CHAPTER XII
Fortunately there was a good deal of broken timber thrown up at"high-water" mark, and with a stack of this at the mouth of the littlecave a pleasant fire was soon made by help of a flint pebble and thesteel back of my sword. It was a hearty blaze and lit up all the nearcliffs with a ruddy jumping glow which gave their occupants amarvellous appearance of life. The heat also brought off the dull rimeupon the side of my recess, leaving it clear as polished glass, and Iwas a little startled to see, only an inch or so back in the ice andstanding as erect as ever he had been in life, the figure of animposing grey clad man. His arms were folded, his chin dropped upon hischest, his robes of the finest stuff, the very flowers they had deckedhis head with frozen with immortality, and under them, round his crispand iron-grey hair, a simple band of gold with strange runes andfigures engraved upon it.
There was something very simple yet stately about him, though his facewas hidden and as I gazed long and intently the idea got hold of methat he had been a king over an undegenerate Martian race, and hadstood waiting for the Dawn a very, very long time.
I wished a little that he had not been quite so near the glassy surfaceof the ice down which the warmth was bringing quick moisture drops. Hadhe been back there in the blue depths where others were sitting andcrouching it would have been much more comfortable. But I was asailor, and misfortune makes strange companions, so I piled up the fireagain, and lying down presently on the dry shingle with my back to himstared moodily at the blaze till slowly the fatigues of the day told,my eyelids dropped and, with many a fitful start and turn, at length Islept.
It was an hour before dawn, the fire had burnt low and I was dreamingof an angry discussion with my tailor in New York as to the sit of mylast new trousers when a faint sound of moving shingle caught my quickseaman ear, and before I could raise my head or lift a hand, a man'sweight was on me--a heavy, strong man who bore me down withirresistible force. I felt the slap of his ice-cold hand upon my throatand his teeth in the back of my neck! In an instant, though but halfawake, with a yell of surprise and anger I grappled with the enemy, andexerting all my strength rolled him over. Over and over we wentstruggling towards the fire, and when I got him within a foot or so ofit I came out on top, and, digging my knuckles into his throttle,banged his head upon the stony floor in reckless rage, until all of asudden it seemed to me he was done for. I relaxed my grip, but theother man never moved. I shook him again, like a terrier with a rat,but he never resented it. Had I killed him? How limp and cold he was!And then all of a sudden an uneasy feeling came upon me. I reachedout, and throwing a handful of dried stuff upon the embers the firedanced gaily up into the air, and the blaze showed me I was savagelyholding down to the gravel and kneeling on the chest of that long-deadking from my grotto wall!
It was the man out of the ice without a doubt. There was the veryniche he had fallen from under the influence of the fire heat, the veryrecess, exactly in his shape in every detail, whence he had stoodgazing into vacuity all those years. I left go my hold, and after theflutter in my heart had gone down, apologetically set him up againstthe wall of the cavern whence he had fallen; then built up the fireuntil twirling flames danced to the very roof in the blue light ofdawn, and hobgoblin shadows leapt and capered about us. Then once moreI sat down on the opposite side of the blaze, resting my chin upon myhands, and stared into the frozen eyes of that grim stranger, who, withhis chin upon his knees, stared back at me with irresistible,remorseless steadfastness.
He was as fresh as if he had died but yesterday, yet by his clothingand something in his appearance, which was not that of the Martian ofto-day, I knew he might be many thousand years old. What things he hadseen, what wonders he knew! What a story might be put into his mouthif I were a capable writer gifted with time and imagination instead ofa poor outcast, ill-paid lieutenant whose literary wit is often taxedhardly to fill even a log-book entry! I stared at him so long andhard, and he at me through the blinking flames, that again I dozed--anddozed--and dozed again until at last when I woke in good earnest it wasdaylight.
By this time hunger was very aggressive. The fire was naught but acirclet of grey ashes; the dead king, still sitting against thecave-side, looked very blue and cold, and with an uncomfortablerealisation of my position I shook myself together, picked up andpocketed without much thought the queer gold circlet that had droppedfrom his forehead, and went outside to see what prospect of escape thenew day had brought.
It was not much. Upriver there was not the remotest chance. Not evena Niagara steamer could have forged back against the sluice coming downfrom the gulch there. Looking round, the sides of the icyamphitheatre--just lighting up now with glorious gold and crimsonglimmers of morning--were as steep as a wall face; only back towardsthe falls was there a possibility of getting out of the dreadful trap,so thither I went, after a last look at the poor old king, along mynarrow beach with all the eagerness begotten of a final chance. Up tothe very brink it looked hopeless enough, but, looking downwards whenthat was reached, instead of a sheer drop the slope seemed to be a wild"staircase" of rocks and icy ledges with here and there a little patchof sand on a cornice, and far below, five hundred feet or so, a goodbig spread of gravel an acre or two in extent close by where the riverplunged out of sight into the nethermost cavern mouth.
It was so hopeless up above it, it could not possibly be worse furtherdown, and there was the ugly black flood running into the hole to trustmyself to as a last resource; so slipping and sliding I began thedescent.
Had I been a schoolboy with a good breakfast ahead the incident mighthave been amusing enough. The travelling was mostly done on the seatof my trousers, which consequently became caked with mud and glacialloam. Some was accomplished on hands and knees, with now and then a bitdown a snow slope, in good, honest head-over-heels fashion. The resultwas a fine appetite for the next meal when it should please providenceto send it, and an abrupt arrival on the bottom beach about fiveminutes after leaving the upper circles.
I came to behind a cluster of breast-high rocks, and before moving tooka look round. Judge then of my astonishment and delight at the secondglance to perceive about a hundred yards away a brown object, lookinglike an ape in the half light, meandering slowly up the margin of thewater towards me. Every now and then it stopped, stooping down to pickup something or other from the scum along the torrent, and it was thefact that these trifles, whatever they were, were put into a wallet bythe vision's side--not into his mouth--which first made me understandwith a joyful thrill that it was a MAN before me--a real, living man inthis huge chamber of dead horrors! Then again it flashed across mymind in a luminous moment that where one man could come, or go, orlive, another could do likewise, and never did cat watch mouse withmore concentrated eagerness than I that quaint, bent-shouldered thinghobbling about in the blue morning shadows where all else was silence.
Nearer and nearer he came, till so close face and garb werediscernible, and then there could no longer be any doubt, it was awoodman, an old man, with grizzled monkey-face, stooping gait, and ashaggy fur cloak, utterly unlike the airy garments of my Hither folk,who now stood before me. It gave me quite a start to recognise himthere, for it showed I was in a new land, and since he was going socheerfully about his business, whatever it might chance to be, theremust be some way out of this accursed pit in which I had fallen. Sovery cautiously I edged out, taking advantage of all the cover possibleuntil we were only twenty yards apart, and then suddenly standing up,and putting on the most affable smile, I called out--
"Hullo, mess-mate!"
The effect was electrical. That quaint old fellow sprang a yard intoair as though a spring had shot him up. Then, coming down, he stoodtransfixed at his full height as stiff as a ramrod, staring at me withincredible wonder. He looked so funny that in spite of hunger andloneliness I burst out laughing, whereat the woodman, suddenlyrecovering his senses, turned on his heels and set off at his best pacein the opposite direction. This would never
do! I wanted him to be myguide, philosopher, and friend. He was my sole visible link with theoutside world, so after him I went at tip-top speed, and catching himup in fifty yards along the shingle laid hold of his nether garments.Whereat the old fellow stopping suddenly I shot clean over his back,coming down on my shoulder in the gravel.
But I was much younger than he, and in a minute was in chase again.This time I laid hold of his cloak, and the moment he felt my grip heslipped the neck-thongs and left me with only the mangy garment in myhands. Again we set off, dodging and scampering with all our mightupon that frozen bit of beach. The activity of that old fellow wasmarvellous, but I could not and would not lose him. I made a rush andgrappled him, but he tossed his head round and slipped away once moreunder my arm, as though he had been brought up by a Chinese wrestler.Then he got on one side of a flat rock, I the other, and for three orfour minutes we waltzed round that slab in the most insane manner.
But by this time we were both pretty well spent--he with age and I withfaintness from my long fast, and we came presently to a standstill.
After glaring at me for a time, the woodman gasped out as he struggledfor breath--
"Oh, mighty and dreadful spirit! Oh, dweller in primordial ice, sayfrom which niche of the cliffs has the breath of chance thawed you?"
"Never a niche at all, Mr. Hunter-for-Haddocks'-Eyes," I answered assoon as I could speak. "I am just a castaway wrecked last night onthis shore of yours, and very grateful indeed will I be if you can showme the way to some breakfast first, and afterwards to the outsideworld."
But the old fellow would not believe. "Spirits such as you," he saidsullenly, "need no food, and go whither they will by wish alone."
"I tell you I am not a spirit, and as hungry as I don't particularlywant to be again. Here, look at the back of my trousers, caked threeinches deep in mud. If I were a spirit, do you think I would slideabout on my coat-tails like that? Do you think that if I could travelby volition I would slip down these infernal cliffs on my pants' seatas I have just done? And as for materialism--look at this fist; itpunched you just now! Surely there was nothing spiritual in thatknock?''
"No," said the savage, rubbing his head, "it was a good, honest rap, soI must take you at your word. If you are indeed man, and hungry, itwill be a charity to feed you; if you are a spirit, it will at least beinteresting to watch you eat; so sit down, and let's see what I have inmy wallet."
So cross-legged we squatted opposite each other on the table rock, and,feeling like another Sindbad the Sailor, I watched my new friend fumblein his bag and lay out at his side all sorts of odds and ends ofstring, fish-hooks, chewing-gum, material for making a fire, and so on,until at last he came to a package (done up, I noted with delight, in abroad, green leaf which had certainly been growing that morning), andunrolling it, displayed a lump of dried meat, a few biscuits, muchthicker and heavier than the honey-cakes of the Hither folk, andsomething that looked and smelt like strong, white cheese.
He signed to me to eat, and you may depend upon it I was not slow inaccepting the invitation. That tough biltong tasted to me like thetenderest steak that ever came from a grill; the biscuits wereambrosial; the cheese melted in my mouth as butter melts in that of thevirtuous; but when the old man finished the quaint picnic by invitingme to accompany him down to the waterside for a drink, I shook my head.I had a great respect for dead queens and kings, I said, but there weretoo many of them up above to make me thirsty this morning; my respectdid not go to making me desire to imbibe them in solution!
Afterwards I chanced to ask him what he had been picking up just nowalong the margin, and after looking at me suspiciously for a minute heasked--
"You are not a thief?" On being reassured on that point he continued:"And you will not attempt to rob me of the harvest for which I ventureinto this ghost-haunted glen, which you and I alone of living men haveseen?"
"No." Whatever they were, I said, I would respect his earnings.
"Very well, then," said the old man, "look here! I come hither to pickup those pretty trifles which yonder lords and ladies have done with,"and plunging his hand into another bag he brought out a perfect fistfulof splendid gems and jewels, some set and some unset. "They wash fromthe hands and wrists of those who have lodgings in the crevices of thefalls above," he explained. "After a time the beach here will be thickwith them. Could I get up whence you came down, they might be gatheredby the sackful. Come! there is an eddy still unsearched, and I willshow you how they lie."
It was very fascinating, and I and that old man set to work amongst thegravels, and, to be brief, in half an hour found enough glitteringstuff to set up a Fifth Avenue jeweller's shop. But to tell the truth,now that I had breakfasted, and felt manhood in my veins again, I waseager to be off, and out of the close, death-tainted atmosphere of thatvalley. Consequently I presently stood up and said--
"Look here, old man, this is fine sport no doubt, but just at present Ihave a big job on hand--one which will not wait, and I must be going.See, luck and young eyes have favoured me; here is twice as much goldand stones as you have got together--it is all yours without a questionif you will show me the way out of this den and afterwards put me onthe road to your big city, for thither I am bound with an errand toyour king, Ar-hap."
The sight of my gems, backed, perhaps, with the mention of Ar-hap'sname, appealed to the old fellow; and after a grunt or two about"losing a tide" just when spoil was so abundant, he accepted thebargain, shouldered his belongings, and led me towards the far cornerof the beach.
It looked as if we were walking right against the towering ice wall,but when we were within a yard or two of it a narrow cleft, onlyeighteen inches wide, and wonderfully masked by an ice column, showedto the left, and into this we squeezed ourselves, the entrance by whichwe had come appearing to close up instantly we had gone a pace or two,so perfectly did the ice walls match each other.
It was the most uncanny thoroughfare conceivable--a sheer, sharp crackin the blue ice cliffs extending from where the sunlight shone in adazzling golden band five hundred feet overhead to where bottom wastouched in blue obscurity of the ice-foot. It was so narrow we had totravel sideways for the most part, a fact which brought my face closeagainst the clear blue glass walls, and enabled me from time to time tosee, far back in those translucent depths, more and more and evermorefrozen Martians waiting in stony silence for their release.
But the fact of facts was that slowly the floor of the cleft trendedupwards, whilst the sky strip appeared to come downwards to meet it. Amile, perhaps, we growled and squeezed up that wonderful gully; thenwith a feeling of incredible joy I felt the clear, outer air smitingupon me.
In my hurry and delight I put my head into the small of the back of thepuffing old man who blocked the way in front and forced him forward,until at last--before we expected it--the cleft suddenly ended, and heand I tumbled headlong over each other on to a glittering, frozensnowslope; the sky azure overhead, the sunshine warm as a tepid bath,and a wide prospect of mountain and plain extending all around.
So delightful was the sudden change of circumstances that I becamequite boyish, and seizing the old man in my exuberance by the hands,dragged him to his feet, and danced him round and round in a circle,while his ancient hair flapped about his head, his skin cloak wavedfrom his shoulders like a pair of dusky wings and half-eaten cakes,dried flesh, glittering jewels, broken diadems, and golden finger-ringswere flung in an arc about us. We capered till fairly out of breath,and then, slapping him on the back shoulder, I asked whose land allthis was about us.
He replied that it was no one's, all waste from verge to verge.
"What!" was my exclamation. "All ownerless, and with so much treasurehidden hereabout! Why, I shall annex it to my country, and you and Iwill peg out original settlers' claims!" And, still excited by themountain air, I whipped out my sword, and in default of a star-spangledbanner to plant on the newly-acquired territory, traced in giganticletters on the snow-crust--U.S.A
.
"And now," I added, wiping the rime off my blade with the lappet of mycoat, "let us stop capering about here and get to business. You havepromised to put me on the way to your big city."
"Come on then," said the little man, gathering up his property. "Thiswhite hillside leads to nowhere; we must get into the valley first, andthen you shall see your road." And right well that quaint barbariankept his promise.
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