The Spanish Cave

by Geoffrey Household

  “To-morrow morning,” said Olazábal, well knowing that Dick took his lessons in the morning, “we’re going to fit a new propeller to the Erreguiña. Want to see it done, Ricardito?”

  Dick jumped up with sparkling eyes.

  “May I, Father Juan?” he asked eagerly.

  Father Juan looked sadly disappointed in him, and Don Ramon and Olazábal roared with laughter.

  “Mechanics!” exclaimed the priest, now laughing himself. “Illiterate mechanics! But I’ll bet you Ricardo has got more out of his afternoon than you out of yours!”

  “You win, padre!” said Dick. “Look what I found in the Life of St. Andrew!”

  Father Juan took the manuscript.

  “Hola, this is interesting!”—he looked at it under a magnifying glass—“My son, it’s a page from an eleventh century chronicle!”

  “What’s it written in?” asked Dick.

  “Latin; and in the curious cursive script of the time. It looks like—caramba! It’s about a Villadonga that existed before this one!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FATHER JUAN slowly read the manuscript through to himself, while the others looked over his shoulder. Then he translated it aloud:

  “These things having been suffered, the elders of the haven went to Count Roger of Ribadasella, he being lord of all the plain and their protector against the Moors, and begged that he would permit them to depart from the haven and leave the site of their village desolate.

  “Now, the said count was a scoffer, and damned to all eternity, for he beat Brother Sebastian when he found him in the castle cellar, though the said Sebastian had been locked in by misfortune and had become inebriated solely with the smell of the liquor.”

  “Hm’m!” said Father Juan. “I suspect Brother Sebastian of being the writer, so we shall hear nothing good of poor Count Roger.”

  “The elders being assembled in the great hall, Count Roger called on them to produce witnesses who should testify to the evil fortune of the haven. And they answered him truly: ‘Most noble lord, there is no need of witnesses. It is commonly known among all thy people that many have died of the perils of the sea and of bestial hunger.’ Then did Roger the Count rise up in wrath and bellowed, saying: ‘Shall I abandon my coasts to the Norsemen and the Basques, and shall I give up my tithes of fish, because ye come to me with old women’s tales?’

  “And he battered with his axe upon the high table so that all were afraid.

  “Then up spoke one Thomas of Leon, swearing that he had seen a mermaid. On that the count pressed him closely, asking him whether she had dark or golden tresses, and many other questions that would have occurred to none save to this beastly count. And upon Thomas answering that her tresses were of gold, our lord asked him why he had not brought the said mermaid to his castle, seeing that all things found upon the foreshore belonged to him as of right.

  “And he fined the said Thomas one bushel of wheat.

  “Then a Moor named Omar who built the count’s galleys swore that he had seen a great fish. To him answered Count Roger that there were indeed great fishes in the sea and that none should know it better than he, Roger of Ribadasella, who had sailed to the country of the Franks and back. Whereupon he asked the Moor whether he were a Christian or no—a question that was not wont to be of interest to our lord—and upon the Moor replying that there was one God and Mahomet was his prophet, Count Roger smote him with his fist, and he was buried in his sins.

  “So the witnesses, of whom there were yet many, deemed it more prudent not to say what they had seen, and the elders departed. And shortly afterwards, Count Roger being slain in battle with a black oath on his lips, they burned the village to the ground and left the coast deserted.”

  “That’s the end of the eleventh century part,” said Father Juan. “Now come two codicils. The first says:

  “Read and noted. Let an image of St. Andrew be placed in the Cave of the Angels. (signed) Aloysius, Abbot of Leon, 1332 A.D.

  “The second, which is in Spanish, says:

  “Francisca Urrieta, burnt by the Holy Office for witchcraft and for worshipping at a cavern in an oak grove, delivered me this paper before she died. She assured me that it was of great importance, and that it referred to a village supposed to have existed formerly on the site of Villadonga. I cannot read it. It appears to have something to do with the ancient image of St. Andrew. I am therefore filing it in the church copy of his life. (signed) Antonio Menendez, priest of the parish of Villadonga. In the second year of the founding of of the village, 1557 A.D.”

  Pablo was the first to break the silence.

  “No wonder we thought the Cave of the Angels unlucky,” he murmured. “Where there is a stink, there are always noses!”

  “Aye!” said Echegaray. “But Mother Urrieta—a country woman of mine, to judge by her name—was the last to know why those villagers deserted the coast and what the Cave of the Angels had to do with it. Now, I have inherited a little knowledge of the ancient religion of the Basques,”—as a matter of fact Echegaray had inherited very much more than a little—“and I can say that there are only two things which Mother Urrieta would have worshipped at that hole in the oak grove. One is a spirit of the dead, and the other is … Dios mio! I’ve got it! Am I blind? Have I forgotten? I know what’s in that underground channel!”

  He spoke rapidly to Olazábal in Basque. He seemed to be asking Olazábal’s opinion before he went any further. The captain was clearly surprised at Echegaray’s hesitation, and nodded his head vigorously.

  “Pardon me, amigos” said Don Ramon. “Our Basque traditions are very sacred to me, and I am about to tell you things which perhaps I had better keep to myself. Olazábal, I’m glad to say, agrees with me that it must be done.”

  “May we know what the other thing is that Mother Urrieta would have worshipped in a cave?” asked Father Juan.

  “Just read me one passage again, padre,” replied Echegaray. “What was it that was commonly known among Count Roger’s people?”

  Father Juan referred to the manuscript.

  “That many had died of the perils of the sea, and of bestial hunger,” he said.

  “Could that mean the hunger of the beast?”

  “It could,” answered Father Juan, looking closely at the line through his magnifying glass. “Indeed, I think it must.”

  “Then I will tell you a story,” said Echegaray. “The first part of it is legend. The sequel to the legend has only just occurred to me. Mother Urrieta was worshipping a large snake or lizard in that cavern.”

  “Go ahead,” said Father Juan.

  “The Basques are a very religious people,” began Don Ramon. “Consequently they loved their old pagan faith as well as they love the Church to-day, and they stuck to it long after the rest of Spain had accepted Christianity. In the time of Count Roger there were still plenty of pagans in the Basque provinces and the remote parts of Asturias. They secretly worshipped the spirits of earth and water and woods, and they believed that these spirits often took the shape of beasts.

  “This secret worship, as Father Juan well knows, lasted into the 16th century. The Holy Office, according to their lights, were quite justified in burning Mother Urrieta. She was what they called a witch—in other words a woman who continued praying to the old gods. She probably had certain very limited powers, which appeared supernatural, and I expect she admitted at her trial that the devil sometimes visited her. The devil did—but he was merely the high priest of her religion, wearing his ritual costume of a bull’s horns and tail.”

  “I have heard,” Father Juan interrupted, “that through sons and adopted sons the line of priests never became extinct, and that there is still someone who possesses all the ancient knowledge.”

  “That seems incredible in a modern civilisation, padre,” replied Echegaray casually.

  “It does,” Father Juan agreed. “Of course I realise that the—er—high priest is probably a very good Christian, but I would love to know just w
hat knowledge he has inherited.”

  “Who knows?” growled Olazábal uneasily. “And what has this to do with the Cave of the Angels?”

  “Plenty,” Don Ramon replied. “It’s the prologue to my legend. Once upon a time, they say, the sea-god was angry because he had very few worshippers left in Asturias to do him honour. So he sent beasts to punish the people. What these beasts looked like, I don’t know. The old women fill in the details, but they make them up as they go along. Anyway, they were terrible creatures. The fishermen dared not put to sea, and even on land they were not safe, for the beasts would raid the huts on the seashore.

  “Well, we have just heard how the Christians abandoned the coast—but the pagans did not. Their elders sailed east to the Basque country to ask advice of the high priest, who told them that they must offer sacrifice to the beasts. Very practical advice, I should say, for so the creatures would eat what they were given instead of what they chose to take. But I do not think the high priest could have realised the poverty of his few faithful Asturians. They lived only in the remotest parts of the shore and the hills, and they had very little livestock for sacrifice.

  “They offered what they had, however. Once a month, on the darkest night, the faithful rowed out to a flat rock in the sea, towing cattle and sheep behind them. These they left on the rock, and the beasts came and devoured them. Doesn’t that suggest how Offering Key got its queer name?”

  “Good lord! ” exclaimed Father Juan.

  “Well, the few cattle they had were soon eaten up,” continued Echegaray, “so they chose a girl to die for the people. There is a story, of course, that the girl was rescued. But she wasn’t—she was eaten. When the high priest heard of the human sacrifice, he was horrified, and he prayed to all the gods who lived up there——” Echegaray shot out his arm towards the open window, and through it they saw the clouds gathering like great ghosts on the Peaks of Europe “—begging them to deliver the people from the wrath of the sea-god. The gods heard his prayer, but they might not kill the sea-god’s pets. So they decided to imprison them. With a shaft of his lightning the god of the gods shattered the entrance to the beasts’ den, and closed it for ever.”

  “I expect the high priest did it himself,” said Dick irreverently.

  “Hombre! It’s only a legend I’m telling you!” exclaimed Echegaray.

  “Well, you told it as if it were true, Don Ramon,” said Dick, “and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be, all except that stuff about the gods.”

  “I don’t see why it shouldn’t be, either, Ricardito,” Don Ramon answered, “and I dare say the high priest did have something to do with that rock falling into the channel. Though how he managed it I haven’t any idea—unless he did it by the sheer force of prayer.”

  “And now what is the sequel to the legend?” asked Father Juan.

  “Here’s what I think it is,” Echegaray replied. “If any of you have a better theory, stop me.

  “The beasts remained in the cave, shut in by that rock on which we found Dick. They didn’t starve, for a lot of fish go into that cave. Why, I don’t know. But they do. I suggest that the creatures lived and bred and died there for several generations, and that now there is only one of them left.”

  “Why only one?” asked Pablo.

  “Because we have to find a reason why one of the beasts should have got out in recent years, and never before. It wouldn’t attempt to get out for curiosity or pleasure, since it knows no life but the cave and the darkness. It wouldn’t get out for food, since, if my theory is right, there is enough food right there. But it might be driven to get out by the instinct to find a mate.”

  “El pobrecito!” exclaimed Pablo with true pity.

  “Poor thing, indeed!” said Echegaray. “I can imagine it driven by that tremendous impulse to a place it did not know existed for a purpose it could not understand—and trying desperately to get over that rock which closed the only possible way out. At the top of an ordinary spring tide it could nearly make it, but not quite. I can picture it leaping and leaping at the rock, and making the cave quiver with its screams. Then came a high spring tide of March or September, and at last it heaved itself on to the rock, and got out. It swam about, savage and lonely, and after a time returned. It would have no difficulty in returning on any fairly high tide, since the side of the rock which faces the approach from the sea is much lower than the other. I think it came home while Dick was sleeping in the cave. The mud which fell on him was not volcanic, but dropped off the creature’s body as it crawled over the rock.

  “Well, as the years passed, it learned to wait for the two great tides without making too desperate efforts between whiles. Generally, when it gets out, no lonely little ship has the misfortune to be in its path. But if there is one, it attacks—sheer savagery, probably, like a stag in October. Evidently the creature can jump out of the water like a seal, and its weight alone would be enough to overturn the San José or the Daphne,”

  “But such a beast as you imagine,” objected Father Juan, “would be a hundred feet long, and heavy in proportion.”

  “It is,” said Don Ramon. “Ask Ricardito!”

  They all turned to Dick.

  “Yes,” said Dick. “The thing I saw fits Don Ramon’s description. I never dreamed it was an animal. It was so big.”

  “For heaven’s sake let’s be sane,” said Father Juan, stroking his white hair. “With your imagination and your gods and your witches, Don Ramon, you charm away all our common sense. Now, seriously, your whole theory is preposterous!”

  “Why?” asked Don Ramon.

  “Because in the first place your dragons are just a fairy tale, and in the second place, if we knew what grain of truth there is in the tale, they would turn out to be sea-lions, or sharks, or some other familiar beasts.”

  “I admit it’s all very improbable,” said Echegaray, “but the theory fits the facts—and then I have no doubt at all that there are a few large reptiles left in the sea which we know little about.”

  “Sea serpents?” asked Father Juan, smiling gently.

  “I don’t like the word!” exclaimed Echegaray. “I don’t like it! There’s never a year but some fool reports he has seen a sea serpent, and it always turns out to be a school of porpoises or a bank of floating weed or a giant squid travelling on the surface with one of its arms waving in the air. But give the sea serpent another name, and he becomes much more probable. Let’s call him a sea crocodile, for example.”

  “It’s queer how we are influenced by names,” remarked Father Juan. “I don’t find so much difficulty in believing in a sea crocodile. But is there any evidence for it?”

  “Evidence!” snorted Olazábal. “Evidence! You don’t want evidence, padre, for what everyone knows! My father’s cousin heard the thing, and Captain Allarte fished up part of one off the Grand Banks!”

  “Captain Allarte,” said Echegaray, “was believed to have hooked a transatlantic cable. And your father’s cousin—may he rest in peace!—died under the impression that pink sea snakes were crawling up his bedposts!”

  Olazábal sat bolt upright, and stared at Echegaray indignantly.

  “He was very sympathetic,” declared the captain, “and he loved me dearly.”

  “No doubt he did,” agreed Echegaray calmly. “But he once mistook the moon for the sun in working out his position, and decided that he had arrived in the south Pacific after twelve hours sail from Zumaya.”

  “It is human,” remarked Pablo, feeling it his duty to support his friend’s father’s cousin, “to err.”

  “It is,” Don Ramon said. “And so I believe everything I hear when I hear it, but I test it pretty carefully afterwards. Now I have first-hand evidence from men I trust that a thing like an enormous sea crocodile has been sighted off Graciosa in the Azores, and off the south-west coast of Sumatra. There is a fairly well attested case of such a beast being seen in the Gulf of California, but the classic instance is the creature sighted off the West Afric
an coast by the British warship Dœdalus. It was seen in broad daylight by all the men and officers of the watch, and they described it exactly. It had a long, powerful neck and a smallish head. They couldn’t be sure of its shape below water, but it appeared to have a thick body propelled by paddles.”

  “A survival from the age of reptiles,” murmured Father Juan. “It seems most unlikely.”

  “Why?” asked Echegaray. “The crocodiles survived, and the giant tortoise. You’d say they were the most improbable animals if you’d never seen them. And if, as they think, it was a change of climate which wiped out the great reptiles, the most likely to survive would be the free-swimming animals which could seek warmth wherever it was.”

  “The size of your sea crocodile would be against it,” objected Father Juan. “It must be a clumsy brute.”

  “Yes. A school of barracuda or a pair of grampuses could probably make very short work of it. Good! Therefore there are very few of my sea crocodiles, and they can only live and breed in very protected places—such as the underground channel.”

  “Well,” said Father Juan, “I reserve judgment. I am almost inclined to say like Tertullian, I believe because it is incredible. What are you going to do?”

  Echegaray snapped out of his imaginative mood, and became the energetic shipwright of Bilbao. He sat down at the desk and wrote a brief note.

  “Captain Olazábal,” he said, “I want you to take this to Pedro Torrontegui in the market of Bilbao. It’s a request for one crate of oranges.”

  “Torrontegui doesn’t sell oranges,” answered Olazábal. “He’s the head of the Communist party in the Basque provinces.”

  “I know he is,” said Don Ramon, “but forget it. He’s a friend of mine, and he has a kind of orange that I want. Take darned good care of them and don’t put the crate near the boiler, or they might get over-ripe. Call at my yard, too, and ask for an outboard motor to fit Pablo’s boat. Here are the measurements!”

  “Ricardito, you’re the best electrician here. Can you and your brother fix me a telegraph? I want a line that the boat can drag behind it as it explores the channel beyond the rock, and instruments so that a party in the boat can communicate with another party at the mouth of the cave.”