Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 2 (1924-05-07).djvu/74

 ment the sound increased. Looking up we saw leaves and twigs in violent motion high in the crowns of the trees. Too astounded to move we watched the strange phenomenon. Suddenly without any warning the whole tree seemed to spring into life. The giant branches curved down and swept the ground, and every twig and leaf seemed to be stretching out towards us. And at that moment as if aroused by the clamor of the tree, every plant and shrub began to stir with life, violently agitating their long tentacle-like stems, the edges of which, rasping upon each other, produced a whispering or hissing noise.

"Good God," screamed the Doctor. "The trees, the trees. I'm caught!"

"Use your hatchet," I cried as I sprang to his rescue and severed a long sinuous tendril that had twined itself round his waist. At the same instant I felt a steel-like vise closing round my ankle, and fell heavily. Turning I saw an enormous plant which had been near the path, waving its tentacles like a huge octopus. It had a short thick trunk, from the top of which radiated giant tentacles, narrow and flexible, but of extraordinary tenaciousness. The edges were armed with barbs or dagger-like teeth. It was one of these sinewy feelers, which inclined at an angle from the trunk, had laid itself flat upon the ground, and at the touch of my boot had risen and like a gigantic serpent, had entwined itself about me, and was drawing me towards the center of the stump, where my body would soon have been crushed until every drop of blood had been squeezed out of it and absorbed by the ferocious plant.

A cold sweat broke out on my forehead as I noticed other feelers flailing the air in search of me, and in the frenzy of despair, I slashed at the tendril round my leg and with two quick blows severed it. Immediately it rolled itself up into the parent stem.

"Run! Run!" I yelled to the Doctor. "Into the lake!"

Tripping and falling and rising again, and slashing to right and left as I ran, cut and bleeding from the giant barbs, I rushed into the lake. Turning, I saw the Doctor madly cutting at a creeper that had him by one arm. In another instant he was free from it, and with a frenzied bound was in the lake beside me, his clothes all torn and his face streaming with blood.

We were up to our waists in water, but safe for the moment from that frightful nightmare. We watched with gruesome fascination the madly tossing forest, the long feelers still groping and searching for us.

"Isn't it ghastly?" I said.

We were nearly sick with the horror of what we had escaped, but when I had sufficiently recovered my mind and some wind and some of my nerve had come back, I began to look around for some means of escape from the predicament in which we found ourselves. My first thought was of the raft; it looked small and seemed firmly imbedded in the mud. However, with only a small amount of effort we were able to launch it and climb aboard. It was nearly flush with water but with care we were able to cross safely, propelling ourselves by means of a crude sort of sweep which was fastened to one end.

HAT night, after a good meal from our fast diminishing stores, we slept the sleep of utter exhaustion, untroubled as yet by any fears for the future. Next morning we found our cuts and scratches very sore, but with plenty of iodine and a roll of bandage, we were soon fixed up and ready for the exploration of Blue Clay Island. Climbing the conical hill we found, as I expected, that the center of the island consisted of the crater of a small, extinct volcano, the floor of which was covered with blue clay mixed with small boulders.

"There's your diamond clay," I said.

The Doctor nodded.

We descended into the cup shaped valley and soon found the spot where the murderers had started to excavate. We spent the rest of the day then looking for gems and turning over the solid clay, but we were only rewarded with one minute stone. Whether our want of success was due to lack of experience or to the fact that we did not dig deep enough, I can't say, but the fact remains that that stone was the only one we ever got from the mine.

From this time on our every effort was bent towards trying to find way of escape, but we were stopped at every turn. We circled the lake in an endeavor to find a landing place, but everywhere the trees seemed to sense our approach, and we dared not land. Two or three days passed in this way, while we grew more and more desperate. Finally on the evening of the fourth day, as we were sitting by our fire smoking, our energy almost exhausted, the Doctor spoke, deep dejection in his tone.

"It's no use, Gerald. I give up. We'll either have to try to make our way through the forest where we came in or die of starvation. We have only a few more days' grub left."

"Before we do anything as rash as that," I remarked, "let's tell each other all we know about this place, put all our cards on the table, and we may be able to work something out when we have our data all together. I'll begin. To start with, look at the forest now. Not a leaf stirring, is there?"

The Doctor looked intently at the shore line with my field glasses.

"No, everything is as calm and peaceful as possible."

"Now watch the trees."

I took a fair sized stone and threw it into the lake about a quarter of the way across. There was a big splash.

"Any sign?" I asked.

"No."

"Well, look at the water line where it meets the shore by the big pine and keep looking and tell me when the ripples get there."

"All right," he said a moment later. "They're lapping the bank."

"Now look at the tops," I directed.

The Doctor uttered an ejaculation. "That's a remarkable thing. They're all in motion. Whatever made you think of that, Gerald?"

"You see," I went on, "how hopeless it is to try to reach the shore without letting the trees know of our approach."

"That's true," said the Doctor, "but we can land on that little sand beach just to the right of the path."

"Yes, that's point number two. And number three is, the nearer the lake the fiercer the trees."

"I don't see any more points," said the Doctor slowly.

For a long time we sat moodily staring into the fire. Then, slowly at first, but finally with a flash of inspiration, the idea came, and I smiled. The Doctor, who had been watching me dejectedly, suddenly exclaimed:

"You've got a plan, Gerald. Spit it out."

I pointed to the fire. "We'll burn the forest," I said.

Ever since our first entry into the Sunken Land, the weather had been dry; consequently the timber on the island, which, as the diary showed, had all been cut down by our predecessors, was in first class condition to start a fire. The only question was, would that forest burn?

"We'll have to build a bonfire on the beach and have everything all set for the first big wind from the northwest," I said.

"A regular funeral pyre," remarked the Doctor.

For the next two days we toiled from daylight to dark, ferrying logs and brushwood across the lake and scientifically building a large square pile which covered the center beach, and at the apex, for the top was conical, was nearly fif-