John Martin Leahy

“ Love! You don't know what love is. You never can know."
"I should have had you to lesson me! But you are mine, mine at last, and you'll rue the day that you set eyes on Amanda!"
"Never!" cried Chantrell, his dark eyes flashing with a light that, to Griswold, for an instant, seemed to belong to some world more wonderful and mysterious than this. "She was mine—mine, mine! though I had her for one short year only. Rue the day? Nothing that you can do could make me do that. Rue the day that I saw Amanda? ”

“ And that horror and fear which chilled my heart were enhanced by the fact that before me, where Rhodes and the Dromans must be, there was no agitation amongst the ferns, not the slightest movement amongst them. I was alone, alone in that fearful place of dense, concealing vegetation, of silence and mystery. But no; they were there, my companions, right there before me. The ferns hid them, that was all. But why were they so still? What had happened? That exclamation, that scream—the silence that had fallen! ”

“ And then we lost our guide; the stream flowed into a cleft in the rock, to burst forth again perhaps far, far down, in some black cavern that has never known, and indeed never may know, the tread of any human foot.
For some minutes we lingered there, as though reluctant to quit the spot; and then, with a last lingering look at those pellucid waters, flashing dark and sullen, however, as the light moved from them, we pressed grimly on and soon were involved in a cavern so rugged and smashed that we actually began to despair of ever getting through it. ”

“ Rhodes and Drorathusa evinced an admirable nonchalance, but in the eyes of the others burned the dull light of despair. And perhaps, too, in my own. I tried to hide it, but I could not disguise it from myself—the numbing, maddening fact that I had abandoned hope.
For a time I lay watching Rhodes, who was writing, writing in his journal. How could he do it? Who could ever find the record? At any rate, even though found, it could never be read, for the finder would be a Dro-man. It made me angry to see a man doing a thing so absurd. ”

“ I said, "dragons, serpents, horrors never seen on land, in air or in the sea. And look there. There is a demon—I mean a sculptured demon. And that's what the colossus itself is—a monstrous ape-bat."
"Not so, Bill. See, it is becoming plainer, and it is unequivocally a dragon."
Yes; it was a dragon. And a monster more horrible than this thing before us never had been fashioned by even the wildest imagination of artist or madman.
The dragon (not carven from the rock but made of bronze) crouched upon a high rock, its wings outspread. ”

“ Rhodes said, "we'll soon have it again!"
And we soon did—the strong, mystic, and yet strangely misty, light pervading the mysterious and dreadful wood, the flickerings and flashes overhead soon opalescent and beautiful as ever.
We at once (Narkus and Thumbra having drawn their arrows from the body of the cat) left that spot, to make our way deeper and deeper into that weird forest, which harbored enemies so terrible and so treacherous.
"Why," I queried, "didn't we camp up there on the rocks, where it would have been impossible (save in darkness) for anything to approach us unseen? ”

“ A place gloomy and weird as any ever conceived by Dante or Doré. And through it human forms were moving, and its stillness was broken by human voices, raised in song; and moving with these human beings, these inhabitants of a world as alien as that of Venus or of Mars, were Rhodes and I, we two modern men from the great modern world above—the wonderful, the awful world of the sun.
Of a sudden an exclamation rang out—an exclamation that stilled the song on the instant, brought the party to an abrupt halt and the bow of Narkus and that of Thumbra from the quivers. ”

“ They were conversing in low tones, casting searching, apprehensive looks along the ragged margin of the forest.
The gloom was falling again. Denser and denser it grew about us. Fainter, more and more dreadful became those distant flickerings. The stillness was utter, terrible. There was not the gentlest movement of air. The light gave a last faint, angry gleam and went out altogether.
Abruptly, from out of the darkness, a voice came sounding, and, though I knew that the voice was Drorathusa's, I started violently and almost gave a cry. ”

“ I asked, my voice a whisper.
"Who," said Rhodes, "would ever have dreamed of such a thing as that?"
"I'm afraid," I told him, a shudder passing through my heart, "that our revolvers can't hurt a thing like this. It seems to be watching us. Look! Aren't those eyes—eyes staring at us, moving?"
"Eyes? Watching us? Oh, Lord, Bill!" said Rhodes.
"As for sending a bullet into it, don't," he added, "do anything so foolish."
He arose, stepped over and awoke Narkus. The monster was still hovering over the spot. The Droman bestowed upon that ghost but a cursory, careless look, then yawned sleepily. ”

“ But that sleep of mine was an unbroken succession of horrors—horrors at last ended by an awakening as horrible.
Once more I was in that hewn chamber, once more I stood before the great dragon. But we had been wrong: the monster was alive. Down he sprang as I turned to flee, sank his teeth into my shoulder, raised his head high into the air and shook me as a cat shakes a mouse. ”

“ I understood that now—they were guided by the wonderful instinct of the ape-bat. How truly wonderful that instinct is, we were yet to learn. Little wonder that Drorathusa mourned the loss of her dear, beloved and hideous demon!
The bat has in all ages been the personification of repulsiveness, gloom and horror; and yet it is in many ways a very wonderful creature. For instance, it can fly through intricate passages with ease and certitude when blinded, avoiding any obstacle in or across its way as though in possession of perfect vision. ”

“ It might have been better; but we should rejoice that it is not worse, that the mind, the hope of the world, has made even the slight advance that it has. Mind is on his way at last! And, with Science on his right hand and Invention on his left, he can not fail to conquer the ape and the tiger—to win to a future brighter even than the most beautiful of our brightest dreams. ”

“ On the instant the wolf-dog raised himself up from his warm bed and thrust his savage visage above the cockpit coaming, his look fixed upon Flang.
"A man, Pluto," said Griswold. "See him there? But what on earth is a man doing in this accursed place? Well, I have been on that island myself a couple of times, and perhaps people, had any seen me there, would have wondered the same thing. And look at that, Pluto: he is signaling to us like a man gone mad. If he's a castaway, little wonder, for a dozen years might pass, and never a sail lift above the horizon of this bit of ocean. ”

“ Cuthbert Griswold told him. "So you thought that I meant it, Ferdy? Just a little joke, and——"
"Joke!"
"A bit of melodramatics, Ferdy," smiled Griswold. "So you thought that I was going to kill you? Forget all that. Amanda—a skull and a few bones now or a handful of ashes—is nothing to me, the memory of her even less than that. The world is full of fools, but there is not a bigger fool in it than the man or woman who would keep husband or wife when the heart of that husband or wife belongs to another. Of course, if you love the one who is going—as I loved Amanda—the loss is a bitter one. ”

“ Oxford, that, that——?"
"I don't think," the other interrupted; "I know: this is not the blood of any canine; it is the blood of a human being, the blood of a man!"
"A man?"
Griswold barked out a sardonic laugh.
"I confess," he said, "that I don't see your little joke. There was no man here, only poor Buck."
"There was no dog here," Oxford told him, "save Pluto there. The victim was a man."
"Ha, ha!" said Griswold. "I must say, though, that you have a queer idea of humor, Mr. Oxford. Your humor is a little too grisly for me—even though your victim is only an imaginary one." ”

“ Pluto, the wolf-dog, out there on the Gorgon, was watching; but (as regards things like this meeting and what followed) wolfdogs, like dead men, can tell no tales. But (what Griswold never dreamed) fairies can. And this was the Isle of the Fairy Morgana.
"Who am I?" Griswold said. "Can't you guess?"
"No."
"Well, well! He can't guess. Handsome Ferdy Chantrell, that devil with the ladies—so he can't guess who I am! Well, well! But why should I be surprized at that? For, of course, I am not the only one who has a score to settle with Handsome Ferdy, and he's wondering which one it can be. ”

“ Maybe things in other directions too!"
"Well," said Rhodes complacently as he followed along in my wake, "we have our revolvers."
"Revolvers? Just see what your revolver has done! A revolver is only a revolver, while that thing—who knows what that monster is?"
"The Dromans know—or think that they do."
"And look at the Dromans! Fear has them. Did you ever see fear like that before? See how they are signing to us to come on. Even Drorathusa is shaken to the very soul."
"After all, 'tis no wonder, Bill, that she is. Those shrieks! How can it continue to shriek and shriek like that?" ”

“ Guy Oxford looked at Captain Spar, and Griswold saw a smile in those black (and to the murderer terrible) eyes of his.
"Up in the sky!" Guy Oxford said. "We were! Yes, we were in two places at once, though, of course, we didn't know that until I saw Chantrell point."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"About our being on the Queen Mab's deck and yet up in the sky. You should have turned, Griswold, turned and seen us there. Then, perhaps, your hour of triumph would not have proved your hour of disaster and ruin. And a fairy—Griswold, 'twas a fairy that did it all! ”

“ Meditation, however, only served to make our situation the more appalling. With an exclamation of despair, I lay down, longing for sleep's sweet oblivion. At this moment Narkus and the young man—whose name, by the way, was Thumbra—were seen approaching. They laid themselves down near by, their lanterns extinguished. We had shut off the electric lights, but our phosphorus-lamps, and those of the Dromans, shed their pale and ghostly light around. ”

“ They stood upon the very summit of the isle—Griswold, Chantrell and the wolf-dog, Pluto.
"Queer place, this Flang," said Griswold.
"Yes," thought the other, "but no more queer than you are yourself. Now, why did we come up to this summit? Maybe my imagination is playing me tricks; but I'll be mighty glad when I am once more back in the world of men."
A covert watch upon Cuthbert Griswold as he stood there would have enhanced those vague and sinister misgivings that the victim tried, butin vain, to banish. This visit to the summit of Flang had been no mere whim on Griswold's part. ”

“ Yes, blind are we, though we have eyes; our souls shrinking from the light to wander, lost and happy, in psychic caves and labyrinths more terrible even than this cavern through which we were making our way—making our way to we knew not what. ”

“ I turned at the sound and saw Drorathusa, her figure and mien ineffably Sibylline and majestic, pointing out over the strange landscape, her eyes on the face of Milton Rhodes.
"Drome!" she said again.
"Drome!" echoed Milton. Then to me: "I wonder, Bill, what this Drome really is. And I have an idea that this is only the outskirts that we see. Can we at last be near our journey's end, or is that end still far away?"
"Who can tell? This place seems to be a wilderness."
"Yes; a forest primeval." ”

“ Rhodes and I were greatly puzzled, for it was patent that neither the angel nor anyone else knew how they had gone astray. And, not knowing that, how could anyone tell which way to go?
"Better get it clear in that notebook," I admonished Rhodes. "It's a queer business, and I don't pretend to understand it at all."
We came along for a half-mile or so, carefully and with no little apprehension, and then, hurrah, there was a sign on the wall! The route to Drome again! But for how long?
Drorathusa quickened her pace. She was moving along now as though in confidence, certitude even. ”

“ At length the light no longer lay in streams and rifts in the darkness, but the darkness, instead, lay in streams through the light. The Dromans quickened their already hurried pace, and there were exclamations of "Drome! Drome!"
"Drome!" echoed Milton. Rhodes. "I wonder what we are going to find."
"Something wonderful," said I, "or something worse, perhaps, than anything that we have seen."
Rhodes laughed, and I saw Drorathusa (Narkus was leading the way) turn and send a curious glance in our direction.
"Well," I added, "anything to get out of this horrible forest of fungi." ”

“ No, Bill; it was Drorathusa. There was no other sound. To that I can swear."
So my imagination had tricked me! And yet how could I be sure that it had? For, in such a moment, with such a sight before him, Rhodes himself might have been the one deceived. In that case, any instant might see Death come leaping into our very midst.
"Who gave that scream?" I asked.
"One of the girls, when we broke out of the ferns and she saw that. Delphis, I believe."
This turned me again to that thing of horror. No wonder that that piercing, terrible scream had broken from the girl! ”

“ But man is a sort of dual creature, a creature that achieves the impossible by being in two places at the same time: his body is in this the Twentieth Century, his mind is still back there in the Pleistocene, with cave-bears, hyenas and saber-toothed tigers."
I uttered a vehement dissent.
"But 'tis so, Bill," said Rhodes, "or at least back there beyond the year 1492. The world knows but one Newton, one Archimedes, one Galileo, one Darwin, one Edison; but heaven has sent the world thousands." ”

“ However that may be, this wonderful faculty is possessed by the great ape-bats of Drome. Not that it is for this that they are valued by the Dromans. It is because it is impossible for an ape-bat to get lost. It matters not how long, how devious, how broken, savage, mysterious the way; the demon is never uncertain for one single moment. And a singular feature of this most singular fact is that the creature does not have to retrace the route itself, and it does not matter what time has elapsed. It may be a month, years; it is all the same to the demon. ”