The Complete Saga of Don Hargreaves

by Festus Pragnell

  The driver wiped the moisture from his forehead. It was warm in the mine. “Faith, I’ll take ye to the tunnel.

  But not into it. Devil an inch will I go inside that place. Ye’ll have to walk the little way that it is to where the ghost is said to appear.”

  TWENTY minutes of bumping journey brought them to the entrance of the mysterious passage. Elsa Thorwaldson got out.

  “Here we are, Sir Launcelot. Are you coming? Or are you afraid, and must I raise this Martian spectre alone?”

  He got down beside her.

  “Don’t you think you are running into needless danger?” he asked. “There is something in here that we do not understand. The men of Mars might have left traps for invaders in their tunnels, pitfalls and all that sort of thing. Those traps may still be working, in spite of the lapse of time. The apparition may be an automatic television camera that throws a warning picture on a prepared screen as a warning that the trap is there. And where men have vanished—”

  “Other men are too cowardly to find out why,” she concluded.

  THE passage narrowed rapidly to the width of a swath cut by a single boring-machine. He pointed out the jagged edges of the dark-green metal that had been broken through.

  “That is the lining of the Martian water-main, or whatever it is, that has been broken into. Beyond that we find ourselves in a tunnel much larger than this, round, and lined throughout with this same unknown alloy. Are you going in?”

  For answer she leaped down the slight drop into the Martian tunnel He followed.

  Under their feet was a collection of stones and rubble that the miners had made in breaking through. Beyond the heap the tunnel was smooth and shone green in the light of their lamps.

  “Here we are, and no ghost to be seen,” she said. “Let’s take a walk.”

  The green walls echoed her words, which seemed to rustle away through the silent place, dying away at last in conspiratorial whispers.

  Seeing that there was no turning her back, he went with her. He imagined that he had heard a heavy step not far away, such as a man ten foot tall might make. He also thought he caught a chinking and scraping as of metal on metal, but he said nothing to her about this.

  They went perhaps a hundred yards.

  “Are you satisfied now?” he asked.

  She grunted, not quite so sure of herself as she had been. This place was certainly eerie, with the solid blackness stretching before them, the echoing sound of their feet, and the odd gleams of light that came from unexpected angles in the walls, reflections of their own lamps, of course, but uncomfortably like watching eyes.

  And then, abruptly, the darkness swept aside.

  A pale blue light flooded the tunnel in front of them. And in the middle of the light stood a man, a man so tall that his head reached halfway to the roof of the big tunnel. His face was partly inhuman by reason of the great breadth of the nose and the size of the ears. Beside him was a vague, uncertain shape.

  Slowly the giant raised his left arm.

  “Seize!” commanded a deep, powerful voice.

  They realized, with a shock, that the heap of rubble marking the way back into the mine was a long way off.

  CHAPTER III

  Mutiny

  NOW that the crisis had come Donald Hargreaves felt idly calm. His pulse seemed no faster, and his breath came no more quickly than it usually did in this rather thin air. He was proud of himself, and felt about six foot tall instead of his actual height of something under five foot six.[2]

  He was aware that Elsa Thorwaldson had given a wail of terror and was clinging almost painfully to his arm. Her courage seemed to have evaporated. He supposed that his presence gave her a feeling of protection, and that she would sooner hold onto him than leave him to run for safety.

  That, too, gave him a feeling of confidence.

  For a moment or so he thought of picking her up and carrying her back, but he realized how absurd this would be, seeing that she weighed more than he. Their progress would be slow.

  The ghostly Martian made no move. After speaking his one word he merely lowered his arm to his side once more and waited.

  Donald’s eyes were on the vague shape by his side. It was from this that he expected the danger to come if the creature, whatever it was, tried to carry out its master’s orders and seize them.

  It was a curious sort of creature, more suggestive of a sea-beast than of a creature that walked on land and breathed air. It had two round shells, rather like greatly enlarged oyster shells, and from between the edges of the shells stuck, or rather, hung out, a number of long tentacles with claws at the ends. It made him think, incongruously, of a clumsy eater consuming macaroni, with the ends hanging untidily out of his mouth.

  The creature made no move. He had a feeling that as long as he stood quite still looking at it the beast would also remain motionless. He thought of what he had read of the power of the human eye over dumb beasts. Perhaps it worked on Mars also, even on the ghosts of what took the place of dogs on Mars. He tried to hypnotize the beast with his eyes, so that it would remain exactly where it was, in spite of its master’s order.

  The plan certainly seemed to work. Apart from waving two of its tentacles as though enquiring about something it was as still as a statue.

  But the ghostly Martian, in the aura of pale blue light that radiated from his clothes, was not still for long. Once again he raised his great left arm, and once again he gave the order, “Seize!”

  Elsa screamed and ran.

  Donald stayed where he was. Even if the queer beast leaped at him, as he thought every instant it must, he would stand between it and her. It must take the thing a little while to destroy him, and in that time she might escape.

  But nothing happened.

  He listened to her running steps. Now she was at the heap of fallen stones. She was scrambling over them, for he heard the stones rolling under her feet.

  She was back in the mine. He drew a deeper breath, for now he felt, though he had no reason to think so, that she was safe.

  The ghostly Martian was frowning at him as though impatient or puzzled. He spoke again, this time without pointing. “Go!”

  AND at this word a great amazement and relief came over Donald Hargreaves. All his tension drained away, and he felt comfortable and at ease once more.

  For he knew now that this giant was not a ghost. He was living flesh and blood. And he was giving a quite definite and understandable order. He was telling him to go back where he came from. Donald Hargreaves, it seemed, was not wanted in the Martian tunnel.

  He did not stop to wonder how this could be, but thought only about the immediate circumstances.

  The Martian was obviously a powerful man, and there was also the strange creature by his side to be considered. Donald had no weapon of any sort to defend himself with if either of them should become violent. If this Martian said, “Go!” then plainly it was his wisest policy to do as he was told before anything unpleasant happened.

  But he was not sure whether Elsa had reached safety yet. A Martian who was flesh and blood, and not an astral being from the realm of dreams, might follow an unprotected female into the mines. He still felt that it was his duty to guard her retreat.

  He played for time.

  “Do you want me to go? Don’t you encourage visitors to this subterranean abode of yours?” he asked, with what he meant to be a pleasant smile.

  The Martian spoke two more words.

  “No savvy,” he said.

  The words came awkwardly, with a queer intonation. And at those words something else became clear to Donald. He understood how the Martian had learned to speak a few words of English. By some means, perhaps concealed microphones and a sort of telescope that could see through rocks, he had in some way been watching and listening to the miners. Certain words were usually followed by certain actions, and thus he would learn the meaning of those words. When one said, “Go!” for instance, he would notice that the one spoken to usua
lly went away: after “No savvy” the original remark was usually repeated. The miners always said, “No savvy” when there was anything they did not understand. And, “Seize,” why, of course, what the giant was trying to say was, “Cease!” meaning cease work, or stop. The last foreman in the mines had always said that when telling the men to finish a job, never, “Knock off!” or, “That’ll do!” as the new man did.

  “Cease.” Why, it was perfectly clear now. He meant, “Stop exploring this tunnel.”

  “Must I go?” he asked.

  “Yess,” said the Martian, sibilantly. “Youmusstgo. Not safe here. Danger. Go.”

  “Thanks for warning me,” said Donald, thinking that Elsa must by now be out of harm’s way. Being uneasy about turning his unprotected back upon the weird being whose clawed tentacles hung so untidily out of its bivalve shell, he walked backward to the mine, leaving the light-clothed Martian alone in the tunnel his ancestors had made, where visitors from another world were so inhospitably received.

  WITHOUT haste, he made his way along tunnel 57. He hoped Elsa had not tripped on this rough floor and fallen and hurt herself in her headlong flight.

  What a story he would have to tell! And how mistaken the scientists all were! They all thought the Martians were a completely vanished race, long ago dead, and here they were, or at least one of them was, living underground like trogo—trogo—what was the word?—troglodytes.

  And with domestic animals like—What could he say they were like? Like hermit crabs. Yes, that was the nearest he could get to it. Like hermit crabs in oyster shells, but about as large as a full grown man.

  Professor Winterton would be surprised when he heard. But Professor Winterton was gone. What had happened to Professor Winterton, he wondered, suddenly. Could he have met the Martian and ignored his warning to go back? And had one of the dangers the Martian spoke of got him?

  With a prickly sensation at the back of his neck he wondered if his own escape had been narrower than he thought it to be.

  He heard running steps. Was it the Martian? Or his crustacean companion?

  No, it was somebody coming the other way. A miner. No, it was Elsa. What could have made her run this way, toward the very danger she had fled? He must warn her again about exerting herself so much in the thin but oxygenladen air. It was asking for trouble.

  Elsa saw him, and screamed in terror.

  “Donald! Donald!”

  Something had frightened her very badly, something even worse than a ghost. Always before she had called him Hargreaves. He felt like a father comforting a terrified child.

  “Oh, Donald, something awful has happened. The Irishman is dead.”

  “The Irishman?”

  “The big miner who brought us here in the truck. He is lying dead beside his machine in a pool of blood. The power is off, and the truck will not move. Nor will the light go on. And I heard men shouting in the distance, excited shouts, and shooting.”

  He stood quite still, letting facts sink into his brain. A dead man—shouting and firing. That meant that the Asiatics among the workmen had mutineed. Exactly what he had feared for some time.

  “Stay here,” he told her. “I’ll go and see.”

  “And leave me here?”

  She was too scared to be left alone.

  They went together to the end of the passage. The truck stood in front of the entrance, the dead driver nearby where he had apparently been smoking a cigarette. A huge hole had been blown in his chest by an explosive bullet.

  Clearly, nothing could be done for him.

  His brain still reeling from the shock of the tragedy, he tried to pull himself together and think calmly of what was the best thing to do. How were they to get back to the main shaft that led to the surface? The passages and tunnels of the mine were a hopeless maze to him. Before they had gone far without a guide they would be completely lost. The only thing was to stay where they were until help came. But would help come? Hoy long would they have to wait? Nobody but the dead driver knew where they were. Meanwhile their friends were probably needing help, but he was unable to get to them to help them.

  “Do I hear men’s voices?” the girl beside him asked nervously.

  He listened.

  Yes, there were voices, coming toward them. A number of men speaking rapidly in some language that was strange to him.

  Elsa ran into the haunted tunnel.

  A moment or so later four men appeared round a bend in the walls. They were Asiatics. As soon as they saw him they fired, the explosive bullet striking the wall and bringing down a shower of stones.

  He ran into the tunnel where Elsa hid. They would be afraid to follow them into its haunted reaches, he reasoned.

  And so it proved. The Asiatics stopped at the entrance and argued. Donald and Elsa, hidden behind a bend in the walls, could hear them plainly.

  They seemed to reach a decision. There came a series of curious noises, then a loud crash.

  “What’s that?” demanded Elsa.

  “How should I know? It sounds as though they have overturned the truck.”

  They were not left long in doubt. A voice came shouting along the tunnel.

  “Listen! Do you hear me, you skulking white man? You’ve got away from us for a time, but you’ll stay in there until your bones rot or the ghost gets you. We’ve turned the truck over on its side, so that it completely blocks your way out. And now we are piling heavy stones on it so that a dozen men could not move it from your side. Goodbye, and pleasant dreams! Most of your friends are dead, and you won’t be long in joining them!”

  After a long wait Donald went to the entrance to see what they had done. The truck was lying on its side, completely blocking the passage. It was hopeless to think of getting out.

  “Oh, what can we do?” moaned Elsa feebly.

  Donald’s brain had been working rapidly. He had resolved on a plan, a desperate plan but the only possible one so far as he could see.

  “This tunnel, Miss Hargreaves, has two ends, this end and the end that leads into the Martian tunnel where we met the giant. In any other passage of the mine we might be trapped; here we are not. The other end is open. We must go the other way.”

  “Oh! Do you mean to go back to where we saw that awful ghost? I can’t do that.”

  “Why not, Miss Thorwaldson? It is the only way. Nobody knows we are here except the dead men and those who shut us in here. If things were normal I doubt if anybody would think to look for us here, since we told nobody where we were going. And with these Asiatics walking about shooting everybody it seems pretty obvious that no search party will come for us for a long while.

  Even if the mutiny was crushed everybody’s hands would be full. If we wait we shall be left here a lot longer than we can hold out.

  “Now there is just the possibility that there may be a way to the surface through the Martian tunnel. Did you notice how fresh the air was inside that tunnel? It is fairly certain in my mind that it communicates with the surface somewhere. In my opinion it is an old water-main, and if so it almost certainly goes to the city, and we should be able to get out through the city. I know it is very deep for a water-main, but they probably had to go deep for their water when the seas dried up.

  “Besides, we cannot possibly stay here long: our lights will not last for more than an hour or so, and we do not want to be feeling our way about in darkness. And then again your father and the others probably need our help: it is our duty to get out to them if we possibly can. As for the ghost: perhaps we can dodge him.”

  After much persuasion, Elsa Thorwaldson was at last convinced that he was right, and that his plan was the only possible one for them.

  They went back along the tunnel once more. The first time she had gone boldly and he had hung back uncertainly: now he went ahead with firm step, and she came hesitatingly behind.

  CHAPTER IV

  A Strange Journey

  DONALD HARGREAVES was certain in his own mind that the tunnel was originally
a water-main supplying the ancient city with water from some deep reservoir. If so, it was almost certain to run to the City of the Desert without branches. He tried to imagine what a water-works would be like on an almost airless planet. Pumps would be of little use with no air-pressure to work them: he imagined a large underground reservoir out of which water was dipped up in large buckets. He hoped there would be steps or a ladder or some means whereby they could climb out of the reservoir.

  But those troubles were a long way ahead. The immediate difficulty was to find their way to the city, and to avoid the giant Martian who guarded the tunnel. His chief fear was that the tunnel might prove not to be straight but to wind and branch in a series of wandering caverns in which they might become lost. Or to have caved in, despite its tough metal lining.

  He had a great fear that their lights would not last, and that presently they would find themselves wandering hopelessly in total darkness. He urged Elsa to walk rapidly.

  Was it possible to evade the Martian guardian? Though he had confidently declared that they could, at the back of his mind he did not believe it. He felt oddly certain that the giant would appear, exactly as he had done every time before.

  Which, indeed, he did.

  His procedure was exactly the same as before. One moment there was perfect darkness ahead of them: the next moment the tunnel was flooded with light, and in the middle of the light stood the ten-foot giant, the weird combination of sea-beast and land-creature again beside him.

  Elsa gasped.

  This time the giant did not raise his arm or say, “Cease!” What he said was, “You again?”

  Elsa seemed to calm herself, and to forget her fear in bewilderment.

  Donald found it difficult to know what to say. How could he explain to this strange being that their own kind had turned on them, and that as a consequence there was no safety for them among their own people? The giant was obviously but little acquainted with the English language. Also, it was impossible to judge how he would take the news.