Land Under England

by Joseph O'Neill

  I was thirsty and pushed cautiously through the undergrowth to the stream. When I got to it, there was nothing living in view, so I lay down on the bank and took a plentiful draught. Then I stood with my back to a tree, and ate some more sandwiches and examined the gorge through which I should have to pass if I were to follow the stream that had been my guide up to now. I could see little of it, except a narrow pass between the cliffs.

  As I stood by the tree, one of the slug-like creatures dragged itself over the ground towards me, eating the ground growths. I watched for a while. It seemed unaware of my presence. The thought struck me that its flesh might be eatable. As I moved towards it, my knife in my hand, it stopped eating and remained perfectly quiet. Then, as I came nearer still, it began to drag itself rapidly away. I ran and drove my knife into the middle of its back. A squirt of blood splashed over my boots. The creature quivered, wriggled a little, then lay still, with blood oozing from it. I stared at it with discomfort, feeling suddenly that I had no right to kill in the underworld.

  The creature was evidently some sort of enormous slug, for the skin and body were those of a slug. I cut a slice off the back—a pale sort of flesh. But it looked edible, and I might be very glad of it later. I cut off as much of the meat as I could conveniently carry and packed it in my knapsack. Then I started cautiously on my journey through the gorge.

  I had a fear that if the brute that had attacked me before I slept were a gigantic spider, or any sort of preying beast, it would probably have its home in caves and dens along the walls of the gorge. I therefore kept a sharp look-out for any signs of movement as I came to the mouth of the ravine.

  I was on the point of entering the ravine when I sensed rather than saw a movement. I swung round. One of the double-bodied creatures was coming slowly towards me. I halted abruptly, and stood staring at it, frozen into immobility. There was no tree near me. I had no weapon but the short knife. If it came at me, I should be, I felt, as futile in resistance as a man with no weapon would be before a tiger. I watched, fascinated. When I had stopped, it had stopped also. Now it was standing examining me—a head that was a slobbering leathern bag, with vast eyes that seemed to have countless facets, was contemplating me.

  I felt paralysed. What was behind that ghastly face? I couldn’t imagine. It seemed to be examining me through curiosity. At least there was no gathering of itself together for an attack.

  Behind the face was that vast, unbelievably hideous body stuck up on legs like stilts nearly three feet high. The head seemed to be almost as big as the body. Trailing cords hung from a mouth like the mouth of a huge gurnard. As I stared, the enormous size of the head bag gave me the absurd impression that the creature had a tightly laced waist rather than a neck. I noted every detail as clearly as if I were going to draw it. The time seemed an eternity.

  It was moving. Then, with a sort of whistling sound, it was off down the ravine, making its curious din.

  Immediately the hooting was taken up farther down the ravine, and in a moment the air was full of noise like shrill fog-horns.

  I stood staring after it with a feeling of relief that was almost collapse. My knees were trembling. I had difficulty in keeping myself standing.

  It had been merely curious about me—indifferently curious. If it had been hunting or hungry, I should now be lying under it, dying or dead. At any moment I might meet another. They would not all be merely indifferent. Should I try to go back to the shelter of the trees?

  I stood irresolute. I could see dim forms moving in front. If I went forward, I couldn’t avoid them —yet, if I went backwards, would I be any safer? They were probably behind me as well as in front.

  I kept turning round, watching all sides. There was no movement except those of the creatures in front. In a few moments they too disappeared. The ravine was empty, as far as I could see.

  Still I stood staring round me. It was only now that the hopelessness of my position was becoming clear to me.

  The streamers of light were still as bright as very bright moonlight. The walls of the cliff now and again, when the gleaming was vivid, stood out so that I could see every detail. This at least gave me a slightly better chance of escaping, since it was certain that these brutes could see as well in the darkness as in the light. I should be seen whether there was light or darkness. As long as the light lasted, I also could see. I must get forward to the shelter of trees while the light lasted, take advantage of the periods of light for travelling, and hide in trees during the darkness—if I could afford to stay in the trees so long. It might last for long periods. In my ignorance, I must make my choice blindly, but at the moment there was only one thing to be done—to get forward. These brutes were hunting beasts, and at any moment I might encounter one of them in quest of a meal.

  The cliff walls that formed the ravine had turned sharply, leaving open ground in front of me and on both sides. There were scattered groups of trees of the seaweedy type. The stream did not turn to the right or left, but kept straight forward. I followed it, glad to get away from the cliff walls.

  I wondered if I was again entering a forest, but, instead of thickening, the trees thinned in front of me, so that I began to be afraid that they were going to stop. They were now my only security.

  I hurried forward, then came to a halt. I seemed to be standing on the ramparts of a world. Under my feet a cliff fell so steeply that I could see only the brink of it. A great distance below me, a dim land stretched as far as I could see, and I could see quite a good distance, for the streamers of light were flashing like swords of moonlight and lighting the whole country quite vividly. Not far from the cliff foot I saw a very wide river that flowed from the left and kept a course almost parallel with the cliff on which I was standing. Black patches of forest grew here and there over the plain, but I could see no sign of human life, no clouds of smoke, no group of buildings, nothing in all its expanse but the river and the dark vegetation.

  From the right came the thunder of cataracts that I had heard in the darkness before I slept. I looked along the edge of the cliff. The stream that I had followed had turned about one hundred yards from the cliff barrier and curved to the right. On this side the cliff curved in and out in a series of bays and wooded headlands. It was from this side, also, that the thunder of the cataracts now came, as if a big river were hurling itself from gulf to gulf over precipices. On the left, the cliff seemed to turn at right angles and curl round backwards.

  I stood perplexed, wondering which course to take. At length I turned to the right, and went slowly along the cliff edge.

  I was following the outer rim of a narrow band of land that ran between the rocky spurs of the range of mountains through which I had come, and the great cliffs that separated these mountains from the plain. There were no signs of any slugs or tree-lizards, and I thought it likely that this might mean that the rocky spurs along this plateau were the haunts of hunting-beasts. But I had a good light to watch their approach, and they could only come at me from one side or from the rear, so that I had less area to watch.

  Round me, all sorts of vegetation was growing—plants like fleshy docks; tall spiked things like thistles; creeping mats of clinging stuff; luminous fungi. I strode over and through them, watching the rocky spurs on my right and the land that stretched out under the cliffs on my left. Under the Aurora, it looked like descriptions I had read of a Canadian or Siberian landscape during the winter nights, but without the cold, for a warm air kept blowing up over the cliff edge.

  The waterfall had seemed quite near when I emerged on the cliff face, yet, as I tramped round bays in the cliff and made short cuts across the headlands, it seemed no nearer.

  For about three-quarters of an hour the cliff top remained level, then the land began to drop rapidly, and soon I was hurrying down a steep descent. From below, the roar of the waterfall now came up clear and direct.

  In my hurry to get down I had left the line of the cliff, and was rushing through some trees when I felt a lar
ge form moving towards me from the right.

  I glanced round. It was almost upon me. I sprang for the nearest tree. As I jumped behind the tree, the creature rose from the ground with so great a bound that it was carried past the tree. I sprang for the nearest branch, swung myself on to it and up the tree. When I got to the second fork I looked down. The brute had turned, and was crouching to spring again. I swarmed up to the third fork. Then I saw that the creature had halted. It was squatting on the ground below, watching me through the branches. I stared down at it. It was not one of the great spiders, but one of the toad things. As it watched, it lifted its gaping mouth towards me, and I thought I saw the warty skin of its neck working, but it evidently knew that it could not get me, for it made no further movement. I wondered if it was going to sit there, besieging me. If it did, I should have to come down and try to kill it with my knife, but it was as big as a sheep, and it seemed to me that, unless it was much less powerful than it looked, I should have little chance against it. And I could have little hope of rescue, since it was unlikely that a human civilisation would permit of the existence of such a creature in its neighbourhood.

  As I watched the creature, I saw something coming steadily towards me. From the shadow of the trees one of the gigantic spiders was moving softly, watching the great toad. As it came stealthily nearer, I wondered whether it was possible that this was the intelligent creature that dominated this world. There could be no hope of conciliating or getting into touch with such a thing— no possibility of connection of mind, such as there is between a man and an animal. As it moved into the foreground, it seemed more like a demon than an earthly creature. Its leathery face, with the slobbering mouth, the middle flaps instead of a nose, the high bony forehead, and the many-sided eyes, was dreadful to look at, and the more I looked the more horrible it seemed. Yet it appeared so intelligent compared to the toad-like brute that I felt almost as if it were a rational thing coming to my rescue. It was coiling some sort of lasso now, which it seemed to be drawing out of itself, like the arms of a polyp.

  I remained perfectly still. If I myself was the object of its pursuit, the fork might not be sufficiently high to be safe against the lasso, but it seemed to be watching the great toad, and, if this was so, it would be wiser not to attract its attention by any movement.

  With a whizzing sound, the lasso flew through the air and struck the toad, curling round its neck. The brute spun round with a sort of bark, saw the lassoer, and made a terrific bound to the left, snapping the cord that held it. Another bound carried it out of sight behind the trees. The lassoer galloped after it at a great pace and disappeared.

  I watched the place where they vanished from my sight, wondering whether the chase would bring them back again towards me, but nothing further appeared. I came down slowly from the tree. At any moment another of the toad-like brutes or some other hunting creature might attack me.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  On the River

  I HAD GONE DOWN about half a mile beyond the place where the toad had attacked me, when a white wall seemed to start up beyond the trees. I hurried on, and in a few minutes was looking at an immense waterfall. My eyes followed the white mass upwards into the darkness, then downwards to the gulf into which it fell, at least a thousand feet below. I could see that from the gulf a river started and flowed towards the other river that came from the left.

  If I could only get down the cliff to the plain, I might be able to find a stranded tree that I could push into the stream. I might even be able to put together some sort of raft—something that would take me out on to the stream of the great water.

  If I could not get down, it was clear that I could not go any farther in this direction. I had come to the end of the space on the cliff-wall. It formed a sort of semi-circle round the gulf into which the cataract fell, and then stopped at the foot of the wall of rock down which the water was coming.

  I went round it a little, examining the brink of the gulf at my feet, but I could see no break. I came back along the edge of the cliff, searching the ground.

  At first there was nothing; then, as I was beginning to lose hope, my eye caught a trail, a confused trail that had obviously been made by many different creatures. It wound through the trees, turned away from the cliff, then came out through the wood to a series of broad shallow steps that led down the cliff.

  I examined the top steps. They had been hewn by human hands. There could be no doubt of that.

  My heart sprang up. It was hardly credible that I was again in touch with the work of men. If I were, I still had a good chance—some chance, at any rate.

  I began to go down the steps. They turned, forming a gallery that had been hewn out in such a way as to connect natural ledges that occurred in the cliff face and make them into a continuous stairway. There was no question that they had been shaped by men.

  I was now once again in a state of extreme excitement. The steps seemed to be old ones, and did not give the impression of having been used of late by human beings, but I had no hope now of meeting men soon. It was enough for me that I had struck again their paths. I had got back to the road, or at least to one of the roads, by which human beings had once got down from the surface of the earth to the lands beneath it.

  Before I went down the cliff, I decided to take a good view from the top, so as to get the lie of the land.

  I came back to the top of the steps, and looked round. As I did so, I caught sight of a heap of dead branches, piled up in an angle of the rock in such a way that it looked as if it had been done deliberately. I went over and examined it. The sticks might certainly have been placed there by human hands, but, on the other hand, they might also have been piled up by a current of air that had whirled the dry branches into a corner. The idea came to me that if I lit a beacon fire on the cliff-top I should be likely to attract the attention of any human beings who might be in the neighbourhood. I could also cook the meat that I had killed. I thought of the great toad and the lassoing creatures. It would attract their attention also, yet I felt impelled to do it. Suddenly I had been seized by an imperative need to do something human, something that would satisfy the hunger for human associations that was beginning to gnaw me. No matter what resulted, I knew now that I must light the fire.

  I set a match to the heap of branches. The flame caught at once and blazed up. I began to pile the fire with the juicy branches that were lying about. They burnt like chunks of fat. I looked round me. There was no sign yet of anything moving. I gathered more branches, and threw them on the fire, delighted with the familiar sound of crackling flames. Still there was no sign of any creature being attracted by the unusual sight and sound. I stuck one of the pieces of slug meat on the end of a long stick, and began to roast it, keeping an eye on the stairways behind me as I did so.

  If any creature came upon me by the cliff steps from below, I had a weapon ready to my hand in the burning branches. I had little doubt that no animal of that lower world, any more than any animal of the upper earth, would face a blazing torch.

  No creature, however, came along to disturb me at my meal. Either they had little sense of smell, or the odour of cooked meat meant nothing to them. As I ate my first bit of cooked food in the underworld, I felt a confidence that I had not felt before. The sight of the fire was at once so homely and comforting. It made the underworld so different, as it sent its smoky banner and its tongues of flames upward, like a challenge from the world of men. I almost felt as if I had found a comrade, that I was no longer alone.

  Then came an answer to the challenge. From the forest behind the fire there rose a hooting sound such as I had heard in the gorge. It was answered farther back, and then from everywhere behind the trees, until the woodland seemed alive with the sound. Were they coming to attack me? If so, I had the burning faggots now for a defence. I stared into the woodland. I thought I could make out, in the distance, moving shapes, but I could not make out anything clearly. Near me nothing was visible. I stood on the other side o
f the fire and chewed my cooked meat, watching the woodland.

  While I fed, I cooked some more of the meat. As I was doing this, I saw one of the lassoing brutes quite clearly, coming towards me in the distance. Behind, the shapes of the others grew clearer. If they attacked in a body, I might not be able to scare them away with the burning faggots, but if one came alone, in advance of the others, I would teach it a lesson, if it came near enough. Yes, it was coming nearer; slowly, carefully, watching the smoke and the flames. Behind, the others were coming in a bunch. If I let the first come too near, they might all rush me. I seized a bunch of blazing branches and ran at it. It stood staring. I yelled wildly. I was almost upon it when, with a squeal, it whirled round and galloped away.

  I hurled the blazing faggots. The others had turned and were galloping away also. Evidently the discomfiture of their leader had made them fear this strange new thing.

  I turned back to the fire. I must get down the cliff path before their fears wore off. If there were any men within visible distance of the cliff, they would certainly be attracted by the fire. They might even now be coming up the cliff stairs to find the cause of the fire. The thought thrilled me. I had lit a beacon and was glad I had done so. Help might be already on the way. Danger might also be on the way from men, if they were hostile, but that thought did not trouble me. My action in lighting the fire had made certain that if there were men anywhere within range I should not miss them, whether they were hostile or friendly, and that was all that I cared for.

  I looked round me. There were no lassoers in view. For the moment the country behind me seemed clear. I turned, and began to go down the cliff-steps.

  Ever since my entrance into this new world I had been in a very excitable condition, but now, with this new hope of meeting men singing through my mind, I went down the cliff path in a mood of exultation that was heightened rather than diminished by the thought of the many possibilities of a violent death that lay in front of me before I reached my journey’s end.