Page:Weird Tales Volume 09 Issue 02 (1927-02).djvu/64

 was all one wanted to do to hug the wall and make sure of his footing. A frightful place, truly, in which to meet, even with a revolver, the attack of even one of those winged monsters; and we might find ourselves attacked by a dozen.

It can easily be imagined, then, the relief which I felt when we had passed the last narrow spot, though, forsooth, we might be going toward something far more terrible than any we had left behind us. But the angel had gone down, and where a woman could go, there, I told myself in masculine pride, could we also.

"That is," I subjoined, "supposing we do not meet ape-bats or something more terrible."

At length we stood once more at the mouth of the gallery. And scarcely had we stopped there when an unpleasant thing flashed into my thoughts—which, as it was, resembled anything but the rainbow.

"Great heaven!" I cried, peering into the tunnel, which, at the distance of only thirty feet or so, gave a sudden turn to the right.

Something could be in there, very close to us and yet unseen!

"What is it, Bill?"

"Could those lights that we saw have been here? Are they waiting in there to dog our steps or to do something worse?"

Rhodes, peering into the gallery with a curious, half-vacuous expression on his face, made no reply.

"Well," I queried, "what do you think of it? We could not tell where those lights were, how far away—anything."

"I don't think that they were here," Milton Rhodes returned. "I think they were much farther down and on the other side."

"On the other side? How on earth could anyone cross that chasm?"

"We don't know what it is like down there. And, of course, I don't know that the lights were on the other side. But I believe that they were."

A silence ensued, which at length I broke:

"What is the next thing on the program?"

"Make our way down the ledge. That is the only way we can go. But first we 'll try a little finesse."

He took a position in the mouth of the tunnel, one. that permitted him to look down the cavern. He signed to me to follow suit, and, when I stood at his side, he said: "Off go the lights!"

Off they went, and the terrible blackness was upon us. So terrible was it and so strange and fearful that place in which we stood, I actually found myself wondering if it would not all prove a dream.

"Why," I asked at last, "did we do this?"

"To see if the lights will show again. They may think that we have lost heart and started back."

I saw it all now: instead of our advancing to those mysterious beings somewhere down the cavern, he would bring them to us.

But they did not come. They did not show even the faintest light. Wc waited there for many minutes, but nothing whatever was seen.

"Hum!" said Rhodes at last, snapping on his light "Wary folk, Bill, these Hypogeans."

"And so," I replied, "we'll have to go to them."

"That's what we shall have to do."

"Walk maybe right into a trap."

"It is possible," Rhodes admitted. "But it is possible too that the trap may not prove so terrible—possible, indeed, that there is no trap at all. I tell you, I certainly would like to see that angel again."

"Then let's go see her."

"That's what we'll do."

And so we started.