just within the glow of firelight, watching me."

  "A Tibetan?" I asked. She shook her head, trouble in her eyes.

  "Not at all." Ventnor turned his head. "Ruth screamed and awakened me. Icaught a glimpse of the fellow before he vanished.

  "A short purple mantle hung from his shoulders. His chest was coveredwith fine chain mail. His legs were swathed and bound by the thongs ofhis high buskins. He carried a small, round, hide-covered shield and ashort two-edged sword. His head was helmeted. He belonged, in fact--oh,at least twenty centuries back."

  He laughed in plain enjoyment of our amazement.

  "Go on, Ruth," he said, and took up his watch.

  "But Martin did not see his face," she went on. "And oh, but I wish Icould forget it. It was as white as mine, Walter, and cruel, so cruel;the eyes glowed and they looked upon me like a--like a slave dealer.They shamed me--I wanted to hide myself.

  "I cried out and Martin awakened. As he moved, theman stepped out of the light and was gone. I think he had not seenMartin; had believed that I was alone.

  "We put out the fire, moved farther into the shadow of the trees. ButI could not sleep--I sat hour after hour, my pistol in my hand," shepatted the automatic in her belt, "my rifle close beside me.

  "The hours went by--dreadfully. At last I dozed. When I awakened againit was dawn--and--and--" she covered her eyes, then: "TWO men werelooking down on me. One was he who had stood in the firelight."

  "They were talking," interrupted Ventnor again, "in archaic Persian."

  "Persian," I repeated blankly; "archaic Persian?"

  "Very much so," he nodded. "I've a fair knowledge of the modern tongue,and a rather unusual command of Arabic. The modern Persian, as you know,comes straight through from the speech of Xerxes, of Cyrus, of Dariuswhom Alexander of Macedon conquered. It has been changed mainly bytaking on a load of Arabic words. Well--there wasn't a trace of theArabic in the tongue they were speaking.

  "It sounded odd, of course--but I could understand quite easily. Theywere talking about Ruth. To be explicit, they were discussing her withexceeding frankness--"

  "Martin!" she cried wrathfully.

  "Well, all right," he went on, half repentantly. "As a matter of fact,I had seen the pair steal up. My rifle was under my hand. So I lay therequietly, listening.

  "You can realize, Walter, that when I caught sight of those two,looking as though they had materialized from Darius's ghostly hordes,my scientific curiosity was aroused--prodigiously. So in my interest Ipassed over the matter of their speech; not alone because I thoughtRuth asleep but also because I took into consideration that the modeof polite expression changes with the centuries--and these gentlemenclearly belonged at least twenty centuries back--the real truth is I wasconsumed with curiosity.

  "They had got to a point where they were detailing with what pleasure acertain mysterious person whom they seemed to regard with much fear andrespect would contemplate her. I was wondering how long my desire toobserve--for to the anthropologist they were most fascinating--couldhold my hand back from my rifle when Ruth awakened.

  "She jumped up like a little fury. Fired a pistol point blank at them.Their amazement was--well--ludicrous. I know it seems incredible, butthey seemed to know nothing of firearms--they certainly acted as thoughthey didn't.

  "They simply flew into the timber. I took a pistol shot at one butmissed.
Ruth hadn't though; she had winged her man; he left a red trailbehind him.

  "We didn't follow the trail. We made for the opposite direction--and asfast as possible.

  "Nothing happened that day or night. Next morning, creeping up a slope,we caught sight of a suspicious glitter a mile or two away in thedirection we were going. We sought shelter in a small ravine. In alittle while, over the hill and half a mile away from us, came about twohundred of these fellows, marching along.

  "And they were indeed Darius's men. Men of that Persia which had beendead for millenniums. There was no mistaking them, with their high,covering shields, their great bows, their javelins and armor.

  "They passed; we doubled. We built no fires that night--and we ought tohave turned the pony loose, but we didn't. It carried my instruments,and ammunition, and I felt we were going to need the latter.

  "The next morning we caught sight of another band--or the same. Weturned again. We stole through a tree-covered plain; we struck anancient road. It led south, into the peaks again. We followed it. Itbrought us here.

  "It isn't, as you observe, the most comfortable of places. We struckacross the hollow to the crevice--we knew nothing of the entranceyou came through. The hollow was not pleasant, either. But it waspenetrable, then.

  "We crossed. As we were about to enter the cleft there issued out of ita most unusual and disconcerting chorus of sounds--wailings, crashings,splinterings."

  I started, shot a look at Dick; absorbed, he was drinking in Ventnor'severy word.

  "So unusual, so--well, disconcerting is the best word I can think of,that we were not encouraged to proceed. Also the peculiar unpleasantnessof the hollow was increasing rapidly.

  "We made the best time we could back to the fortress. And when nextwe tried to go through the hollow, to search for another outlet--wecouldn't. You know why," he ended abruptly.

  "But men in ancient armor. Men like those of Darius." Dick broke thesilence that had followed this amazing recital. "It's incredible!"

  "Yes," agreed Ventnor, "isn't it. But there they were. Of course, Idon't maintain that they WERE relics of Darius's armies. They might havebeen of Xerxes before him--or of Artaxerxes after him. But there theycertainly were, Drake, living, breathing replicas of exceedingly ancientPersians.

  "Why, they might have been the wall carvings on the tomb of Khosroescome to life. I mention Darius because he fits in with the mostplausible hypothesis. When Alexander the Great smashed his empire he didit rather thoroughly. There wasn't much sympathy for the vanquishedin those days. And it's entirely conceivable that a city or two inAlexander's way might have gathered up a fleeting regiment or so forprotection and have decided not to wait for him, but to hunt for cover.

  "Naturally, they would have gone into the almost inaccessible heart ofthe high ranges. There is nothing impossible in the theory that theyfound shelter at last up here. As long as history runs this has beena well-nigh unknown land. Penetrating some mountain-guarded, easilydefended valley they might have decided to settle down for a time, haverebuilt a city, raised a government; laying low, in a sentence, waitingfor the storm to blow over.

  "Why did they stay? Well, they might have found the new life morepleasant than the old. And they might have been locked in their valleyby some accident--landslides, rockfalls sealing up the entrance. Thereare a dozen reasonable possibilities."

  "But those who hunted you weren't locked in," objected Drake.

  "No," Ventnor grinned ruefully. "No, they certainly weren't. Maybe wedrifted into their preserves by a way they don't know. Maybe they'vefound another way out. I'm sure I don't know. But I DO know what I saw."

  "The noises, Martin," I said, for his description of these had been thedescription of those we had heard in the blue valley. "Have you heardthem since?"

  "Yes," he answered, hesitating oddly.

  "And you think those--those soldiers you saw are still hunting for you?"

  "Haven't a doubt of it," he replied more cheerfully. "They didn't looklike chaps who would give up a hunt easily--at least not a hunt for suchnovel, interesting, and therefore desirable and delectable game as wemust have appeared to them."

  "Martin," I said decisively, "where's your pony? We'll try the hollowagain, at once. There's Ruth--and we'd never be able to hold back suchnumbers as you've described."

  "You feel strong enough to try it?"