The Lost Cavern

by H. F. Heard

  It was this treasure and insigne that Ailuck now drew out. He crouched down in the boat, drew up his skin cloak, and put it over his head. The star could be seen in daylight, but it was much clearer if ordinary light was cut off. There was no doubt, he was pointed not south but toward the Belt. Good observers could tell their position north and south not only by the angle of dip at which the star seemed to be but also by the fact that the beam that pointed to their Pole was a little longer than the one that pointed away. Ailuck had handled his stone long enough to have no doubt: he was heading away from mankind, heading into the inpenetrable swamp of the Belt. He stopped. The moment the gentle splash of oar and keel ceased there was dead silence. He looked back down the lane through which he had come. Yes, he must return.

  Then his ear was caught by a sound. It was little more than a sigh, but a sigh on an immense scale. He sat listening. It grew, it swelled rapidly. It was becoming a roar. At the same time the greenish daylight around him sank to an olive tint. He now knew that the tumult was approaching him from the left. Almost the next moment he heard distinct sounds, trees straining, the pelting drive of rain, and almost immediately the wall of woven green arras on his left seem to bulge, bend down, and fall like a huge net into the canal. Through its twisting fibers, a mixture of wind, water, leaves, and mud rushed. He had been caught in a small typhoon. He and his boat were lifted bodily and thrown into the writhing thicket on his right. Water gushed over him, tendrils lashed at him. The boat’s keel was turned toward the blast. Firmly wedged in the aerial roots among which it had been flung, and embedded behind their growth, it offered little purchase to the frantic wind that stormed above it, laying the upper fringes of the forest flat. It was all over in a quarter of an hour. But when he dragged his kayak out from its net and sought to find the canal, the whole track had vanished, woven over by the plaited wreckage left by the storm.

  He shouldered his kayak—the storm had flung out his truffle cargo and it was nothing to him now. But the pearls were still in his toggled pouch. He made his way stumbling along wherever an opening was offered in the tangled thicket. And then, as quickly as the storm had risen and fallen, so suddenly the path of its destruction came to an end. He found himself on the brink of a canal, perhaps the canal along which he had been traveling. He got into his craft and again consulted his stone. The storm had gone, he had escaped its blow, but it had dealt him something that, after all, might well mean death. For it was clear it had closed the path backward. He was probably on the canal up which he had come from the ocean, but the way that alone was now open led away, ever deeper into the dreadful Belt. He was, however, sufficiently used to peril to know that to sit down under fear is the worst of reactions. He must go on, if only deeper, for there was nothing else to do. Back and either side, all three were closed.

  So many days passed. At night he slept in the floor of his moored boat, safe from any night-prowling beasts and, since he stuffed the manhole with his cloak, from the stinging insects, which mainly swarmed at night. Not infrequently, he heard great bodies floundering and crashing in the jungle at either side of him, but he never saw any break through the dense thicket into view. It was a place so full of vegetation that all animal life seemed more or less on the defensive, and that which existed seemed to be sluggish and to lie as much as it could buried and bogged. The canal did not go due north and south but, though it twisted and went, sometimes for days, in a big curve, nevertheless the main tendency was always toward the Equator. Sometimes he heard again that sighing and then the sudden rush, but none of these twisters and line squalls actually hit him again. They were evidently very narrow in their path and short in their spell.

  Three or four times he came to large pools and even lakes across which he rowed and had then a clear view of the sky. Out on one of these at night he for the first time saw, just above the dark bank of trees that made the lake’s boundary, stars he had never seen hanging in the sky. “So,” he thought, “the priests are right. I have come into another world, no part of ours. The Belt is another place. Perhaps I am dead and the dead are all around me.”

  A greater fear than he had yet known took him. Again he knew his only refuge from madness was to work. He drove the boat along. As he neared the other side of the lake the moon rose. Even it had been changed. It should be, he knew, in its first quarter—a broad sickle pointing down as though to reap the earth. Instead it was now bent over like a bow above where the sun had gone. But this was the last glimpse of the stars, sun, and moon that he had, and he realized soon after that that must have been a rarity—a tear in the high fog made by one of the twisters. He began to enter the true Central Belt. Here the heat was terrible, dense, like a vapor bath, and every day and often in the night the torrential rains, without a moment’s warning, beat down till he gasped, wondering whether he had already been sunk. Yet, with his skin cloak covering the manhole, little water entered the boat, and in such a flooded floating land there was no real danger of inundation. At last he lost all sense of days and time. With mechanical weariness, with the routine of an automaton, he slept, rowed, fed himself, slept, rowed, fed.

  After an epoch of such routine he began to notice things again. The monotony of the canals and their woven green borders was unrelieved, but something new was present—more of a feeling than an observation of his dulled mind. First he became aware that either he must be getting completely lightheaded or the going was easier. Then he did try to observe. Two things were very soon obvious—one was that the skiff was in a slight current that was carrying it down the canal, the other was that besides this current a draft of wind was also following after him. As soon as he recognized this, he rigged his cloak onto the paddle as a sail. Yes, the wind was now strong enough to fill it, and indeed the whole canal was rippling in the direction in which he was headed. He guided the bark with his hand in the water so as to keep it in the fairway. That method of travel—he judged it was considerably faster than his paddling, and the pace grew day by day—he followed, he thought, for perhaps some twenty days. At the end the following wind was almost brisk, and the current quite strong.

  Each night as he made fast he noticed that the vegetation growth was less lush, and each day he saw more of the sky as the overhead lattice of tendrils thinned. And the sky he saw was no longer a fog. Each day it grew clearer. At last he sighted his first definite clouds with patches of real blue between them. And at night the new stars rode unmistakably in the sky. The stars he had known all his life were all gone, the moon was turned round, and the sun at midday was behind him. He felt his mind waver between a hopeless vertigo and a paralyzing numbness. Again he knew that the only thing to do was to go forward. Besides, how could he ever face again, or ever hope to pierce again, the deadly green net through which somehow he had slipped? He was getting to conditions which, though in all their main and master markings the reverse of all he had known, still were conditions more possible for at least a short survival than those of the Belt through which he had passed.

  The end came quickly. The great banks of forest wheeled away one noon to right and left. He was out in a big lake or sea in many ways like his own. The wind was still behind. Far away, far down on the horizon ahead, he could see a faint blue bank that to his far-sighted, sea-practiced eye—relieved from all that close-up bank of greenness—should mean a coastal line. He managed his skiff with mastery, and she sheared her way over the easy-flowing sea. He felt some kind of exultation—after all, he was free, he had come through. By sundown the coast was certainly a place of possible landings, the faint undifferentiated blue had turned to patchy coloring, coves, beaches, cliffs, shore-valleys—he knew.

  It was dusk, though, with a small moon risen behind him, when, on a gentle swell, he made a landing where a small river came down and found a sand cove. He beached his boat, turned his cloak from sail to coverlet, got into the thwarts of his craft, and, after munching some fruit he had stored—he had drunk of the stream and found it good water—he fell asleep. He woke t
o find that the cove on which he had landfallen was very small and narrow; cliffs rose on each side of it so that there was no way on either hand up or down the coast. And ahead only a narrow defile, hardly more than a ravine, led steeply upward to the land. Down this fissure the little stream came cascading.

  He was a cautious man. Taking his boat, he carried it to some tumbled rocks and there hid it, covering it over with wracks of seaweed that he picked up. He even took care to brush away the footprints he had made on the sand above the narrow tide line and for the rest stepped only on stones. Then he made his way warily up the ravine. It was perhaps not more than six or seven hundred fathoms, he judged, before the climb—for it was practically that—brought him to where he could look out over the landscape.

  The first shock was that it was so like home. He had been told that there was a realm beyond the infernal Belt but that it was horrible and wild and quite beyond a sane mind’s imagination. And here was a quiet landscape—perhaps not so dramatic and picturesque as his own but if anything a tamer, more peaceful variant. There was not a man or beast or building in sight. He stood up and shaded his eyes. As far as he could see the ground spread away in quiet, thinly grassed meadows. Soon he began to feel hunger and searched for anything to eat. Farther and farther afield he went. He found a spring and drank from it—but never any food. He chewed some grass and so went on till sundown over this savanna. As dusk was coming on, he found some puffball fungus and, though it tasted unpleasant, he ate it. It helped to stop his hunger but, though it was not poisonous, it disagreed with him, and he felt no strength from having eaten.

  So he went for three days, making long diagonals across the landscape, hoping always he might find a stream with fish in it or bushes with some kind of berry. It was on the third day that he was seized with a shuddering fit—one of the fevers of the Belt had developed in him. For three days it mounted in him. When the shuddering became severe, he crept under a bush and lay there with his skin cloak round him. On the third day he lost all consciousness. After that blank he remembered that he felt something being put between his teeth and a flowing down his throat. Then there was rest, and after a time this happened again. After perhaps half a dozen such experiences he opened his eyes. He could see a hand holding something to his mouth. He raised his eyes. Close to him, almost as close as the hand, was a face—not a face like any he had seen. It was very soft, smooth, round; it really had hardly any features at all, the smooth surface just flowed up to the suggestion of a nose, three gentle folds suggested eyes and a mouth, and then the head smoothed away into a mere suggestion of a chin. But there was something very gentle in this faint appearance. And whoever it was was taking care of him. He yielded himself.

  After a week he was stronger, but, as soon as the fever was gone, as he was stretching himself and looking over his perished frame, he saw certain patches. It was while he was examining these that his befriender came back, bent down, looked at them, and then hurried away. But, before leaving, the nurse took his hands and moved them away from the patches. Evidently he was not to touch them. She—for he presumed it was a female of the Northern species—came back with a rush basket full of some kind of mud. It was still hot. She plastered it over him and showed that he must lie still. Then she fed him and left him. He lay quiet. The mud kept its heat remarkably long and was very soothing. He fell at last to sleep. He had not been awake long before she was there again. She cracked off the dried, caked mud, and the patches were gone—indeed, his skin glowed with health.

  Gradually he and his nurse grew to know each other without speech. She was a goat-tender. Her dog, also, after a little while, made friends with him. She was evidently out on these distant pastures all by herself for long stretches—they were useless lands save for grazing, but for that they were good. She had a hut, a kind of half-cave cove, about two hours’ walk north from where she—or, rather, her dog—had found him under the bush. Inevitably their great loneliness made a companionship as strong. Somehow, with scrawled drawings and through their keen mutual sympathy, she made him understand that she was somewhat of an outcast—her features were too distinct, so she was too ugly for social success. An inbred taste had made the Northerners specialize in a type of Mongolian beauty in which the ambition was to have no nose at all—noses were considered the mark of bestiality, the snout of a brute. Ailuck found that she was quite beautiful to him. She took him for granted as her friend, for till then she had had none.

  They did not say anything but knew that they would travel together. Nor did he make any plans. He helped her with the goats and waited for her when she went to the out-station to deliver one flock and receive another. On one return, however, she was alarmed. She could not tell him any details, but she made it clear that his presence was known. They pondered this—but did nothing for a day, for two days. Then, when they were sitting in the shade of a bush, the dog, who was at their feet, suddenly cocked an ear, half rose, and was in a moment on his feet with his hackles rising. She showed that she could judge how near intruders had come. Already the dog was barking, and then he rushed out to meet whoever had been stalking them. They heard the snarl and then cries, blows, and a howl. Without a moment’s delay she seized his hand and, dashing into the thicket, she ran, stooping, through it until they were out on the other side.

  They were in a shallow valley which, as he knew, led south to the bay across which he had come to this land. She ran bent but swiftly. He was a good runner. He realized as clearly as she that if they were taken both of them would be killed. As the valley curved and they came in sight of the bay he looked back. Yes, a group of people were chasing them. They kept their distance, though, for both she and he were clearly the better runners. So they came to the shore. He recognized the coast line and after a short run along the low cliff came to the spot where the spring made its way down to the beach.

  They ran down. He went at once to where the kayak had been stored. The wrack had withered but was still covering it. He threw back the seaweed. The boat lay there. He snatched it up and then, with a groan, let it drop. It was riddled. A kind of crab ran out of its thwarts. Whether it was because rawhide had been used for its lashings or because of the smell of the old stock fish, the crabs had gnawed and torn holes in the sides from keel to gunwale.

  But the woman took hold of the wreck and pushed it into the sea. It floated, and holding onto it she beckoned him to follow. So, using it as a raft, they floated themselves out. She pointed they should go right, so as to round the small headland that there blocked the way along the beach. When they were around, she pushed inshore again—for she swam, to his surprise, well—and beached the broken canoe. Then she set out running along the sands to the right. When they had run like this for ten minutes or so, she looked back. They saw small figures standing on the cliff far behind them. After another quarter-hour’s running a second look showed no one on the skyline behind. She then settled down to a walk. She had evidently made up her mind—knew that she must go.

  They slept that night in a seashore cave. It was not difficult to get sea-food—mussels, clams, oysters, and some edible seaweed. They went thus for ten days. She was evidently heading for some particular spot. At last he saw, out in the waters of the gulf, the shores of which they were following, a blue line—they were approaching the gulf’s western end. After another day’s travel they were there. The coast curved around, they could go south. And south she evidently intended to go, for she never paused. And he was as willing. Hadn’t he gone through the Belt before, and now with this strong, resourceful companion—there was nothing weak about her, or frail, or diffident—why should they not do as well? She evidently had thought the same. There was only death behind them. It was clear that once an intruder had been sighted he would be hunted until killed, and on those open plains that would not take long.

  She made no attempt to stop when they reached the end of western shore of the gulf, and already they could see a thicker, richer growth of vegetation before them. Without c
onsultation but with a common mind they headed for the Belt. He did not count the days it took before they could be said to have reached the Belt proper. All he thought was, “The way I came before must have been one of the old ocean-bed ways, and this must be over one of those land masses which we used to be told once ran north and south in the old world.” They were traveling down what had been Africa, while he had come up across what had been the Indian Ocean and some of its islands and flooded Arabia ending in a wide northerly extension of the Arabian Sea.

  The first part was then rather better going. When the forest became complete, day by day, with the help of his compass, they kept their path, swinging themselves by the lianas, and night by night they climbed trees, and, coiling themselves into a hammock made of these natural ropes, slept. As the density became complete underneath, they found they could actually travel on the treetops, which had matted into a kind of roof, a roof that was woven close by vines and further plugged and piled by a thick, stringy moss. But this only lasted for a day’s travel or so, after which they had to go down—not to ground level, but to swamp and mush line.

  One day they were plunging along through this when she, who was ahead, stepped onto a green tussock. It looked firm. It was actually a moss floating on a bog-hole. Her foot went through and she sank up to mid-hip. She called out, and he took hold of her arms with both of his and began to pull her out of the sucking mud. Suddenly she began to scream, and he felt her weight apparently increase. He redoubled his effort, and, though his feet began to settle in the boggy humus on which he stood, he seemed to be getting her free. He was dully puzzled as to why she should be screaming when she was now nearly safe, when his eye, which could see her legs as they slowly rose from the mud, saw that one, just above the knee—she was clear now to that—seemed to have on it a black, gleaming boot. It was encased in the mouth of a giant subaquatic leech, a monstrous black tube. Just around the top of this boot could be seen small studs of red and pearl. The creature had fine teeth, and these were embedded in the woman’s leg. Blood beaded around each indentation. He struggled with all his might. But gradually the creature was able to coil around its underwater purchase. For a moment it was a tug of war with the screaming woman as the link. Then the black thing began to gain. Gradually, do what he would, she began to sink. The black boot went, she was down to the waist, the breast, shoulders, neck. Now only her mouth and face were above the filthy water. His own head was being dragged down to it. He smelled its rotten stench as her struggles stirred up its gases. Her head went under and her struggles increased. His chest was now in the muck, and he was on his knees. She had ceased to struggle, though her fingers were stuck into his arm muscles. As the water touched his face, he threw himself back, seized an aerial root that thrust out over the water, and with a huge effort heaved himself onto the bank, shuddering and dripping with mire. The thick liquid of the pool rippled for a moment, and a couple of bubbles rose and burst on the surface. There was no trace that he had ever had a companion.