by John Buchan
He dropped still lower. The forest was dense as the grass on a lawn. Tall trees now and then broke it, and sudden rocky spurs, but, though he was less than five hundred feet above it, he could make out no details, except where the river broadened into a leaden pool. The vegetation was as thick as an animal’s pelt. A strange odour ascended to him — sweet and stupefying and rotten...
Could Janet be in that jungle of death? Could any human being be there and hope for life? The place seemed like a charnel-house encrusted by foul mosses.
Janet was not there — of that he had a sudden, complete conviction. The horror of the place grew on him, but he still held on. It was fast growing dark, and out of the forest a fog was rising like a wraith. He saw it billowing up towards him, and started to climb...Then his eye fell on the petrol gauge, and he had an ugly shock. What on earth had happened? He remembered now — he had forgotten to refill at Magdalena as he had intended.
But still he had started that morning with enough for a twenty-four hours’ flight. The tank must have sprung a leak, for there were only about twenty minutes of petrol left.
He turned and flew in what he thought was the direction of the entrance to the gorge. There was just a chance that he might reach it in time and find a landing-place beyond it, for there could be no landing in this jungle. But the fog had enveloped him and was now far above him, a horrible, thick, choking whiteness which smelt of violets. He turned to look at Hamilton. That worthy, with the collar of his coat turned up, had his usual sullen calm. “It’s comin’ on for a thick nicht,” he observed.
Archie looked again and saw that the main tank had gone dry. There was only the reserve tank left, and that would last at the most a quarter of an hour. He climbed steeply, For he remembered that he had been descending since he passed through the gorge. Below him was now thick darkness, but the mist above him seemed to hold the late sunshine. It might be thinner higher up, so he climbed towards he light.
Something not unlike panic had now seized Archie. If his petrol failed before he reached a landing-place, then he must crash in this noisome forest. Horror of the place ripped him like a nightmare. He climbed up and up, struggling to get above the mist, only dimly aware of the direction of his course...Could he hit off the gorge in his suffocating gloom? Was it worth trying? He had seen the zone of snow which encircled the cup. Up there there must be open ground, where a landing might be made. So he contented himself with climbing, bearing blindly to the left. His one aim was to get above the forest.
It was certainly less dark. He was coming out of the main shroud of the fog, and the white veil seemed to have patches in it. The altimeter registered nearly twelve thousand feet...But the forest was climbing with him, and suddenly below him he saw in the brume the top of a tall tree, a thin etching of black in the dimness. He must be far up the containing slopes. Then he observed from the gauge that only a few minutes more of petrol remained. He came to a decision.
“Hamilton,” he cried, “we’ve got to go overboard. Get your chute ready.”
There was no change in the man’s stolidity. He had practised this drill in the Courts of the Morning, and now quietly made his preparations. Archie directed his spotlight downwards, and once again a fluff of tree tops came into view.
“Quick,” he said. “I’ll follow in a second.”
“I doot I’ll get a dunt,” said Hamilton grimly as he went over the left side of the cockpit. Archie saw that the chute had opened and righted at once, and that he was descending steadily into the void.
His own task was more difficult. He cut out the switches and pulled the plane into a stall. He meant to go out on the right, when suddenly the right wing began to droop, which meant that it would strike the parachute. He therefore steadied the plane, and followed Hamilton over the left side. He started head foremost, but the risers pulled him upright and the parachute opened. The plane above him was lost in an instant, and Archie, oscillating violently and feeling very sick, plunged into a gulf of primeval darkness.
Something hit his head; then he hung for a second upside-down before slipping into what seemed a gigantic bramble bush which scratched his face. Another bump, a plunge, and Archie found himself standing on tiptoe on solid earth, with the ruins of the parachute and his great-coat hanked in the lower boughs of a tree.
X
Archie took a good quarter of an hour to disentangle himself from his Absalom-like posture, since, owing to the constriction of his garments, he could not get at his knife, and his hands were numb with cold. When at last he was free, he pitched forward stiffly into a huge tree-fern, which kept him from rolling down the slope. The actual forest was thin, but the undergrowth was dense and water-logged, and the declivity so steep that every step must be matched. The fog was still there, but it was not thick, and faint light filtered through it, so that it was possible to see he ground beneath and the trees above in a dim monotint.
His first business must be to find Geordie Hamilton. He shouted, but it was like speaking with the mouth muffled by olds of blanket. He argued that Hamilton must have descended not more than two hundred yards below him, and that the plane when he left it had been directly ascending the mountain face, so he tried to shape a straight course downhill. But the going was appalling. There were thickets of cactus to be circumvented, an occasional tall tree choked with creepers, and strips of sheer red earth. He stopped very few yards to shout for his companion, but no answer came; it seemed impossible to pierce that deathly stillness.
Presently he realised that at this rate he would soon be lost. He halted and mopped his brow, for he was sweating under the burden of his heavy flying-clothes. And then he heard, apparently from the bowels of the earth, what seemed to be a groan.
“Hamilton,” he cried, and, shouting his name, he made his way a little to the left.
At last a reply came, a miserable, muffled voice.
“Is’t you, Sir Erchibald?” it said, and it was as if its owner were speaking from under deep water.
The place was a shallow ravine, and as Archie groped his way something very hard and sharp caught him in the neck.
“Hamilton, where on earth are you?” he cried in pain.
“I’m catched in a buss,” came an answering groan. “For God’s sake get me out, for I’ve gotten some awfu’ jags.”
Then Archie remembered his spot-light. It revealed a great clump of the aloe called caraguata, with Hamilton most intricately wedged among the sword — like leaves. Above the spikes, like a dissolute umbrella, waved the parachute. Hamilton hung face downward, his great-coat suspended over him and his legs splayed like a clumsy diver’s. He had ceased to struggle, for every movement sent the thorn deeper into his tenderest parts.
Archie stripped to shirt and breeches, and set himself slowly to cut the victim out, but it was the better part of and hour before the work was done, and Hamilton, still apoplectic about the face, was cautiously examining his wounds. He had plenty of them, but only scratches, though he declared that his legs were so stiff that it would be a month before he could walk.
“You’ll have to start right away,” Archie told him. “We can’t stay in this blasted hot-house. We must be pretty near the edge of the tree-line, and once we get above the forest we can find a place to sleep. So step out, my lad, game leg or no. You and I are about equal now.”
Slowly and with many stumbles they began the ascent, guiding themselves by the lift of the ground. It was desperately laborious, for sometimes the way was up sheer banks of earth, the remains of old landslides, and as slippery as oil; sometimes through acres of great ferns where the feet sank into deep hollows among the roots: sometimes through cactus scrub which reduced their coat-skirts to rags; often through horrible oozing moss which sent up a stink like a charnel-house. The fog was dying away, and the rising moon made their immediate environment clear, but the better they could see the more hopeless the toil became.
Hamilton panted and sobbed, and Archie’s weak leg gave him many falls. The air
had none of the wholesome chill of night. A damp heat closed them in, and when now and then a faint waft came up from the valley beneath. It seemed to have a sickening scent of violets. Often they stopped for breath, but they did not lie down. Instinctively they both shrank from contact with that unhallowed soil. Once Hamilton drank from a pool in a stream, and was violently sick.
“We must be about the height of the Matterhorn,” Archie said, “and yet it’s as hot as hell. This is a cursed place.”
“Deed, it’s no canny,” said Hamilton, gulping with nausea.
Before long it was clear that Hamilton’s strength was giving out. Thickset and burly as he was, this greenhouse-mountaineering was beyond him. He stumbled more often, and after each fall took longer to recover. At last he stopped.
“I doot I’m done, sir,” he wheezed. “This bloody cemetery is ower much for me! You gang on.”
“Nonsense,” said Archie, taking his arm. He was dog-tired himself, but to his more sensitive nerves the hatred of the place was such that it goaded him forward like a spur.
“See, we’ll take hands. We can’t be far from the tree-line.”
But it seemed hours before they reached it. Fortunately the slope had become easier and less encumbered, but the two men staggered on drunkenly, speaking no word, their eyes scarcely seeing, so that their falls were frequent, everything blotted from their mind but the will to bodily endurance. So blind were they that they did not notice that the fog was almost gone, and they had come out of the forest before they realised it. Suddenly Archie was aware that he was no longer climbing steeply, and then he was looking across a shelf of bare land which rose to a rim of a pale silver.
He was breathing free air, too. A cool light wind was on his forehead.
“Hamilton,” he cried, “I...believe...we’re clear.”
The two dropped like logs, and the earth they sank on was not the reeking soil of the forest, but the gravel of an upland.
Both lay for a little, their limbs too weary to stretch. Then Archie crawled to his feet.
“Let’s go on a bit. I want to feel really quit of that damned Poison Valley. We must find a hole to sleep in.”
They staggered on for another half-mile, weakly, but no longer so miserably. The sand and shale underfoot gleamed white as salt in the moonlight, and were broken only by boulders and small scrubby thorns. Then they found a shelf of rock which overhung so as to form a shallow cave. It was now as cold as it had been hot in the covert, the sweat had dried upon them, and the scratches on hands and face smarted in the frost. Each had a small ration of food in his pocket, charqui — which is the biltong the Gran Seco Indians prepare — some biscuits and chocolate, and Arch had a packet of raisins. They supped lightly, for thirst and hunger seemed to have left them, and, cuddled against each other for warmth, both were soon asleep.
Archie woke in an hour’s time. He had slept scarcely all during the past three days, and even deep bodily fatigue could not drug his mind. Wild dreams had assailed him — of falling down precipices of red earth into a foetid jungle threaded by oily streams. He woke to find that the moon had set and that it was very dark. Far off there was a call like a jackal barking. There were other things alive on this shelf beside themselves.
Then he heard a sound close at hand — the padding of soft feet on gravel. His spot-light was beside him, and he flashed it in the direction of the feet. About ten yards away stood an animal. At first he thought it was a wolf from its size till he saw its sharp muzzle and prick ears, its reddish fur, and its thick tail. It was a fox, one of the cannibal foxes of the Pais de Venenos that he had heard of from Sandy. The animal blinked in the light, and its teeth were bared in a snarl. Archie reached for Hamilton’s rifle, which lay loaded beside them, but he was too late. The great brute turned and trotted off, and passed out of sight among the boulders.
“Enough to put me off fox-hunting for evermore,” thought Archie. After that he did not sleep, but lay watching the dark thin to shadows and the shadows lighten to dawn. The sun seemed to leap with a bound over the far Cordilleras, and a morning mist, as white and flat as a snowfield, filled the valleys. Archie’s heartsickness returned to him like a fever. Somewhere within the horizon was Janet, but by what freak of fortune was he to get her — himself a mere lost atom at the edge of his endurance, and as ignorant as a babe of this immense, uncharted, unholy world?
Both men soon realised that the Pais de Venenos had exacted its penalty. Hamilton was clearly in a fever, which may have been due to his many cuts, and Archie felt something like a band of hot steel round his head. For breakfast they nibbled a little chocolate and ate a few raisins. Then, as far as their bodily discomfort permitted, they discussed their plans.
“We’re up against some solid facts, Hamilton,” said Archie. “We’re looking for my wife, and I believe she’s somewhere within fifty miles, but we’ve got to admit that we’re lost ourselves. All I remember from Lord Clanroyden’s map is that if we keep going up the south wall of the Poison Country we’ll come to the main range, and south-west of that lies Pacheco. The people we’re seeking must be up on the range, but they may be north or south the of Poison Country. We couldn’t cross that infernal valley, so let’s hope they are on the south. Another thing — we mayn’t be able to get up the range — we’re neither of us in much form for mountaineering. Also, we’ve got about enough food to last us with care for two days. We shan’t want for water.”
“I’ll no need much meat,” said Hamilton sombrely. “I cauldna swallow my breakfast, my throat’s that sair.”
“We’re both dashed ill,” Archie agreed. “I feel like a worm, and you look like one. Maybe we’ll be better if we get higher.”
Hamilton turned a feverish eye upwards. “I doot it’s higher we’ll be goin’. Anither kind o’ Flyin’ Corps. Angels.”
“That’s as it may be. It’s too soon to chuck in our hand. You and I have been in as ugly places before this. We’re both going on looking for my wife till we drop. We’ll trust to the standing luck of the British Army. I’ve a sort notion we’ll find something...”
“We’ll maybe find mair folk than we can manage.”
“Undoubtedly. If we’re lucky enough to get that far, we’ll have to go very warily. We needn’t make plans till we what turns up. At the worst we can put up a fight.”
Hamilton nodded, as if the thought comforted him. A fight with men against odds was the one prospect which held no terrors for him.
The two very slowly and painfully began their march over the shelf and up to the snow-rimmed slopes which contained it. The Pais de Venenos behind them was still a solid floor of mist. Happily the going was good — flat reefs of rock with between them long stretches of gravelly sand. Archie decided that he must bear a little to his right, for there the containing wall seemed to be indented by a pass. They must find the easiest road, for they were in no condition to ascend steep rock or snow. The wind was from the east and wisps of cloud drifted towards them, bringing each a light flurry of snowflakes. They had awoken shivering, and now as they walked their teeth chattered, for both were too sore and stiff to go fast enough to warm their blood.
Suddenly they struck a path — a real path, not an animal’s track, but a road used regularly by human feet. Indeed, it seemed at one time to have been almost a highway. At one place Archie could have sworn that the rock had been quarried to ease the gradient, and at another, where it flanked a stream, it looked as if it had been embanked. In that wild place it seemed a miracle. Archie thought that he must be light-headed, so he examined carefully the workmanship. There could be no doubt about it, for his fingers traced the outlines of squared stones. Once this had been a great highroad, as solid as Roman work. It seemed to come out of the mist of the Poison. Valley, and to run straight towards the pass in the ridge. He pointed it out to Hamilton.
“Aye, there’s been folk here langsyne,” was the answer. Archie bent over a patch of snow. “Not so long ago. Here are the marks of feet, naked feet,
and they were made within the past twenty-four hours.”
Slowly they tramped up the glacis of the range towards the pass. Hamilton walked like a man in a dream, stumbling often, and talking to himself. He seemed to have a head ache, for he stopped at the water-pools to bathe his head. The pain in Archie’s forehead grew worse as they ascended till it became almost unbearable. He kept his fingers on his eyes to ease the throbbing behind them. But his mind was clear, and he could reason with himself about his condition. It might be the poisoning of the forest — most likely that was true in Hamilton’s case — or it might be mountain sickness. He had once had a slight bout in the Karakoram, and he had heard that it was common in the Cordilleras...Just before the summit of the pass he looked back. The tablecloth was lifting from the Pais de Venenos, and the white floor was now cleft with olive-green gashes. The summit of the pass was a hollow between snowdrifts.
There both men stood and stared, for the sight before them was strange and beautiful. Archie had expected another tableland, or a valley of rocks shut in between peaks. Instead his eyes looked over a wide hollow, some three miles in diameter. High ridges flanked it on all sides, and on the west was a great mass of mountain, which he believed must project like a promontory towards the Tierra Caliente. The slopes beneath them were at first boulders and shingle, but presently they became the ordinary grassy savannah, with clumps of wood here and there which seemed to be more than scrub. And in the centre of the hollow lay a lake, shaped like a scimitar, of the profoundest turquoise blue.
He unslung his field-glasses and examined the place. There was no sign of life in it. At various points on the shore he could detect what looked like millet fields, but here was no mark of human habitation. Then he examined a dark blur near the western end, and found something that might have been the ruins of a Border keep.
