The Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK™, Vol. 1: Henry S. Whitehead

by Henry S. Whitehead

  Greatly puzzled, Grosvenor shouldered his pack and started back to camp.

  The walk occupied an hour and a quarter. The water grew lower as he went downstream. Before he reached the edge of the mahogany forest it had dwindled into a shallow bit of fenland. At the edge of the coral sand it was quite dry. He found Christian getting supper and bubbling over with long words which emerged out of a puzzled countenance.

  “Doubtless you have remarked the diminution of the stream,” began Christian. “I was fortunate enough to observe its cessation two hours ago and I have filled various vessels with water. It was constitute a very serious menace to our comfort, sir, if we are deprived of water. We might signal the Madeleine on her return voyage tomorrow, but I fear that if the lowering of the stream is permanent we shall be obliged to ration ourselves as to ablutions!” Having delivered this masterpiece, Christian fell silent.

  When Grosvenor arose the next morning the stream was at the same level as on the previous morning. It was as though this stream were subject to a twenty-four-hour tide.

  There was no means of judging now whether this were the case, or whether some cataclysm of nature at the stream’s source had affected it in this extraordinary way. Grosvenor’s instinct was all for another trip upstream to the source to find out what he could.

  He made more of his tree tests that morning, and after lunch the stream began to fail again. The following morning it was once more at its high level. That day Grosvenor put his wish into execution. He had plenty of time for his surveys. He would go exploring on his own account today. He started after breakfast, taking only the materials for lunch this time. The mosquito netting had proved to be useless. There were no mosquitoes!

  At nine he reached the spot where he had taken the first siesta. He proceeded upstream, and half an hour later the ground began to rise. The stream shallowed and broadened. The trees in this moist area grew larger than any others he had seen on the island.

  His pedometer informed him he was getting close to the island’s center. The ground now mounted steadily. He came to a kind of clearing, where the trees were sparse and great whitish rocks replaced the soft coral soil. Through these, the stream, now again narrow and deep, ran a tortuous way, winding about the great boulders. On this broken ground, without much shade, the sun poured in intolerable brilliance. He wiped the sweat from his face as he climbed the last rise to the island’s summit.

  As he topped the rise an abrupt change took place. One moment he had been picking his way through broken ground among rocks. The next he was standing on smooth stone. He paused, and looked about him. He was at the top.

  At his feet lay a smooth, round lake, enclosed by a stone parapet. Beyond, a gentle slope, heavily forested, ran down to the distant sea on the island’s other side.

  He stooped down, rubbed his hand over the level surface of the stone. It was masonry.

  All was silent about him; not even a dragonfly disturbed the calm surface of the circular pool. No insect droned its fervid note in the clear, warm air.

  Very quietly now, for he felt that the silence of this place must not be disturbed by any unnecessary sound, he started around the lake’s circular rim. In twenty steps he had reached the source of the stream. Here the edge of masonry was cut into a U through which the water flowed silently out. He resumed his walk, and the circuit occupied fifteen minutes. He reached his starting point, sat down on the warm rock-edge, and looked intently into the pool. It must be fed by deep, subterranean springs, he judged, and these springs, possibly, ebbed and flowed, a rhythm reflected in a rise and fall of the pool’s surface; a consequent rise and fair in the water of the stream.

  The sun was almost intolerably hot. He walked off to the nearest mahogany grove, pitched his camp in its deep shade, and sat down to wait till noon. Here he prepared lunch, ate it, and returned to the basin’s rim.

  The reservoir was several feet lower, the water now barely trickling through its outlet. He watched the waters sink, fascinated. He leaned over the edge of masonry and gazed into their still depths. A cloud passed over the sun, throwing the great pool into shade.

  No bottom was visible. Down, down, his gaze traveled, and as he looked the rate of the sinking water level increased and there arose from the pool a dim, hollow sound as some incalculable suction drew the waters down into the cylinders depths.

  An almost irresistible desire came over him to descend with the water. His scrutiny traveled about the inner surface of the great cylinder now revealed by the sinking waters.

  What was that? Something, a vertical line, toward the other side, broke the cement-like smoothness of the chiseled surface. He started toward the point, his heart jumping as what he had vaguely suspected, hoped, became an actuality before his eyes. The vertical line was a ladder down the inner surface of the cylinder, of broad, copper-colored metal insets extending far down until he lost it in the unfathomable darkness below.

  The ladder’s topmost inset step was some three feet below the top. Looking closely from the rim above it, he observed semicircular ridges on the rim itself, handholds, obviously, shaped like the handles of a stone crock, cut deeply into the masonry. A thin, metal handrail of the same material as the steps ran down straight and true beside them.

  The impulse to descend became overpowering. He muttered a brief, fragmentary prayer, and stooped down, clutching the stone handholds. He stepped over the rim and down inside, and felt for the topmost step of the ladder with his foot. The step, and the railing, as he closed a firm right hand about it, felt slippery. But steps and rail were rigid, firmly set as though installed the day before. The metal showed no corrosion.

  With a deep breath, he took one last look at the tops of the mahogany trees and began to go down the ladder.

  At first he felt carefully for each succeeding step, clutched the unyielding handrail grimly, as the dank coolness of the stone cylinder closed in around him. Then, with custom, his first nervous vigilance relaxed. The steps were at precisely regular intervals; the handrail firm. He descended beyond the penetrating light of the first fifty feet into a region of increasing coolness and dimness.

  When he reached the two hundredth step, he paused, resting, and looked down. Only a vague, imponderable dimness, a suggestion of infinite depth, was revealed to him. He turned his head about and looked up. A clear blue, exact circle stood out. Within it he saw the stars.

  He descended another hundred steps, and now all was black about him. The blue circle above had turned darker. The stars glowed brilliantly.

  He felt no fear. He had steady nerves, fortitude, a fatalistic faith in something he named his destiny. If harm were to come to him, it would come, here or anywhere else. He reasoned that the water would not rise for many hours. In that blackness he resumed his descent. He went down and down, step after interminable step...

  It was wholly dark now. The circle above was only the size of a small coin, the stars indistinguishable; only their flickering brightness over the surface of the tiny disk.

  He had counted 1,326 steps when something happened to his left foot. He could not lower it from the step on which it rested. The very edge of a shadow of cold fear fell upon him, but resolutely he put it away. He lowered his right foot to the same step, and, resting his body’s weight on the left foot attempted to lower the right. He could not!

  Then it dawned upon him that he had reached the bottom of the ladder. Holding firmly to the rail with his left hand he reached for his flashlight with the other. By its light he looked about him. His feet were on a metal platform some twelve feet square. Just to his left, leading into the wall of the cylinder, was the outline of a lancet-shaped doorway. A great ring hung on a hinged knob near his hand.

  He stepped out upon the platform, his muscles feeling strange after the long and unaccustomed strain of the descent. He took hold of the door-ring, twisted it to the left. It turned in his hand. He pulled, and a beam of light, soft and mellow, came through the vertical crack. He pulled the door half-open, a
nd the soft light flooded the platform. He stepped over to its edge and looked down, leaning on the metal handrail which ran about the edge. Blackness there—sheer, utter blackness.

  He turned again to the door. He had not come thus far to yield to misgivings as to what might lie behind it. He slipped through the opening and pulled the door to behind him. It shut, true and exactly flush with its surrounding walls and jambs, solidly.

  He stood in a small, square room, of the same smooth masonry as the cylinder, floored with sheets of the coppery metal. The light came through from another doorway, open opposite the side where he stood. Resolutely he crossed the small room and looked through the door.

  Vast space—a cathedral—was the first, breathtaking impression. Far above, a vast, vaulted arch of masonry. In the dim distance towered an amazing figure, so incredible that Grosvenor let out his breath in a long sigh and sat down weakly on the smooth floor.

  The figure was that of an enormous, goat, reared on a pair of colossal legs, the lowered head with sweeping horns pointing forward, some eighty feet in the air. About this astounding image hung such an air of menacing savagery that Grosvenor, weary with his long descent, covered his face with his hands to shut it out. He was aroused out of his momentary let-down by a sound.

  He sat up, listened. It was a kind of faint, distant chanting. Suppressing a shudder he looked again toward the overpowering majesty of the colossus. A great concourse of people, dwarfed by the distance, danced rhythmically before the gigantic idol. The chant rose higher in measured cadence. Fascinated, Grosvenor rose and walked toward the distant dancers.

  When he had traversed half the space between, the image took on a dignity not apparent from the greater distance. The craggy, bestial face was now benevolent, as it looked down upon its devotees. There was a grotesque air of benediction about the flare of the forehoofs as they seemed to wave in grave encouragement to the worshipers beneath. The attention of the throng was so occupied with their dance that Grosvenor remained unobserved. Clouds of incense rose before the image, making the head appear to nod, the forelegs to wave gravely.

  Something more than its cadence seemed now to mingle with, the chanting. There was something oddly familiar about it, and Grosvenor knitted his brows in the effort to place it. Then it came to him all at once. It was the words of the ancient Greek Chorus. Nearer and nearer he approached, his feet making no sound on the dull, russet-colored, metal flooring. It was like walking on solid lead. He stooped, at this thought, and with his sheath-knife scratched its surface, dulled with the wear of countless feet. A thin, wirelike splinter curled behind his scratching knife-point. It was bright yellow on the fresh surface. He tore the splinter loose, held it close. It was soft, like lead—virgin gold.

  He placed the sliver in his jacket pocket and stood, dumfounded, his heart pounding tumultuously. Gold!

  The chanting ceased. A clear, woman’s voice detached itself; was lifted in a paean—a hymn of praise. The words now came to him clear and full. He stopped dead, trying, straining all his faculties, to understand. The woman was singing in classical Greek!

  Something of modern Greek he understood from a long professional sojourn in the Mediterranean island of Xante where once he had been employed by the owner of a group of currant-plantations, and where he had learned enough of the Italianized Greek of the island to make himself understood. He hastened forward, stopping quite near the rearmost worshipers. This was no dialect. This was Old Greek, Attic Greek, the tongue of Hellas, of classic days, as used to celebrate the Mysteries about the altars of Zeus and the Nature gods; in the Sacred Groves; at Elis, and Dodona, and before the shrines of Apollo—and in the worship of Pan. Pan!—the Goat. The beginnings of an understanding surged through his mind.

  In the ancient tongue of Homer and Aeschylus, this recitative now began to take form in his mind. It was, he soon perceived, a hymn to Pan, to the patron god of woodlands and wild places; of glades and streams and hidden groves; of nymphs and dryads…

  The people swayed to the cadences of the hymn, and at intervals the vast throng breathed out a few rhythmical words, a hushed, muted chorus, in which were recited the Attributes of Pan...

  Grosvenor found himself swaying with them, the notes of the chorus somehow strangely familiar to him, as though remembered after a great interval, although he knew that he had never before in this life heard anything like this. He approached nearer, without concealment now, mingled with the multitude pouring out its corporate soul to the god of Nature.

  The hymn ended. Then, to a thin, piping note—the note of a syrinx—and with no confusion, a dance began. Grosvenor danced naturally with a group of four, and the others, in a kind of gentle ecstasy, danced with him, a dance as old as trees and hills, the worship of the Great Powers which through the dignity and grace of the dance seemed to promise strange and unknown joys...

  The dance ended, abruptly, on a note of the pan-pipes. Grosvenor, brought to himself, glanced quickly about him. He was conspicuous. The others were uniformly dressed in blue kirtles, sandals on their graceful feet. The people were very beautiful. Grace and dignity marked their every movement.

  Behind the colossal image of the Goat a great recess was set off by an arch which towered aloft out of sight. Here stood an altar, about whose upper edge ran cameo-like figures: youths and girls bearing wreaths; garlanded oxen; children with torches; and, centrally placed, the grotesque figure of Pan with his goat’s legs and small, crooked horns upon his forehead—Pan seated, his pipes at his lips.

  Suddenly every eye turned to the altar.

  There came from a recess a woman, tall and graceful, bearing in her hands a slender vase of white stone. From this, on reaching the altar, she poured out upon it a thin stream of golden-colored oil. An intense, reddish flame arose at once. The vast audience stood motionless.

  Then a note on the pipe, and from the throng, quite close to Grosvenor, a young man stepped, and mounted broad, shallow steps to the altar. In his hand he carried a live beetle held delicately by the edge of elevated wings. Straight to the altar he proceeded and dropped the insect in the center of the flame. So silent was the motionless throng that the crackle of the flame devouring this inconsiderable offering was plainly heard. Bowing to the priestess, the young man returned to his place…

  A sigh, such as proceeds from a large concourse of people who have been keeping silence, now arose from the throng, which forthwith broke up into conversing groups.

  Then the first intimation of fear fell upon Grosvenor like a black mantle. For the first time since his arrival among this incredible company, a quarter of a mile underneath the surface of an “uninhabited” West Indian island, he took sudden thought for his safety. It was late in the day to think of that! He was surrounded by these people, had intruded into their worship, a worship ancient when the Classics were composed. He was effectually cut off from any chance of escape, should they prove hostile. He saw a thickening group closing in about him—curious, incredulous, utterly taken by surprise at discovering this stranger in their midst...

  By a great effort, and in a voice hardly more than a whisper—for his danger had made itself overwhelmingly apparent to him—he spoke in his best attempt at pure Greek:

  “I give you greeting, in the name of Pan!” he said.

  “And to you, greeting, O barbarian,” replied a deep and rich voice behind him.

  The throng about him stirred—a movement of deference. He turned. The graceful priestess stood close to him. He bowed, prompted by an instinct for “good manners.”

  The priestess made a graceful inclination before him. Instinct prompted him a second time. He addressed her:

  “I come to you in love and peace.” It was a phrase he had gathered from the hymn to Pan—that phrase “love and peace.” He continued:

  “I have sojourned in the Land of Hellas, the home of the great Pan, though no Hellene, as my speech declares.”

  “Sojourn here, then, with Pan’s people in love and peace,” return
ed the priestess with commanding dignity. She made him a summoning gesture.

  “Come,” she said, and, turning, led the way back toward the altar.

  He followed, into the blackening gloom of the sanctuary, and straight before him walked his conductress without so much as a glance right or left. They passed at last between two enormous curtains screening an aperture, and Grosvenor found himself in a very beautiful room, square, and unmistakably Greek in its appointments. Two long couches stood at each side, along the walls. In the center a chaste, rectangular table held a great vase of the yellow metal, heaped with pomegranates.

  The priestess, pausing, motioned him gracefully to one of the seats, and reclined opposite him upon the other.

  She clapped her hands, and a beautiful child ran into the room. After a round-eyed glance at the stranger, he stood before the priestess, who spoke rapidly to him. He left the room, and almost immediately returned with a vase and two small goblets of the ruddy gold. The drink proved to be pomegranate juice mingled with cold water. Grosvenor found it very refreshing.

  When they had drunk, the priestess began at once to speak to him.

  “From where do you come, O barbarian?”

  “From a region of cold climate, in the north, on the mainland.”

  “You are not, then, of Hispaniola?”

  “No. My countrymen are named ‘Americans.’ In my childhood my countrymen made war upon those of Hispaniola, driving them from a great island toward the lowering sun from this place, and which men name ‘Cuba.’”

  The priestess appeared impressed. She continued her questioning:

  “Why are you here among the People of Pan?” Grosvenor explained his mission to the island of Saona, and, as well as his limited knowledge of Greek permitted, recounted the course of his adventure to the present time. When he had finished:

  “I understand you well,” said the priestess. “Within man’s memory none have been, save us of the People of Pan, upon this island’s surface. I understand you are the forerunner of others, those who come to take of the wood of the surface. Are all your fellow-countrymen worshippers of Pan?”