"The time to talk of getting out is not yet," rejoined the Kafir drily.
"We are not _in_ yet."
They resumed their way. As they penetrated deeper, the cavern suddenly slanted abruptly upwards. This continued for some twenty or thirty yards, when again the floor became level, though ever with a slight upward bend. Great slabs of rock projected from the sides, but the width of the tunnel varied little, ranging between six and ten yards.
The same held good of its height.
As they advanced they noticed that the current of air was no longer felt. An extraordinary foetid and overpowering atmosphere had taken its place. Similarly the floor and sides of the cavern, which before they reached the outlet had been moist and humid, now became dry and firm.
"Hand us your flask, Shelton," said Hoste. "Upon my soul I feel as if I was going to faint. Faugh!"
The odour was becoming more and more sickening with every step. Musky, rank, acreous--it might almost be felt. Each man required a pull at something invigorating, if only to neutralise the inhalation of so pestilential an atmosphere. Smoking was suggested, but this Josane firmly tabooed.
"It cannot be," he said. "It would be madness. Remember my words, _Amakosi. Look neither to the right nor to the left_--_only straight in front of you, where you set down your steps_."
Then he resumed his strange wild chant, now sinking it to an awe-struck whisper hardly above his breath. It was a weird, uncanny sight, those four shadowy figures advancing through the thick black darkness, the fiery eye of the lantern darting forth its luminous column in front, while the deep-toned, long-drawn notes of the wild, heathenish _rune_ died away in whispering echoes overhead.
"Oh! good Lord! Look at that!"
The cry broke from Shelton. All started, so great was the state of tension that their nerves were undergoing. Following his glance they promptly discovered what it was that had evoked it.
Lying upon a great slab of rock, about on a level with their chests, was an enormous puff-adder. The bloated proportions of the hideous reptile were disposed in a sinuous coil--shadowy, repulsive to the last degree, in the light of the lantern. A shudder ran through every one of the three white men.
"Quick, Josane. Hand me one of your kerries," said Shelton. "I can get a whack at him now."
But the Kafir, peremptorily, almost angrily refused.
"Why did you not listen to my words?" he said. "Look neither to the right nor to the left, was what I told you. Then you would have seen nothing. Now let us move on."
But Shelton and Hoste stood, irresolutely staring at the horrid reptile as though half fascinated. It--as if resenting the intrusion--began to unwind its sluggish folds, and raising its head, emitted a low, warning hiss, at the same time blowing itself out with a sound as of a pair of bellows collapsing, after the fashion which has gained for this most repulsive of all serpents its distinctive name.
"You must not kill it," repeated the Kafir, in a tone almost of command.
"This is `The Home of the Serpents," remember. Did I not warn you?"
They saw that he was deadly in earnest. Here in this horrible den, right in the heart of the earth, the dark-skinned, superst.i.tious savage seemed the one to command. It was perhaps remarkable that no thought of disobeying him entered the mind of any one of the three white men; still more so, that no resentment entered in either. They resumed their way without a murmur; not, however, without some furtive glances behind, as though dreading an attack on the part of the deadly reptile they were leaving in their rear. More than once they thought to detect the sound of that slow, crawling glide--to discern an indistinct and sinuous shadow moving in the subdued light.
"This is `The Home of the Serpents"!" chanted Josane, taking up once more his weird refrain.
"This is The Home of the Serpents, the abode of the Spirit-dead. O _Inyoka "Nkulu_ [Great Serpent] do us no hurt! O Snake of Snakes, harm us not!
"The shades of thy home are blacker than blackest night.
"We tread the dark shades of thy home in search of the white man"s friend.
"Give us back the white man"s friend, so may we depart in peace--
"In peace from The Home of the Serpents, the abode of the Spirit-dead.
"Into light from the awe-dealing gloom, where the shades of our fathers creep.
"So may we return to the daylight in safety with him whom we seek.
"Harm us not, O Snake of snakes!
Do us no hurt, O _Inyoka "Nkulu_!"
The drawn out notes of this lugubrious refrain were uttered with a strange, low, concentrative emphasis which was indescribably thrilling.
Eustace, the only one of the party who thoroughly grasped its burden, felt curiously affected by it. The species of devil worship implied in the heathenish invocation communicated its influence to himself. His spirits, up till now depressed and burdened as with a weight of brooding evil, seemed to rise to an extraordinary pitch of exaltation, as though rejoicing at the prospect of prompt admission into strange mysteries.
Far otherwise, however, were the other two affected by the surroundings.
Indeed, it is by no means certain that had their own inclinations been the sole guide in the matter, they would there and then have turned round and beat a hasty and ignominious retreat, leaving Tom Carhayes and his potential fate to the investigation of some more enterprising party.
The atmosphere grew more foetid and pestilential. Suddenly the cavern widened out. Great slabs of rock jutted horizontally from the sides, sometimes so nearly meeting that there was only just room to pa.s.s in single file between. Then a low cry of horror escaped the three white men. They stopped short, as though they had encountered a row of fixed bayonets, and some, at any rate, of the party were conscious of the very hair on their heads standing erect.
For, lying about upon the rock slabs were numbers of shadowy, sinuous shapes, similar to the one they had just disturbed. Some were lying apart, some were coiled up together in a heaving, revolting ma.s.s. As the light of the lantern flashed upon them, they began to move. The hideous coils began to separate, gliding apart, head erect, and hissing till the whole area of the grisly cavern seemed alive with writhing, hissing serpents. Turn the light which way they would, there were the same great wriggling coils, the same frightful heads. Many, hitherto unseen, were pouring their loathsome, gliding shapes down the rocks overhead, and the dull, dragging heavy sound, as the horrible reptiles crawled over the hard and stony surface, mingled with that of strident hissing. What a sight to come upon in the heart of the earth!
It is safe to a.s.sert that no object in Nature is held in more utter and universal detestation by man than the serpent. And here were these men penned up within an underground cave in the very heart of the earth, with scores, if not hundreds, of these frightful and most deadly reptiles--some too, of abnormal size--around them; all on the move, and so near that it was as much as they could do to avoid actual contact.
Small wonder that their flesh should creep and that every drop of blood should seem to curdle within their veins. It was a position to recur to a man in his dreams until his dying day.
"Oh, I can"t stand any more of this," said Hoste, who was walking last.
"Hang it. Anything above ground, you know--but this--! Faugh! We"ve got no show at all. Ugh-h!"
Something cold had come in contact with his hand. He started violently.
But it was only the clammy surface of a projecting rock.
And now the whole of the gloomy chamber resounded with shrill and angry hissing, as the disturbed reptiles glided hither and thither--was alive with waving necks and distended jaws, glimpsed shadowy on the confines of the disk of light which shot into the remote corners of the frightful den. Curiously enough, not one of the serpents seemed to be lying in the pathway itself. All were on the ledges of rock which bordered it.
"Keep silence and follow close on my steps," said Josane shortly. Then he raised his voice and threw a marvellously strange, soft melodiousness into the weird song, which he had never ceased to chant. Eustace, who was the first to recover to some extent his self-possession, and who took in the state of affairs, now joined in with a low, clear, whistling accompaniment. The effect was extraordinary. The writhing contortions of the reptiles ceased with a suddenness little short of magical. With heads raised and a slight waving motion of the neck they listened, apparently entranced. It was a wonderful sight, terrible in its weird ghastliness--that swarm of deadly serpents held thus spell-bound by the eerie barbaric music. It really looked as though there was more than met the eye in that heathenish adjuration as they walked unharmed through the deadly reptiles to the refrain of the long-drawn, lugubrious chant.
"Harm us not, O Snake of Snakes!
Do us no hurt, _O Inyoka "Nkulu_!"
Thus they pa.s.sed through that fearful chamber, sometimes within a couple of yards of two or three serpents lying on a level with their faces.
Once it was all that even Eustace, the self-possessed, could do to keep himself from ducking violently as the head of a huge puff-adder noiselessly shot up horribly close to his ear, and a very marked quaver came into his whistling notes.
As the cavern narrowed to its former tunnel-like dimensions the serpents grew perceptibly scarcer. One or two would be seen to wriggle away, here and there; then no more were met with. The sickening closeness of the air still continued, and now this stood amply accounted for. It was due to the foetid exhalations produced by this ma.s.s of noisome reptiles congregated within a confined s.p.a.ce far removed from the outer air.
"Faugh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hoste. "Thank Heaven these awful brutes seem to have grown scarce again. Shall we have to go back through them, Josane?"
"It is not yet time to talk of going back," was the grim reply. Then he had hardly resumed his magic song before he broke it off abruptly. At the same time the others started, and their faces blanched in the semi-darkness.
For, out of the black gloom in front of them, not very far in front either, there burst forth such a frightful diabolical howl as ever curdled the heart"s blood of an appalled listener.
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE.
A FEARFUL DISCOVERY.
They stood there, turned to stone. They stood there, strong men as they were, their flesh creeping with horror. The awful sound was succeeded by a moment of silence, then it burst forth again and again, the grim subterraneous walls echoing back its horrible import in ear-splitting reverberation. It sounded hardly human in its mingled intonation of frenzied ferocity and blind despair. It might have been the shriek of a lost soul, struggling in the grasp of fiends on the brink of the nethermost pit.
"Advance now, cautiously, _amakosi_," said Josane. "Look where you are stepping or you may fall far. Keep your candles ready to light. The Home of the Serpents is a horrible place. There is no end to its terrors. Be prepared to tread carefully."