Drome

The forenoon of that momentous August day (how momentous time, like unto some spirit-shaking vision, was soon and swiftly to show us) had been bright and sunny. Snowy cumuli sai...

"My friend Mr. Carter," Rhodes remarked to Mr. James W. Scranton as he introduced us, "has assisted me in some of my problems; he is my colleague, so to say, and you may speak w...

"It was about three o'clock in the afternoon of the 24th," said Scranton, "that they reached the foot of the Nisqually Glacier, called Kautz Glacier by my grandfather. As for wh...

Rhodes did not say what he thought of it. I thought that I knew, though I had to acknowledge that I wasn't sure just what I thought of this wild yarn myself.

"We listened. Not a sound. Suddenly the glacier cracked and boomed, then silence again. We waited, listening. Still not the faintest sound. Long, so White and I decided, must ha...

"What was that? The angel's voice again, seeming to issue from the very heart of that mass of rocks. A loud cry and a succession of sharp cries--cries that, I thought, ended in...

"There you are!" he said. "I told you that I was bringing you a mystery, and I trust that I have, at least in a great measure, met your expectations."

"This," he told us, "is from today's noon edition of _The Herald_. The account, you observe, is a short one; but it is my belief that it will prove to have been (at any rate, th...

"There!" he said. "My story is ended. You have all the principal facts now. Additional details may be found in this old record--if you are interested in the case and care to per...

It was a few minutes past three on the afternoon of the day following when Milton Rhodes and I got into his automobile and started for Mount Rainier. When we arrived at the Park...

Besides our revolvers and a goodly supply of ammunition, there were the lights, an aneroid, a thermometer, our canteens, ice-picks; two pieces of light but very strong rope, eac...

For a space we stood there in silence looking at that dark mass which reared itself up, like a temple in ruins I thought, in the midst of the crevassed ice.

"Find the spot where Rhoda Dillingham was killed. The snowfall of the day before yesterday covered the stains, of course. I feel confident, however, what with the description th...

The depth of the fissure was here twelve or fifteen feet. A short distance out, however, it narrowed, and at that point it was almost completely filled with snow. I noticed even...

The scream ceased as suddenly as it had come. I drew my revolver, snapped on the electric light, and, stooping low, looked into that spot where, a few moments before, Milton Rho...

When Scranton came with his weird story of Old He, I was, I confess, not a little puzzled by his and Milton's reference to the extraordinary scientific possibilities that it pre...

According to the aneroid, this great chamber is about four thousand feet above the level of the sea; in other words, we had already made a vertical descent of some four thousand...

I had watched them very intently, and I was sure that there had been no movement of the eyes themselves. Milton, however, was just as sure that they had moved.

It looked like a ruin indeed. So ruinous did it appear that I wondered how the mass could possibly remain intact. A short advance, however, and the mystery was solved. The hand...

That scene, like some terrible vision from the pages of Doré, often rises before me--the tall white figure of the angel, the dark, squatting winged monster before her, and we tw...

Her screams had ceased, but from her throat broke a moan, long, tremulous, heartrending--a sound to shake and rend my already quivering nerves, to most dreadfully enhance the in...

He got out the weapon and proceeded to reload it. It was not, by the way, one of these new-fangled things but one of your old-fashioned revolvers--solid, substantial, one that w...

And we returned the bow of the Hypogeans, whereupon the men stepped back to their weapons, which they at once resumed, and the young women, without moving from the spot, incline...

For a mile or more, the way led amongst pillars and stalagmites. Oh, the wonders that we saw in that great cavern! The exigencies of space, however, will not permit me to dwell...

We soon saw that we had entered not a cavern but a perfect labyrinth of caverns. I could never have imagined a place like that. It was bewildering, dreadful, forsooth, in the po...

We went along for a half-mile or so, carefully and with no little apprehension, and then, hurrah, there was a sign on the wall! The route to Drome again! But for how long?

I could set down no adequate record of those hours which followed. It was late now, and yet on and on we went, mile after mile, deeper and deeper but only, it seemed, to involve...

Rhodes made no response. Still he stood there, peering towards the end of the chamber. Then of a sudden, to my inexpressible surprise, he began moving forward--moving towards th...

At last Milton and I arose and proceeded to examine carefully this chamber of carven horrors. By the altar, another passage was discovered. Like the great chamber itself and the...

"I see no necessity for it. When the thing comes--it was coming, I know--they may be awakened suddenly enough. The men are farther from the passage of course, than we are, the l...

I jerked out my revolver; I reached over and gave Rhodes a shake that would have awakened Epimenides himself; then I grabbed the electric light and flashed it upon the descendin...

Some moments passed, perhaps minutes, in expectant watching, our glances incessantly darting about the cavern, through which the light-mist was moving in troubled, writhing stre...

Steadily we made our way along and downward. The light-streams were increasing in volume, the luminosity becoming stronger and stronger, the vegetation more abundant, the weird...

We found the wall even more broken and difficult than it had appeared from the entrance. It was almost destitute of vegetation, a circumstance that contributed not a little to t...

From the beast came a fearful roar, which seemed to end in a scream, and the long snaky head and neck (no more of the animal had been visible) disappeared.

It was about seven o'clock when we left that place. And I confess that I was more uneasy, more troubled than I would have cared to acknowledge. For we were headed toward the spo...

I began moving forward, every second that passed enhancing that fear which chilled my heart. For each step took me nearer to, though not directly toward, that spot from which ha...

Something was following us. And we were not dependent solely upon that mysterious sixth sense of mine for knowledge of that sinister fact, either. Sounds were heard. Sometimes i...

There was a shock, the boat, I thought, was surely going over. Came a heavy plunge, and she righted, though sluggishly, for water had come pouring over the side in gallons. Ondo...

Our stay in that place was marred by no other untoward incident; but right glad was I when, on the following morning, we were in our boat and going down the stream once more.

One by one, in twos and threes and then in a body, the small craft had dropped behind, and now we were alone on the black waters, across which, from the shores and from many of...

There is nothing, as we then saw, servile, debasing in Droman court ceremonial. The meanest Droman, indeed, would never dream of kneeling before his queen. A Droman kneels to no...

Drorathusa began her story. Lathendra Lepraylya leaned forward, rested her chin on her left hand and listened with the most careful attention. So still were the listeners that,...

And so it was that we reached, there in the palace of the Droman queen, our journey's and--certainly a stranger journey than any I ever have heard of and one that ought to prove...

And I truly believed it at the time, though I should have known better. I should have known--I _did_ know that adventure and mystery have inexplicable and most dreadful charms....