And once again--how long after, how could he know?--he came to some partial realization of tortured existence.
In one of the mad downward rushes--rushes which ended in a long spiral slant--his staring, bloodshot eyes that sought to pierce the murk, seemed to behold a glimmer, a dull gleam of light.
The engineer screamed imprecations, mingled with wild, demoniac laughter.
"Another hallucination!" was his thought. "But if it"s not--if it"s h.e.l.l--then welcome, h.e.l.l! Welcome even that, for a chance to stop!"
A sweep of the Pauillac hid the light from view. Even that faintest ray vanished. But--what? It came again! Much nearer now, and brighter!
And--another gleam! Another still! Three of them--and they were real!
With a tremendous effort, Stern fixed his fevered eyes upon the lights.
Up, up at a tremendous rate they seemed speeding. Blue and ghastly through the dense vapors, spinning in giddy gyrations, as the machine wheeled, catapulted and slid from one long slant to another, their relative positions still remained fixed.
And, with a final flicker of intelligence, Stern knew they were no figment of his brain.
"Lights, Beatrice! Lights, lights, real lights!" he sought to scream.
But even as he fought to shake her from the swoon that wrapped her senses, his own last fragment of strength deserted him.
He had one final sense impression of a swift upshooting of the lights, a sudden brightening of those three radiant points.
Then came a sudden gleam as though of waters, black and still.
A gleam, blue and uncanny, across the inky surface of some vast, mysterious, hidden sea.
Up rushed the lights at him; up rushed the sea of jetty black!
Stern shouted some wild, incoherent thing.
Crash!
A shock! A frightful impact, swift, sudden, annihilating!
Then in a mad and lashing struggle, all knowledge and all feeling vanished utterly. And the blackness of oblivion received him into its insensate bosom.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE WHITE BARBARIANS
Warmth, wetness, and a knowledge of great weakness--these, joined with a singular la.s.situde, oppression of the lungs and stifling of the breath, were Allan Stern"s sensations when conscious life returned.
Pain there was as well. His body felt sorely bruised and shaken. His first thought, his intense yearning wonder for the girl"s welfare and his sickening fear lest she be dead, mingled with some attempt to a.n.a.lyze his own suffering; to learn, if possible, what damage he had taken in flesh and bone.
He tried to move, but found he could not. Even lying inert, as he now found himself, so great was the exertion to breathe that only by a fight could he keep the breath of life in his shaken frame.
He opened his eyes.
Light! Could it be? Light in that place?
Yes, the light was real, and it was shining directly in his face.
At first all that his disturbed, half-delirious vision could make out was a confused bluish glare. But in a moment this resolved itself into a smoking, blazing cresset. Stern could now distinctly see the metal bands of the fire-basket in which it lay, as well as a supporting staff, about five feet long, that seemed to vanish downward in the gloom.
And, understanding nothing, filled with vague, half-insane hallucinations and wild wonders, he tried to struggle upward with a babbling cry:
"Beatrice! Oh, Beatrice--_where are you?_"
To his intense astonishment, a human hand, bluish in the strange glare, laid itself upon his breast and pushed him down again.
Above him he saw a face, wrinkled, bearded and ghastly blue. And as he struggled still he perceived by the unearthly light that a figure was bending over him.
"A man!" he gulped. "Man! _Man!_ Oh, my G.o.d! At last--a man!"
He tried to raise himself upon his elbow, for his whole soul was flooded with a sudden grat.i.tude and love and joy in presence of that long-sought goal. But instantly, as soon as his dazed senses could convey the terrible impression to his brain, his joy was curdled into blank astonishment and fear and grief.
For to his intense chagrin, strive as he might, he could move neither hand nor foot!
During his unconsciousness, which had lasted he could not tell how long, he had been securely bound. And now, awakening slowly, once more, fighting his way up into consciousness, he found himself a prisoner!
_A prisoner!_ With whom? Among what people--with what purpose? After the long quest, the frightful hardships and the tremendous fall into the abyss, a prisoner!
"Merciful G.o.d!" groaned Stern, and in his sudden anguish, strained against the bonds, that drawn tight and fast, were already cutting painfully into his swollen, water sodden flesh.
In vain did he struggle. Terrible thoughts that Beatrice, too, might be subjected to this peril and humiliation branded themselves upon his brain. He shouted wildly, calling her name, with all the force of his spent lungs; but naught availed. There came no answer but the shrouding fogs.
The strange man bent above him, peering from beneath wrinkled brows.
Stern heard a few words in a singular, guttural tone--words rendered dull by the high compression of the air. What the words might be he could not tell, yet their general sound seemed strangely familiar and their command was indubitable.
But, still half-delirious, Stern tried again to stretch up his arms, to greet this singular being, even as a sick man recovering from etherization raves and half sees the nurses and doctors, yet dreams wild visions in the midst of pain.
The man, however, only shook his head, and with a broad, firm hand, again held the engineer from trying to sit up. Stern, understanding nothing clearly, relapsed to quietude. To him the thought came: "This is only another delusion after all!" And then a vast and poignant woe possessed him--a wonder where the girl might be. But under the compulsion of that powerful hand, he lay quite still.
Half consciously he seemed to realize that he was lying p.r.o.ne in the bottom of some strange kind of boat, rude and clumsy, strangely formed of singular materials, yet safe and dry and ample.
To his laboring nostrils penetrated a rank and pungent odor of fish, with another the like of which he never had known--an odor not unpleasant, yet keenly penetrant and all-pervading. Wet through, the engineer lay reeking in heat and steam, wrapped in his suit of heavy furs. Then he heard a ripple of water and felt the motion of the craft as it was driven forward.
Another voice spoke now and the strange man answered briefly. Again the engineer half seemed to comprehend the meaning, though no word was intelligible.
"Where"s the girl, you?" he shouted with all his might. "What have you done with her? If you hurt her, d.a.m.n you, you"ll be sorry!
_Where--where is she?_"
No answer. It was evident that English speech conveyed no meaning to his captors. Stern relapsed with a groan of anguish and sheer pain.
The boat rocked. Another man came creeping forward, holding to the gunwale to steady himself. Stern saw him vaguely through the drifting vapor by the blue-green light of the cresset at the bow.