Lost worlds short storie.., p.78
Lost Worlds Short Stories, page 78
After walking a mile we reached the outskirts of a vast forest, but not one of those forests of fungi which bordered Port Gräuben.
Here was the vegetation of the tertiary period in its fullest blaze of magnificence. Tall palms, belonging to species no longer living, splendid palmacites, firs, yews, cypress trees, thujas, representatives of the conifers, were linked together by a tangled network of long climbing plants. A soft carpet of moss and hepaticas luxuriously clothed the soil. A few sparkling streams ran almost in silence under what would have been the shade of the trees, but that there was no shadow. On their banks grew tree-ferns similar to those we grow in hothouses. But a remarkable feature was the total absence of colour in all those trees, shrubs, and plants, growing without the life-giving heat and light of the sun. Everything seemed mixed-up and confounded in one uniform silver grey or light brown tint like that of fading and faded leaves. Not a green leaf anywhere, and the flowers – which were abundant enough in the tertiary period, which first gave birth to flowers – looked like brown-paper flowers, without colour or scent.
My uncle Liedenbrock ventured to penetrate under this colossal grove. I followed him, not without fear. Since nature had here provided vegetable nourishment, why should not the terrible mammals be there too? I perceived in the broad clearings left by fallen trees, decayed with age, leguminose plants, acerineae, rubiceae and many other eatable shrubs, dear to ruminant animals at every period. Then I observed, mingled together in confusion, trees of countries far apart on the surface of the globe. The oak and the palm were growing side by side, the Australian eucalyptus leaned against the Norwegian pine, the birch-tree of the north mingled its foliage with New Zealand kauris. It was enough to distract the most ingenious classifier of terrestrial botany.
Suddenly I halted. I drew back my uncle.
The diffused light revealed the smallest object in the dense and distant thickets. I had thought I saw – no! I did see, with my own eyes, vast colossal forms moving amongst the trees. They were gigantic animals; it was a herd of mastodons – not fossil remains, but living and resembling those the bones of which were found in the marshes of Ohio in 1801. I saw those huge elephants whose long, flexible trunks were grouting and turning up the soil under the trees like a legion of serpents. I could hear the crashing noise of their long ivory tusks boring into the old decaying trunks. The boughs cracked, and the leaves torn away by cartloads went down the cavernous throats of the vast brutes.
So, then, the dream in which I had had a vision of the prehistoric world, of the tertiary and post-tertiary periods, was now realised. And there we were alone, in the bowels of the earth, at the mercy of its wild inhabitants!
My uncle was gazing with intense and eager interest.
“Come on!” said he, seizing my arm. “Forward! Forward!”
“No, I will not!” I cried. “We have no firearms. What could we do in the midst of a herd of these four-footed giants? Come away, uncle – come! No human being may with safety dare the anger of these monstrous beasts.”
“No human creature?” replied my uncle in a lower voice. “You are wrong, Axel. Look, look down there! I fancy I see a living creature similar to ourselves: it is a man!”
I looked, shaking my head incredulously. But though at first I was unbelieving I had to yield to the evidence of my senses.
In fact, at a distance of a quarter of a mile, leaning against the trunk of a gigantic kauri, stood a human being, the Proteus of those subterranean regions, a new son of Neptune, watching this countless herd of mastodons.
Immanis pecoris custos, immanior ipse (footnote 7).
Yes, truly, huger still himself. It was no longer a fossil being like him whose dried remains we had easily lifted up in the field of bones; it was a giant, able to control those monsters. In stature he was at least twelve feet high. His head, huge and unshapely as a buffalo’s, was half hidden in the thick and tangled growth of his unkempt hair. It most resembled the mane of the primitive elephant. In his hand he wielded with ease an enormous bough, a staff worthy of this shepherd of the geologic period.
We stood petrified and speechless with amazement. But he might see us! We must fly!
“Come, do come!” I said to my uncle, who for once allowed himself to be persuaded.
In another quarter of an hour our nimble heels had carried us beyond the reach of this horrible monster.
And yet, now that I can reflect quietly, now that my spirit has grown calm again, now that months have slipped by since this strange and supernatural meeting, what am I to think? what am I to believe? I must conclude that it was impossible that our senses had been deceived, that our eyes did not see what we supposed they saw. No human being lives in this subterranean world; no generation of men dwells in those inferior caverns of the globe, unknown to and unconnected with the inhabitants of its surface. It is absurd to believe it!
I had rather admit that it may have been some animal whose structure resembled the human, some ape or baboon of the early geological ages, some protopitheca, or some mesopitheca, some early or middle ape like that discovered by Mr. Lartet in the bone cave of Sansau. But this creature surpassed in stature all the measurements known in modern palaeontology. But that a man, a living man, and therefore whole generations doubtless besides, should be buried there in the bowels of the earth, is impossible.
However, we had left behind us the luminous forest, dumb with astonishment, overwhelmed and struck down with a terror which amounted to stupefaction. We kept running on for fear the horrible monster might be on our track. It was a flight, a fall, like that fearful pulling and dragging which is peculiar to nightmare. Instinctively we got back to the Liedenbrock sea, and I cannot say into what vagaries my mind would not have carried me but for a circumstance which brought me back to practical matters.
Although I was certain that we were now treading upon a soil not hitherto touched by our feet, I often perceived groups of rocks which reminded me of those about Port Gräuben. Besides, this seemed to confirm the indications of the needle, and to show that we had against our will returned to the north of the Liedenbrock sea. Occasionally we felt quite convinced. Brooks and waterfalls were tumbling everywhere from the projections in the rocks. I thought I recognised the bed of surturbrand, our faithful Hansbach, and the grotto in which I had recovered life and consciousness. Then a few paces farther on, the arrangement of the cliffs, the appearance of an unrecognised stream, or the strange outline of a rock, came to throw me again into doubt.
I communicated my doubts to my uncle. Like myself, he hesitated; he could recognise nothing again amidst this monotonous scene.
“Evidently,” said I, “we have not landed again at our original starting point, but the storm has carried us a little higher, and if we follow the shore we shall find Port Gräuben.”
“If that is the case it will be useless to continue our exploration, and we had better return to our raft. But, Axel, are you not mistaken?”
“It is difficult to speak decidedly, uncle, for all these rocks are so very much alike. Yet I think I recognise the promontory at the foot of which Hans constructed our launch. We must be very near the little port, if indeed this is not it,” I added, examining a creek which I thought I recognised.
“No, Axel, we should at least find our own traces and I see nothing –”
“But I do see,” I cried, darting upon an object lying on the sand.
And I showed my uncle a rusty dagger which I had just picked up.
“Come,” said he, “had you this weapon with you?”
“I! No, certainly! But you, perhaps –”
“Not that I am aware,” said the Professor. “I have never had this object in my possession.”
“Well, this is strange!”
“No, Axel, it is very simple. The Icelanders often wear arms of this kind. This must have belonged to Hans, and he has lost it.”
I shook my head. Hans had never had an object like this in his possession.
“Did it not belong to some pre-adamite warrior?” I cried, “to some living man, contemporary with the huge cattle-driver? But no. This is not a relic of the stone age. It is not even of the iron age. This blade is steel –”
My uncle stopped me abruptly on my way to a dissertation which would have taken me a long way, and said coolly:
“Be calm, Axel, and reasonable. This dagger belongs to the sixteenth century; it is a poniard, such as gentlemen carried in their belts to give the coup de grace. Its origin is Spanish. It was never either yours, or mine, or the hunter’s, nor did it belong to any of those human beings who may or may not inhabit this inner world. See, it was never jagged like this by cutting men’s throats; its blade is coated with a rust neither a day, nor a year, nor a hundred years old.”
The Professor was getting excited according to his wont, and was allowing his imagination to run away with him.
“Axel, we are on the way towards the grand discovery. This blade has been left on the strand for from one to three hundred years, and has blunted its edge upon the rocks that fringe this subterranean sea!”
“But it has not come alone. It has not twisted itself out of shape; some one has been here before us!
“Yes – a man has.”
“And who was that man?”
“A man who has engraved his name somewhere with that dagger. That man wanted once more to mark the way to the centre of the earth. Let us look about: look about!”
And, wonderfully interested, we peered all along the high wall, peeping into every fissure which might open out into a gallery.
And so we arrived at a place where the shore was much narrowed. Here the sea came to lap the foot of the steep cliff, leaving a passage no wider than a couple of yards. Between two boldly projecting rocks appeared the mouth of a dark tunnel.
There, upon a granite slab, appeared two mysterious graven letters, half eaten away by time. They were the initials of the bold and daring traveller:
“A.S.,” shouted my uncle. “Arne Saknussemm! Arne Saknussemm everywhere!”
Footnote 7. “The shepherd of gigantic herds, and huger still himself.”
The Lady of the Lost Valley
John Walters
The heat and filth of India was an inconvenience that I could endure, but the savagery of Afghanistan drained the vitality clean out of me. To convalesce I sought the hills of Kashmir. Traveling as I was at the sufferance of the British Raj, I registered with the local authorities at Shrinagar before I boarded the narrow-gauge train that would take me into the mountains.
In the dusty first-class carriage I was alone but for a staid gentleman in a gray suit and bowler hat. He was trim and fit, with dark brown hair and sideburns that curled into his thick moustache. It was hard to guess his age, but easy to guess his financial standing by the cut of his clothes and the quality of his luggage.
When I entered I proffered my hand. “Harvey Ashtree. I’m a reporter for the San Francisco Sun.”
“Clarence Redcliff. Bank of England.” After which he returned to his newspaper without another glance in my direction.
Being exhausted in mind and spirit, I would have been content with Redcliff’s sealed lips, but for one peculiarity which piqued my curiosity. He had a large leather pouch, which he kept beside him at all times: he napped with it under his head, he carried it with him to the bathroom, and he tucked it beneath his arm as he read or gazed out the window. Not unusual, you might say, considering that the land we traversed was rife with thievery. But whenever he would pay for something, he would pull a thick wallet from his inside coat pocket, and would not touch the pouch at all.
What, therefore, if not money, did he keep in it? Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, or some other precious jewels? Deeds to land? Gold? Artifacts? Or perhaps he was not as he appeared; perhaps he was a spy and was concealing government secrets.
Insatiable curiosity was one of my worst personal faults but greatest professional virtues. I had forsaken my homeland, my parents, many comforts and conveniences, even my fiancé, for a chance at a posting as foreign correspondent. In the past year I had endured fever, diarrhea, and scabies, I had got caught in monsoon floods and riots, I had been robbed at knifepoint and shot at on battlefields. I was not about to pass up a potentially interesting story because of a stuffy British gentleman’s reticence.
Eventually I could think of nothing else but the pouch and what it contained.
Searching for a clue, I attempted to engage him in conversation.
Night had blotted out the Indian countryside, and the only lights were the brilliant stars overhead and the flickering torches and cooking fires of villages we passed through. It is at such times, listening to the monotonous clacking of the train’s wheels on the track, that a man might feel a sense of isolation more heavily than usual, and be more lugubrious and therefore crave companionship more than he is normally apt to.
“How far are you going?” I began.
“Hmm?” He lowered the newspaper a few centimeters, so that his disapproving eyes appeared over the edge of the page.
Not to be deterred, I repeated my question.
“To the end of the line,” he said, and returned the newspaper to its former position.
“I have considered doing so myself,” I said. “Have you been this way before? Do you know what to expect?”
Slowly he lowered the paper again. “There is nothing there. Nothing. Not even a hotel. You would be wise to get off sooner.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, if nothing is there, why are you going?”
He frowned, put down his paper, and headed for the lavatory.
In his flustered annoyance he had left the leather pouch behind.
I glanced at the lavatory door, then at the pouch. I leaned back and closed my eyes, then opened them again. I reached for the book I had been reading, a volume of Kipling’s stories, but did not pick it up.
I could think of nothing but the unknown contents of the pouch. I knew I had no right to look, but I might never get another chance.
I moved over to his seat, feeling guilty but determined. While trying to maintain an air of innocence I watched the door, while at the same time I was slowly unzipping the pouch.
My heart pounding, I peered inside, frowned, furtively glanced at the door, and looked again more closely.
I had expected to find something of inestimable value. Instead, there were a few crumbs of what appeared to be stale cake.
I rubbed some between my fingers, took a tiny nibble. It tasted bittersweet and slightly earthy.
Zipping the pouch shut, I quickly crossed back to my seat, picked up my book, and pretended to read.
A moment later Mr. Redcliff reappeared. When he saw his pouch where he had left it, safe and sound, he was obviously relieved. He cast a suspicious glance in my direction, but I feigned obliviousness. Then he returned, with the pouch, to his ablutions.
* * *
I think that I have never seen such a splendid sunrise as the one I saw that early morning as the train wound slowly upward through the foothills toward the distant snow-capped Himalayan peaks. Rose, salmon and yellow bled across the clouds and splashed onto the distant peaks. The colors seemed to form splendid paintings in the sky that rivaled the masters. Then everything seemed bathed in golden haze. When that dissipated, the blue of the sky, emerald of the hills and rainbow colors of the wildflowers leapt into my eyes and gently massaged and soothed them. Redcliff seemed to have calmed down and was as absorbed in the beauty of the countryside as I was.
Occasionally the train stopped at tiny villages where a few peasants clad in lungis and worn sweaters would clamber off, but no one would board.
The end of the line was a barren cement platform. The nearby stationmaster’s office, a stone hut from which most of the overlying plaster had eroded away, appeared to have been deserted for a long time.
Dew sparkled on deep green grass shot with purple and white flowers.
On the road a line of ox carts and about two-dozen Indians dressed in festive clothing were waiting. The women wore blue, green, or gold saris; the men wore white, red, or light brown suits. Several carried thick garlands of flowers. As the train pulled in with a loud hiss and exhalation of steam, they all laughed and pointed, obviously waiting for someone.
A tall thin Indian man with a large beak-like nose and a seemingly perpetual smile was the first to mount the platform. He spread his arms and cried, “Mr. Redcliff! I am so pleased to see you!” He turned to the others. “Look! He is here. He is really here. Isn’t it wonderful?”
Redcliff, luggage in hand, slowly stepped down. I followed him. “What are you doing?” he whispered. “Can’t you see there’s nothing for you here?”
I shrugged. “I’ve found wherever I go there’s always a local willing to rent a room.”
“You’re making a mistake. Turn around and go back while you can.”
“Why?”
But the tall man had noticed me. “Look! Mr. Redcliff has brought a friend. Welcome!” He bowed, and shook first Redcliff’s hand, then my own. “My name is Ashok Banergee. I am at your service.”
