Chapter 8

THE COUNTRY OF CRATERS, THE PATH OF SKULLS, AND THE SNAKE

Filled, as I could but be, with thankfulness at my escape from captivity and from an awful death, I did not realize for a time what the loss of the diamonds meant to me; indeed I was too exhausted by my terrific struggle to do more than crawl a few yards away from the brink, throw myself down in the sand and sink into the sleep of utter weariness.

But with my awakening the bitter truth was borne upon me in a flash. All my struggle had then been in vain. I had won my freedom but had lost all that would make life bearable. Even if I could win back through the desert, what had I now to compensate me for the horrible disfigurement that would make me shunned and despised a leper amongst my fellowmen?

Bitterly did I regret my pleasant prison down below surely it would have been better to stay there in peace till I died, as fate had apparently decreed; and if I could have done so I would certainly have returned. But to return was impossible, and I must make up my mind to struggle through the desert or die where I was. Moreover, in the midst of my bitter reflections there came the comforting recollection that I had still the blue diamonds that I had kept apart and put in my pocket. Eagerly I felt for them yes! they were safe, and in themselves they must be worth a fortune!

My spirits rose with a bound again; why should I dream of giving in? I was strong and hard, and if I could win through, the diamonds would surely enable me to fit out an expedition and return; and with ropes the descent into the crater would be easy.

Rested by the cool of the night I felt little the worse for my climb, and was all eagerness for dawn to break that I might see what manner of country I was in, for I had been half demented when my terrible ride from the pursuing sandstorm had brought me into it.

At last daylight came, and I saw that although in the midst of a wide sandy plain, there were no dunes; scattered bushes grew here and there, and dotted about in the distance were a number of bare granite rocks. The crater I had climbed from went sheer down at my feet so abruptly indeed, and with so little to denote its presence, that within a few yards of its brink nothing whatever could be seen of it.

I looked once more into its depths, to where the pool lay dark in the still dim light of dawn, and from it my eyes followed the course that I had taken in my climb, and I marveled that I had ever reached the top. And a great thankfulness rose in my heart and drowned the unworthy regret that I had felt at the loss of the diamonds.

And with a last long look at my late prison, I turned and made my way towards a prominent pile of rocks in the distance, from which I hoped to be able to see more of my surroundings. My waterbottle was nearly empty already, and the old haunting dread of thirst was beginning to fill my mind, but soon this fear left me, for within a mile I found t'samma flourishing, and at the first pile of rocks a little spring of water.

Cheered and encouraged I made good progress in spite of the now blazing sun, and soon I reached the pile of rocks. And to my astonishment I found that they formed part of the margin of a crater almost identical with the one from which I had escaped; deep and inaccessible, and with a mass of vegetation filling the bottom.

This discovery gave me food for thought. It had never entered my head that the queer place of my imprisonment had been one of many, and I had thought that once I could reach even a friendly native tribe where some kind of rope was obtainable I could locate the crater again and secure the bag of diamonds. But I had already stumbled upon another crater, and maybe there were many? And this indeed I found to be the case, for they became more numerous as I proceeded, until the whole country was pitted with them. They were of all sizes and depths, some mere pits of fifty feet in diameter or less, some huge gulfs a mile or more across, and so deep that it was difficult to distinguish what was at the bottom. Invariably their walls were sheer and I could explore none of them, but in nearly all I saw the gleam of water.

So numerous were they, as I penetrated farther into this strange country, that I was forced to make wide detours in my endeavor to avoid them, and so bewildering did this labyrinth of huge pits at last become that I became hopelessly lost among them, and at times thought that I should never break clear of them again. Day after day I wandered about this vast and apparently level plain, finding every short distance a huge yawning gulf at my feet, forced to try new routes, and constantly being pulled up by similar obstacles. And all this time I saw no sign of life, not even a spoor in the sand to show that mankind had ever trod there. There was no animal life even; a few birds, and a few snakes, nothing more indeed so deserted and dead was this weird land that it appeared unreal, and often I imagined that by some strange chance I had been transported to some other and long-dead planet, so little was this maze of craters like Mother Earth.

I had food and water enough, and as the moon now gave plenty of light I walked only at night, resting in the shadow of the rocks by day.

One night I had made better progress than usual, having walked for some hours without having to deviate from my path, and was beginning to hope that I had escaped from the labyrinth, when suddenly, at my very feet, there yawned the usual abyss, but this time so huge that I could scarce make out the farther cliffs, though the moon was full and it was almost as light as day. It would mean a long and weary detour, and my heart sank as I thought of it; then leapt as it had not leapt since the day I found the diamond by the pool in the crater. For there in the misty depths, far away towards the farther cliffs, twinkled a fire!

A fire! Yes; and I had seen no fire except of my own kindling since the night that Inyati had died . . . months months surely it must have been years ago? . . .

Here at last must be human beings: savages maybe, but still flesh and blood like myself; and if they were in the crater there must be a way down.

That night I walked as I had never walked before, following the brink of the chasm, and scarcely taking my eyes from the tiny flame that meant so much to me. A way out, a way back to civilization, to life among beings like myself, all this it would mean to me, even if I found but savages by the fire for they could put me in the right path . . . and it never occurred to me to fear them.

Now as the broad moon rose higher I could see into the crater's depths, and this, besides being more vast, was not as the others I had seen. Its floor appeared to be quite level, and looked to be of pure white sand; but everywhere it sparkled in the bright moonlight. Diamonds surely?

I was near the fire now, though far above it, and now I could see there was a path, a broad white path, down a steep slope, it must be broad to show so plainly, for I was still a mile or more away!

In my eagerness I forgot my fatigue, and hastened panting towards this first blessed sign of man's handiwork that I had seen for so long.

Here it was at last; a broad white road, running straight as an arrow away across the sands in the one direction and leading down into the pit on the other a road paved apparently with round white stones all of one size.

Something in their appearance struck me: a loose one lay beside the path, and I stooped to examine it.

It was a skull a human skull, the whole road was paved with them as far as the eye could reach, there were thousands upon thousands myriads of them.

And as I realized what they were, fear seized me, and I turned away from this terrible pathway.

At last I threw myself down in the black shadow of some rocks, still trembling and agitated, and tried to compose myself to think. What manner of men were these I had found at last, and who watched there below by the fire: what race was this that thus made grim mockery of their dead?

At length I overcame my fears sufficiently to return not to the path but to the edge of the crater at some distance from it, and peering down could see that the fire was still burning, and here, hiding as best I could, I waited till morning. Daylight showed me no sign of life however, though still the pale flame flickered, and I could now make out that it burnt before a sort of building which seemed to be of white polished stone. Till well after broad daylight I lay and watched, but nothing stirred; and I determined that I would go down and see what manner of fire was this that burnt day and night without tending.

The skulls did not look as ghastly in sunlight as they had done in the pale light of the moon. I could see too that this path was ancient, and nowhere could I find traces of its being used. As I had seen the night before, it led straight across the desert, and in the distance in that direction I could now see faint blue mountains. So there was an end to this land of desolation after all, and I determined that after I had seen what was below, I would follow that road! The slope went down steeply and here the path was roughly stepped; as it led deeper, too, the slope narrowed, until at the bottom the entrance to the crater lay through a natural gateway of rock that rose high on either hand and almost shut out the light. Through it the strange path led, and here in the gloom the horror of this awful place again came upon me and I could scarce bring myself to enter the narrow defile. I remember clutching my revolver as I went forward at last: remember thinking too that it could avail me nothing, for here was no live being to fear, here was naught but the dead. . The utter silence and loneliness even after my months of silence and loneliness seemed to weigh upon me like a heavy burden, and when a bat came fluttering by me in the gloom I uttered a hoarse cry of alarm. But the distance was but short, and soon I stood safe in the daylight again, and on the floor of the crater. And now I could see that the white floor I had thought was sand was also strewn with bones, of animals principally, though men's skeletons also lay thick on every side. Bones of the elephant principally; for among them lay huge tusks in quantities, tusks the like of which I had never seen, except in pictures of the giant mammoth of prehistoric ages, tusks the girth of a man in size. Piled in all directions they lay, the whole vast floor was indeed a stupendous charnel house. And among the white sand and bones diamonds lay thick as pebbles on a beach.

Across this floor ran the path now a raised causeway some feet above the level of the sand and about five hundred yards from where I stood the fire burnt in front of a building in the shape of a pyramid. Still no sign of life could I see and I made my way towards it. As I did so the sun's rays broke over the edge of the cliff above, and fell full upon the top of the pyramid, and another flame seemed to shoot from it, and remained there flashing brilliantly.

I was close to the fire now, and saw that it was no hand-fed flame, but a column that rose from an orifice in the rock, and burnt fiercely with a low roaring noise, and a strong mephitic odor. Probably it was some kind of natural gas; at any rate there was no one near it and nothing to fear from it. The pyramid behind it was made of ivory, thousands of tons of magnificent tusks going to make up its forty feet of height, and up it, in steps, ran the path, for the pyramid was the culmination of this road of dead. I climbed up and reached the apex, a platform some twenty feet square, above which something still towered, crowned by a flashing light.

Its brilliance dazzled me, and it was only by shading my eyes with my palm that I could discern what the object was that bore it.

Then, directly beneath the bright glare I gradually made out a gigantic face, glaring down upon me, a face carved with such wondrous art that, monstrous as it was, it appeared to live, and to be endowed with such awful malevolence that for a moment I shrank back in dismay. It was the face of a woman, but the body that it crowned was that of a snake, and was coiled round an ivory pillar rising from the platform. Marvelously fashioned of bronze, the face, with bared serpent fangs, bent down as though to strike: and set in a strangely fashioned diadem above the brows was a gigantic diamond, as large as a man's head, and of such blinding luster that it was impossible to look closely at it as well try to gaze full at the midday sun.

It was an idol, undoubtedly; a Moloch waiting for a sacrifice; and as my fascinated eyes at length left the face of terror, and passed down the coiled body and ivory pillar, I saw that the sacrifice was already there. For at the base lay a dead man, and his blood was scarcely dry upon the altar.

He was fast bound with hide thongs to stanchions cut in the rock a man almost as white as myself, with long, straight black hair, and clothed in clean white flowing robes. His face was horribly disfigured, seared and burnt as though by red-hot irons, and his features quite indistinguishable. Apparently, then, he had been tortured, before being stabbed to the heart by the strangely fashioned knife of bronze that lay beside him.

It is beyond me to describe the terror with which the sight of this dead and mutilated victim inspired me. I had seen no human being for so long: dead Inyati's face had been the last that I had gazed upon; then, after long I had seen the skeleton in the pool the road of skulls and now at last I gazed upon a human form again, it was again that of the dead.

All around me was death, death everywhere, and I felt that unless I escaped, and found human companionship soon, my mind would give way beneath these horrors.

And I must quit this place of sacrifice at once, for the fiends who had laid this victim there would probably give me but scant mercy were I found there.

I examined the body again: it might well have been that of a South European, so light was the skin; and now I noted that on one wrist was a copper bracelet exactly similar to the one Inyati had given me, and which I now wore on my own wrist. I compared them, and found them identical, and now I noted that the rude attempt at a snake's head into which their fastenings were fashioned, was undoubtedly an imitation of the head of the idol above me.

This, then, doubtless was Inyati's land, and this one of the priests he had spoken of. Mayhap he had killed one of them and taken his bracelet before he fled for he had spoken of jealousy and of a woman I---

But of the idol, the road, the craters he had said nothing . . . maybe he knew not himself?

True, he had feared the priests, till the "little gun" had become his with it he would, doubtless, have faced all the priests living but I, looking at the dead man and realizing something of the manner of his death, was in deadly fear . . . my revolver would be but little use against fiends who served their own priests thus!

I must fly from this place at once if indeed it were not already too late! But gaze as I could, no sign of life showed anywhere; no sound broke the silence except the low hissing murmur of the flame that burnt everlasting incense to the shrine of horror before me.

And so, glancing from side to side in mortal terror, starting at the sound of my own soft footsteps, and feeling that unseen eyes watched me from all sides, I left the Snake and its victim, the pyramid and the flame, and fled swiftly along the causeway, not even stooping to pick up the diamonds that lay on all sides, intent only upon escape. I reached the entrance, and passed through the narrow portals and breasted the steep slope, and fearful and over-wrought, I gained the open plain again.

Northward lay the path to the mountains: south the labyrinth of craters I had left; westward mayhap I should find the dunes? And pitiless as they were, I chose that path rather than follow the road of skulls towards the country and the mercy of such fiends as these people must be!

Soon I had left the crate far behind, and no trace of the road could be seen when I glanced back, but I could not shake off a haunting fear that now possessed me, that I was being watched. Eyes seemed to follow me everywhere, each bush or rock seemed to hide a watcher, and again and again I turned aside and searched, and looked fearfully over my shoulder, but nothing could I see.

And so I walked till evening, seeing no trace of the human beings I knew must be near, and at last, somewhat easier in mind, I threw myself down to sleep.

And awakened to find myself seized and held as in a vice, to feel thongs passed about me, and a hand passing over my forehead . . . gently . . . gently . . . and then all consciousness faded away.