Chapter XVI: Near the End of the Journey

The dawn found them once more on the march. The rain still fell, fine and persistent. Its pattering had now become familiar music to them. It formed the setting of their words and of their movements, and they had become so thoroughly accustomed to the vast sound of splashing by which they were surrounded that they no longer noticed it. The rest of the night had been spent in watching the elephants and keeping guard over their still dangerous excitement. Only the missionary, quite careless of the general anxiety, had remained apart from the others with his back against a tree, taking no notice of the rain which poured over him, turning over in his mind thoughts for which he had no words and the hidden current of which left his face drawn and his eyes filled with shadows.

Now, lost in his meditations, he walked at the tail of the procession. Pierre, tired of his silence, had gone on to join the two guides. The elephants advanced rapidly. The soil, now spotted with patches of moss, gave better footing for their heavy steps. The last slope of the towering mountain whose successive heights they had climbed during the last few days offered itself to their advance in a gentle declivity, which they were ascending with comparative ease. Towards the middle of the day they reached the last height. Before them, surrounded by the forest which reached halfway up its sides, the very crest of the mountain stood naked, rising out of a billowing sea of giant grasses. Pierre gave a deep sigh. Here, this very ground on which he was treading, was the extreme summit of the "Moï Country": this hill, of which the caravan was already beginning to descend the reverse, was the roof of the whole of Indo-China. He forgot his fatigue, his suffering, his disappointments. Around him lay unrolled on every side the country which no one had yet reached, the immense territory into which no European, up to that moment, had succeeded in penetrating. The spirit of the great explorers inspired him for a moment--their soul and their keen pride of achievement.... Towards the south and the east, violet, blue and gray, crests of all shapes and sizes--rounded, domed and pointed--one behind the other spread away in ranks like the steps of a great staircase marking the stages of the route which they had followed.

The glance of the young man then turned towards the west. The mountain on which he was standing culminated in a short, steep slope, from the foot of which, level and boundless and clad in its thick mantle of trees, the plateau of the Pou-Kas stretched to the horizon, the plateau on the other edge of which, facing the south, stood the temple of the "Red Gods." At the same time his mood of exaltation suddenly fell away from him. The totally unexpected contour of the ground near at hand became clear to him. A sort of natural fault in the rock, about a mile and a half wide, crossed it, encircling it, as it were, with a deep gulf which stretched to the very edge of the forest. He calculated that in order to reach the western side of the plateau on which the sanctuary was built it would be necessary to follow the edge of this crevasse for a distance of at least thirty miles.

"Two more days' march at least," he thought aloud.

The voice of the missionary, answering him unexpectedly, made him start.

"Perhaps!" he said; "but on the other hand, perhaps we have already arrived."

Pierre turned quickly and saw the priest standing behind him. His arms crossed on his breast, his head bare, regardless of the rain which was whipping his face and moulding his tunic to his body, he was looking at the strange valley that lay before him.

"I don't understand you," said Lursac. "It will be absolutely necessary to go round this crevasse."

The missionary looked as if he didn't hear him. He followed out his own thoughts.

"Notice," said he, continuing to gaze before him, "the direction of this gulf. It runs parallel to the edge of the plateau. Notice also how the cliff on the further side which faces us comes in places quite close to this edge."

"Yes," said Pierre, "there only seems to be a space of about half a mile between them just here."

"Good! Well, now remember what Hmon told us--'before us a subterranean passage descended and turned downwards. Walls trickling with moisture were lighted up from time to time....' Among many others, these phrases struck me. They came to my mind immediately when I saw this great canyon in the rocks. Have they no meaning for you? Doesn't that suggest an idea to you--the same one which has just crossed my own mind?"

"Ah!" cried Pierre, "the other entrance to the sanctuary, which no one knows, but which, however, must exist?"

The priest nodded his head.

"Go on," said he, "finish your thought; this entrance?..."

"You believe that it is to be found at the bottom of this crevasse?"

"The more I think of it the more the thing seems likely. Anyway, it is quite easy to make sure of it. We can wait till evening on the edge of this canyon; spend the night in it and tomorrow...."

"Tomorrow," murmured Pierre, "always tomorrow!"

And he began to descend the slope of the mountain. A cry from Father Ravennes stopped him halfway. He turned round so quickly and with such anxiety that he was astonished at himself.

At the same time he called:

"Ravennes! Ravennes!"

The sound of his own voice, changed by emotion, seemed strange to him, and he suddenly understood the quality and force of the affection which bound him to his companion.

The priest at this moment appeared running towards him.

"Ah!" said Pierre, "how you frightened me. What's the matter?"

The missionary, taking him by the arm, pulled him in the direction of the plain.

"Come," said he, "come!"

And as they went together he explained:

"It seemed to me from up there that I could see ... but I thought I must be mistaken. Here ... look ... yes ... at the angle of the glade down there, on the left, just where the level ground begins."

Pierre bent over and examined the glade which a single unexpected ray of watery sunshine clothed in a veil of gold; it seemed to him to be empty and dominated by the top of an enormous mango-tree which stood in its centre.

They continued their descent. The top of the giant tree, making a motionless patch of darkness in the midst of the packed undergrowth served them as a goal. When they got to the level they did not even need its aid. Through the high grass a sort of track was visible. They followed it. Before them, describing great circles in the transparent sky three tawny eagles sailed with long metallic cries, encircling the leafy summit of the mango-tree in their flight.

The missionary began to hurry, almost running. When he arrived in front of the glade he had to stop, gasping for breath. He was trembling with exhaustion and emotion. The beating of his heart shook his entire body and hammered in his temples. Supporting himself against a tree he looked over the clearing. It was long and narrow, and surrounded with thorny undergrowth. In the centre the gigantic mango-tree soared aloft, casting all around a heavy shadow from its leafy branches about which the three eagles still turned slowly in wide circles. Everything was silent and still. The ray of sunshine having passed on, the whole place was clothed in shadow except that just behind the tree a single luminous spot remained.

Walking towards it, the missionary murmured:

"It is there."

Then he was silent.

In the middle of a splash of gold which the sunlight made on the earth and which was getting smaller minute by minute a large hole in the ground had just become visible to him, with a thin covering of branches and grass which lay gaping open, as though torn by some shock.

Pierre, who had caught him up, thought he understood what it meant.

"An elephant trap!"

At the same time seeing a ragged tunic lying on the ground close to the hole, he cried:

"Ravennes ... there.... Look!"

The missionary made no answer.

Kneeling on the edge of the pit he was separating the branches and pulling the covering of grass away, bending over to see better. Suddenly he flung himself back, his face as white as a sheet.

Pierre, bending down, in his turn, looked also.

He saw an excavation which seemed several yards deep, with sharpened stakes sticking upwards from the bottom. Caught on one of them lay a white man. Below him on the ground lay spread the bones of a skeleton still decorated with rags of clothes.

The priest gave a hoarse sigh:

"Redeski!"

Clinging to the wall of the trap he climbed down into it. The officer's body was hanging from a stake; the sharpened point of the picket had pierced his side and was sticking out through the abdomen. On the other side the head dangled down, the hair falling loose. In the waxen face the mouth hung open with a red froth around it, while on the shirt above the heart there spread a large purple patch which looked like the blood-colored flower of the flame-tree.

Down the haft of the spike the blood had flowed slowly and dried in a black stream.

Father Ravennes lifted the pallid head and looked at the blue eyes half open in death. A vast sadness oppressed him.

"The poor boy!" he said, "the poor boy! They got rid of him by flinging him there...."

He gently wiped the red slime from the lips, and slowly and tenderly, shaken by heavy shudders, he lifted the body with its horrible ragged wound off the spike.

Stretched out on the ground on his back with his arms wide open the young officer seemed thin and very tall. His face, although drawn with terrible suffering, still seemed to bear a strange expression of calm and strength.

Father Ravennes bowed himself in prayer.

"O God," said he, "receive him in thy divine mercy. We lived three months together and I found him upright, ardent and young: his soul was that of a man. O God, accept him!"

Then taking the body in his arms he lifted it out of the pit to Pierre, who took it. Between them, without speaking and as quickly as possible, they managed to dig a grave in the shadow of the mango-tree. When the simple burial was over, they stood up and looked at each other. Pierre, pale and with his fists clenched, murmured:

"It is only a few days since they killed him, isn't it? Ah! the savages!..."

The missionary, however, had not heard him. Having gone back to the edge of the pit and bending over, he was looking down into it at the skeleton which lay there. One of the rags of cloth hanging to it still bore a metal button. Seeing it, he murmured:

"A strip from a tunic. The remains of another white man for certain."

He stayed there for a long time wrapped in thought; and when he got up and looked for Pierre, he found that the young man had started back towards the caravan. The priest sighed, and then heavily, with bent shoulders, he in his turn followed towards the plain and rejoined his companion, while above the mango-tree the three eagles resumed their circling flight, with their stretched-out wings flashing red in the light of the setting sun.

* * * * *

They had been back in the shelter of the forest for some time now. The rain, so fine that it seemed to float softly like a watery dust rather than fall, mingled under the trees with the mist which rose from the soil to create an atmosphere of damp stagnation. One seemed to breathe water; and night, which was coming on, darkened the landscape, sucking the color from everything and turning the surroundings into a dull uniform sombreness--the end of another gray and sullen day.

And, suddenly, as the darkness fell over the plateau, Pierre ordered a halt. They had come, without warning, to the edge of the forest: a narrow belt of ground, about fifty yards across and covered with short turf, alone separated it from the sunken canyon. In the open the wind was whipping the plateau and buffeting it with billowing gusts.

While the mahouts and guides were busied about their beasts, Lursac and the missionary walked forward cautiously. On the lip of the crevasse they bent over, eagerly plunging their eyes into its depths. But they saw nothing; for the night had taken possession of the precipice and had made of it a formless and endless gulf, a gigantic pit brimming with matted shadows.

They flung themselves down on the ground side by side with their heads over the edge and listened. No sound came up to them. The missionary stretched down his arm and fingered the rocky wall below him, feeling over it carefully: it was hard and cold, cut sheer down through the rock in a vertical cliff.

For a long time they remained thus, silent and motionless. The rain whipped their faces and drenched them to the skin; now and again a short shiver would shake one of them, while the quick beatings of their hearts resounded dully against the soil and beat like hammers in their brains.

"Nothing! ..." said Pierre. "Nothing! ... emptiness! ... silence!..."

They were getting ready to rise when the missionary, gripping him violently by the shoulder, whispered:

"Opposite ... a little to the left ... lights!"

Striking through the darkness two luminous points had just become visible. They seemed far away, against the opposite side of the crevasse, and diminished by distance they winked feebly in the middle of a little yellow halo. Then around them other lights sprang up one by one. Lursac counted seven altogether.

"The gulf is inhabited," said he. "Without doubt those are the guards of the entrance."

The missionary gave a silent laugh. His hand on Pierre's shoulder trembled and tightened.

"It is inhabited," said he; "these lights prove it; but one would think that they were on the wall itself."

He repeated several times in an absent-minded tone:

"On the wall itself...."

Then he added:

"Caves, doubtless ... perhaps the underground entrances to the temple ... or perhaps something else!..."

The extraordinary tone of his voice made Pierre shudder, and he was just about to question him when a thought suddenly flashed through his mind.

"Our own fires!" he murmured.

And flinging himself backwards he ran as hard as he could towards the encampment, reaching it just in time to see the first flame spring up from a pile of leaves and branches around which the mahouts were crouched. One man bending over the fire was blowing to hasten its igniting. Pierre with a push shoved him away, and then with great kicks scattered the brands and beat them out.

"No fires," said he, "do you hear me? None!"

The darkness which had thickened around him prevented him seeing the men, but the noise of torn branches revealed the neighborhood of the elephants. He called the guides:

"Ngur and Pâa! Where are you?"

The two Moïs approached.

"Here, sahib!"

Pierre turned to them.

"You know where the bundle of rope is that we brought with us," he said; "get it, and meet me at the edge of the crevasse. I will wait for you there with Father Ravennes."

Before starting, he flung another order.

"The mahouts will remain to watch the beasts. I definitely forbid you to stir from here. Understand that?"

And without waiting for any answer he set off.

He found the missionary at the same spot, where he continued to lie motionless, taking no notice of the return of his companion. Pierre seized his arm.

"Come," said he, "we must make up our minds."

The missionary suddenly came out of his trance. He looked about him and sighed deeply.

"Oh!" said he, "you! I was thinking over some means of getting down there."

"I only see one," said Pierre. "The cliff goes sheer down. We shall have to use ropes, so I have ordered the guides to bring them here."

"Will they be long enough? We know nothing of the height of this wall of rock."

"Well," said Pierre, "I shall go on trying. We have at least two hundred and fifty yards of rope. If there is any need of it we could tie the lashings of the elephants' pack-saddles to that. That would give us another fifty yards. Say a total of three hundred...."

"Yes," said the priest, "that is the best plan; but should we take the risk of doing it at night?"

"I say yes," said Pierre. "In daylight we should be discovered immediately. Once we get down there we can wait for daylight in order to creep near the caves. In any case I will go first, alone."

Father Ravennes gave a start.

"Alone," said he, "what are you talking about? We will go together. Ngur and Pâa can watch over our descent and draw us up again in case of need."

Pierre felt for the missionary's hand and grasped it in silence.

"Don't thank me," said the priest, disengaging his fingers; and in a low voice he confessed with a sort of humility mixed with discomfort:

"You do not know. My attitude during the last days must have seemed strange to you, very strange. Perhaps there is a good deal of selfishness in my devotion. I hope, however, that you will pardon me when ... but that will wait! For the moment understand this: nothing could make me give up exploring, with you or without you, the bottom of this fissure."

He repeated in a louder voice:

"Nothing ... nothing...."

"Very well," said Pierre; "we will go down as soon as the guides get here."

All that was necessary having been said, they were both silent.

In the crevasse the seven lights continued to flicker, and, as the fog thickened about them it enveloped them with halos which minute by minute became larger and more livid....