To Ed. Picard 10
The boat ploughed through the darkness.
Along the immense virginal river it went through the forest, a pale orange-tinted gleam blued by the semi-darkness. Near to the bank, where the boat was moving forward, the glimmers of light were braided, woven and tremulous, sometimes into faint pools, sometimes into magical networks with fine mesh, like coats of mail. In the distance, the light fell with divine serenity, and the open water, seemingly tinted at first by phosphorescent vapor, slowly faded toward a pale steel-blue, a scintillation of millions of blades.
Fecund and monstrous life was detectable in the river. Sometimes, an alligator slid along the bank, alarmed in its sleep; sometimes, a tapir fled from an enemy into the depths of the kingdom of the waves. As for smaller life-forms, they were frightful in their number and mystery.
All in all, however, there was a semi-silence over the stream. Because of these rumors, the forest seemed extraordinarily powerful, beautiful and sinister. Eternal warfare was ongoing there, the furtive conjunctions of love, carnivorous ambushes, pursuit, terror, the genius of attack and defense in formidable freedom—and, above all, the fundamental need of the weak and the strong alike: hunger, for pasture or for prey.
The electrical boat glided with a singular gentleness, scarcely a slight palpitation of its mechanism. It explored its surroundings with a long beam of white light. Three men were standing in the prow; a fourth manned the tiller.
One of them—a short, thickset man—murmured: “Well, the old cacique was right. After the almost-insurmountable navigational problems of the early stages, here we are in broad and beautiful waters, only occasionally obstructed.”
“Profound and abundant—whereas back there, at the confluence with the Amazon, the river is considerable in actuality, but poor in flow.”
The man who had replied presented a round-shouldered silhouette, with long arms and a bald head, which gleamed with reflected moonlight. His voice was muffled and hoarse, made for whispering in the silence of study-halls.
“Do you remember what the old man said?” the third put in. “The river comes from lakes that lie in the sunset. At first it is vaster than the Mother of Rivers, but the Earth drinks it with huge mouths, and the water diminishes every time…” This one, tall and barrel-chested, with a long, narrow head, further elongated by a silky beard, spoke loudly, with forceful gestures and rapidly-moving eyes.
“In that case,” said the round-shouldered man, “we must already have passed one of these huge mouths that drink the river without seeing it.”
“The one that’s invisible, no doubt,” said the man with the long head, “but the second opens in a rock—it’s a cave.”
The thickset individual said, with a hint of irony: “They’re probably allegories! Wasn’t the only man slyly giving us a course in Indian cosmogony? Anyway, we’re losing nothing by it—we’re in virgin territory, beyond all known geography.”
“Personally, I believe it,” said the man with the long head, with a kind of anger. “I believe in this strange land of subterranean waters, where the cacique’s great-grandfather nearly perished.”
“We’ll see, Alglave.”
“You’re forgetting the prisoner that the cacique gave us!” Alglave replied. “The captive from the tribe that lives underground.”
“Well, the prisoner hasn’t recognized the landscape thus far.”
“Patience! We were told that he wouldn’t recognize it until we’re near the second mouth.”
Alglave started intoning some mysterious Indian incantation, and the boat continued its journey along the great river. The Moon was higher now, and bright; it was visible above the foliage, as if its edges were more clear-cut. The immense battle continued to rage in the vastness of the forest.
Then, two of the interlocutors went below decks to sleep, while the man with the long head remained alone with the helmsman.
Alglave stood in the prow, exploring the river with eyes as profound and sure as those of a condor. A reverie as mysterious as the night of this virgin country drifted through his mind. His intense desire was that the old Indian’s legend should be true. His entire being was excited by it and attached to it—for, man of action as he was, full of practical strength and foresight, he was more of a poet than his companion explorers.
He repeated the vague but lovely legend to himself:
“There are lands under the Earth, where long rivers run, and grasses grow, with pale beasts, blind birds and white vampires. Sometimes, there is a faint moonlight, which moves, and dies out after a time—then everything is in darkness again…”
Why should the legend be a lie? Are there not subterranean rivers, even in the old countries of Europe? Are there not still strange and little-studied animals? Here, were everything is immense and free, why should subterranean lands not have an analogous scope? And what delectable mysteries, what magnificent poems of life beyond the life of the surface, what a wonderful dark territory of marvelous fauna and flora might be preserved in the bowels of the Earth!
He recalled another legend that had been told to him eight years before by an old chief in Ouan-Mahlei. The African’s predictions had been marvelously realized; why should those of the Red Indian be deceptive? One doubt haunted him, however: could such rare adventures befall the same man twice? Would the old Earth offer him twice over the delightful spectacle of an unknown refuge of large animals?
Why not? he said to himself. Have I not been traveling the planet relentlessly for 15 years on the run? Is it not the reward of my eternal wandering, and also of my obstinacy in pursuing to the end the meaning contained in the aboriginal legends of every land?
While he thought about these things, he scrutinized the banks continually, hoping to see the Mouth of the Earth appear there—but he saw nothing but the sinuous shore, the forest, and the indecisive forms of large carnivores and herbivores.
Night must be harsh, alone out there in the terrible struggle for existence: jaguars…anacondas…rattlesnakes!
He shuddered with relief at the thought of being safe on the electric boat, so well-designed, well-provisioned and comfortable—not that he did not love adventure, or had any lack of reckless bravery, but even the most heroic of men likes to feel safe in confrontation with a magnificent poem of anguish and fear.
The slender point of an islet appeared in the moonlight. Alglave concentrated all his attention on giving instructions to the helmsman. As the boat drew nearer, more obstacles appeared, in the form of debris and the trunks of uprooted trees, maintained by dense fluvial vegetation. The passage became difficult, and it was necessary to slow down.
The Moon illuminated a solemn perspective: the islet, with its tall trees leaning over the water, the lianas and reeds of its edges, all the detritus of an indomitable vegetation, and extraordinary profiles set against the fragments of a silvery firmament, with cavernous gaps, huge palm-trees taller than the tallest crowns on the bank, floating in the lukewarm ether; the water, reflecting those confused splendors, gently lapping against the frayed bank, carrying away clods of Earth and roots. With all that majestic semi-darkness, the moonlight filtered by the treetops, an indefinable menace expanded: a severity of nature intimating to humans that they ought not to advance any further. And, indeed, the passage became increasingly awkward.
At first, it was relatively easy for the slender prow of the boat to carve out a route through the obstacles, but an inextricable tangle of aquatic plants and large dead tree-trunks soon rendered further progress difficult, and perhaps perilous.
Alglave gave the order to reduce speed; it became evident that he was assuming a great responsibility in acting alone. Primitive nature seemed to be full of ambushes; as far as the pilot’s eye could follow the beam of the electric searchlight, there was an uninterrupted sequence of vegetable remains floating on the river. On some of them, aquatic monsters were asleep or moving slowly. A flock of night-birds was perceptible; the murmurs, sighs and grunts of nearby beasts were audible, mingling with the slow susurrus of the waters and the foliage. Moreover, the boat had drifted; it was now no more than 20 meters from the shore of the islet, in the shadow of enormous trees leaning over the water.
As Alglave brought the boat to a conclusive stop and decided to summon his companions to a council of war, a shadow bounded on to the deck: a large silhouette. The helmsman uttered an exclamation of fright.
Revolver in hand, ready for attack or defense, Alglave peered into the indecisive gloom. He saw a human being, of rather small height but very thickset. Once the first shock was past, the helmsman also drew his revolver and took aim at the man.
“Hold your fire!” said Alglave. “He doesn’t seem to be aggressive.”
Indeed, the human being struck a supplicatory pose, pointing at the river with a fearful gaze. Alglave followed the direction of his gesture.
On a kind of islet, caught in a ray of moonlight, stood a monstrous and splendid jaguar. Taken by surprise, the beast remained motionless, evidently torn between the desire to pursue its prey and fear of the electric lantern. But for that, nothing would have been easier for it than to reach the boat by means of a few bounds over the tree-trunks with which the river was littered.
Alglave took advantage of the beast’s momentary hesitation to take out a rifle from a sort of locker close to the prow. He made a sign to the fugitive, telling him to have no fear, and, with the rifle shouldered, paused to admire the beast. With proportions equal to those of an ordinary tiger, with slightly shorter legs, it represented the regal forces of nature, the magnificent effort of a life of conflict. At ease in its supple skin, half-crouching, its entire attitude was expressive of speed, ferocious and graceful skill and the habit of victory. Almost inaccessible to terror, Alglave did not squeeze the trigger immediately, not liking to kill such superb beasts, poems of vigor—but the savage came closer, touched him, and pointed to the right of the islet. The explorer saw three more jaguars.
Oh, damn! he thought.
This time, his heart beat faster, sensing a profound peril. At the same time, he was astonished to see several of these large beasts together; they usually hunted in couples, not in packs. Whatever the reason was for the anomaly, though, the danger was there, terrible in these forests, where a few tribes of ill-armed and wretched indigenes had not given the jaguar any sense of the power of human beings. The same animal that the proximity of bellicose tribes or white men had rendered circumspect, and even cowardly, in other regions was here a perennial victor, certain of its strength, its incomparable superiority over all creation.
In a strident voice, Alglave sounded the alarm, and then took careful aim at the large jaguar, between its eyes. While he still could not decide whether or not to fire, however, another shot rang out. It was the helmsman. Terrified by the sight of the wild beast, he fired his revolver: three shots in quick succession.
Slightly wounded, the furious jaguar leapt to the side of the boat. Gripping with its claws, with a thrust of its hips it arrived on the deck, four paces from Alglave.
You asked for it! the explorer thought.
Swiftly, he fired—but at the exact moment when the beast pounced on him. Instead of penetrating the skull, his bullet broke the jaw of the beast, which fell upon him like a thunderbolt.
His friends, who came up on deck at that moment, thought that he was doomed. He rolled on the deck, but sideways, hardly touched. As rapid as his frightful adversary, he found himself facing the murderous claws. Then, with two or three of those movements that the naked eye cannot capture and only photography can separate, there was a skirmish, the hammer-like blow of a rifle-butt—and they saw the jaguar lying still, while Alglave stood up. A revolver-shot finished the animal off.
“It’s not over!” cried the victor. He pointed at the other jaguars, menacing on the islet.
One of the explorers turned the beam of the electric searchlight on them; the blue-white beam frightened them.
“They seem intimidated!” said the bald man.
“They are, Fugère,” Alglave replied. “Quite probably, if no one shoots and wounds them, they won’t dare to attack us!”
As he spoke, two shots rang out, by courtesy of two crewmen who had arrived on deck at the same time as the explorers. One of the jaguars—a female—was wounded, and bounded directly at the boat, furiously, swiftly followed by her mate. Alglave stopped the female dead with a bullet in the skull. The male stopped with a mighty miaow, then leapt again. A fusillade peppered the water around it without hitting it, and it appeared abruptly on the bridge, with prodigious speed. One man was knocked down on to the deck, beneath the colossal paws.
“At the head!” Alglave shouted. Practicing what he preached, he aimed his revolver—then hesitated. The prostrate man screamed in terror, while the monstrous beast hesitated too, seeing itself surrounded by adversaries, and amazed. It was dangerous to fire, for fear of hitting the man.
Meanwhile, with a visionary courage poignant in its awkwardness, Fugère had crept close enough to fire. His bullet went clean through the beast’s neck—and almost simultaneously, he was knocked over in his turn and shaken like a rag. They saw his breast penetrated, beneath his lacerated clothing, by dagger-sharp claws. Hypnotized, he did not defend himself, feeling infinitely weak—so weak that he resigned himself to his fate, experiencing no fear.
His friends raced forward, though, and the animal, peppered with bullets, rolled over the scientist, crushing him with its weight.
“Dead!” cried Alglave, sending one last bullet into the head for safety’s sake.
Rapidly, they liberated Fugère. His wounds were quite deep, having ripped one of the pectoral muscles, but not dangerous. “I had a lucky escape!” he said, smiling.
The explorers and crewmen looked at one another, astonished by the drama; until then, their boat had been an absolute safeguard against the animals of the river and its banks.
“The fourth jaguar has disappeared!” Alglave said, while carrying out an attentive examination of his friend’s wounds.
“Yes,” replied the third companion. “But we were in serious danger, all the same—which could have been avoided if no one had fired. The searchlight would have been enough to keep the beasts away.”
“That’s true, Véraguez,” Alglave replied. “But what has become of the man who brought us the adventure?”
“There he is!” said one of the crewmen.
The savage advanced, invited to do so by a gesture. They saw a sturdy man with a nyctalopic gaze, a broad, grayish face, a sloping forehead and an enormous chin. He pronounced a few guttural syllables.
“That’s the same dialect as our hostage!” said Véraguez, who had keen polyglot faculties.
“And he’s the same physical type,” Fugère added. “Let’s bring them together.”
“I have a feeling,” said Alglave, with a hint of irony, “that the old cacique wasn’t just giving us a course in Indian cosmogony.”
A few minutes later, the Indian handed over by the cacique was brought forth. As soon as he saw the other one, he manifested an extreme joy, which was mutual. The two of them launched into an extensive conversation.
“Is he one of your race, Whamo?” asked Véraguez, in an Akatl dialect.
“He’s one of those who go into the caves in the rainy season.”
“From your tribe?”
“No, but a sister tribe.”
“Ask him whether we’re far from his homeland—and tell him that he has nothing to fear, for himself or his relatives.”
“Yes, master!”
The dialogue resumed, in the midst of universal interest. It was a hoarse, vague exchange with plaintive intonations of astonishment.
“We’re two days by canoe from the caves that open into the Underground Land,” Whamo said. “The tribes have dispersed into the forests now, and will only go back to the caves when the leaves are old.”
“Would the man of your race care to take us there?”
Whamo continued the interrogation; acquiescence and trust were observable in the other man’s gestures.
“He can do it, Master! His life belongs to those who have saved him from the jaguar’s claws—but it’s necessary to go around the other side of the island, for passage is impossible here.”
All night long, the boat sailed on placid waters on the other side of the island. After a short rest, Alglave had come back on deck, with Véraguez and the two Indians. The great peril of the night before seemed like a dream. The proud and slender boat was scornful of all ambushes, invincible on the open river, in the blue light. Finally, dawn broke over the forest. It rapidly drowned out the light of the sinking Moon, and the vast rumor of diurnal life succeeded the terrors of the night.
The island disappeared behind them, the river broadening out further, and rocky crags appeared on the horizon. Then, the Indian they had saved raised his arm and murmured a few words. Whamo translated them: “The Mouths of the caverns open over there!”
The explorers’ hearts beat faster, an intense curiosity awakened in their inner being. In the light mist, the rocks were reminiscent of a herd of colossal buffalo that had come down to the water to drink. Then the river appeared to become a large lake, dilating into a circle surrounded by the rocky chain. The boat got closer rapidly; it soon reached the first hills.
The spectacle had a severe and tranquil magnificence; the vegetation stopped almost dead; great arid spaces extended on the bank opposite the rocks; charred debris, lava and vitreous stones told of an ancient cataclysm, a plutonian tempest.
“This is definitely the mysterious region,” said Alglave. “The land of dark and beautiful legends!”
A new gesture from the Indian interrupted him; in one of the highest rocks, they perceived a prodigious portal, the peristyle of a temple of giants.
“That’s it!” said Whamo.
The river could be seen pouring into the immense opening, and they glimpsed enigmatic colonnades and profound vaults, into which the sunlight penetrated obliquely.
Véraguez and Alglave contemplated the spectacle with a sort of mystical respect. “Look!” said the latter. “The water’s going in slowly—and Whamo, like the cacique, claims that it’s deep! We’re not taking much risk, in any case, by going in there, ready to renounce the enterprise at any moment…”
“Let’s go!” Véraguez replied. “In any case, Fugère has agreed to run the risk with us.”
The Sun was already dissipating the pale veils of mist. The rocks stood out with somber authority, a majestic aridity, and the plain on the opposite shore, with its harsh desolate and dazzling antique wreckage, was like one of those accursed regions in which religions often see divine wrath.
Slowly, the boat headed for the cave.
The subterranean stream was, indeed, tranquil and profound. At first, the searchlight illuminated uniform sides, pale stalactites, gray rocks strewn with bright sequins of crystal or metal. An infinite darkness reigned there; the electric beam generated troubling penumbras; something confusing, fantastically alive, seemed to be crawling slowly along the moist walls, with vegetable patience. The water was jet black, indecisively reflecting the furtive forms sketched out by the searchlight.
Beneath the high vault, amid the cold odor of a cistern, in motionless air saturated with vapor, the souls of the companions were penetrated by a great and noble melancholy, a religious curiosity, an august sense of the unknown—and also by an invincible apprehension: a vague presentiment that occasionally rendered their chests heavy and tight.
After two hours sailing, the landscape—if these phantoms of banks glimpsed in the cold gleam of the searchlight could thus be described—was transformed.
The sides, at first quite narrow, broadened out. A very pale and frail filamentous vegetation, composed of a kind of stringy lichen and thread-like mosses, marked out matt silver gardens with filigree foliage the color of hemp and white meadows. Here and there, pale animals fled from the cone of light: marsupials with pelts the color of marine groundsel, giant rodents, rapacious nocturnal birds flying smoothly with fleecy wings, and a few large-sized insects that looked as if they had been dusted with chalk.
At the same time, the temperature rose by a dozen degrees, climbing slowly from 20 to 25, and then to 30.
“Should we get off?” Véraguez asked.
“I don’t think so,” Alglave replied. “I think we should extend the reconnaissance as far as possible, to begin with, observing the broad features of this marvelous terrain. Later, when it’s necessary to mount a series of expeditions, we can proceed to detailed studies.”
“That’s fair.”
In spite of his wounds, Fugère soon joined his friends, and they spent entire hours admiring the miraculous subterranean country. It grew, and it developed. The vegetation, though still pale, became more vigorous.
Chlorotic ferns raised elegant fronds along the river-banks, forming virtual forests; gigabit rodents showed themselves: rats as large as leopards, which did not flee when the light reached them from a distance. It was necessary to move closer and send forth an intense beam, as hard as metal, to make them retreat. The marsupials seemed scarcer, as were the nocturnal raptors. On the other hand, increasing curious varieties of bats flew skittishly over the ferns in pursuit of insects. It seemed strange to see animals that humans only knew in dark colors—russet, fawn and brown—as white as ermine. Quite tiny at first, they grew in size, attaining the stature of the vampires that live in the vast Brazilian forests.
The temperature was no longer climbing; it leveled out at 32 degrees—but in the humid, unrefreshed air, that heat was nonetheless oppressive.
After dinner—dusk must have fallen outside, on the countries of the surface—Whamo announced, on behalf of his companion, that the tribes of his race had never been so far underground, and that he was forced to forsake his role as a guide. He also made allusion to a legend that the river ended up falling into an abyss, where there were countries even more mysterious than those through which they were passing.
“That’s good,” said Alglave. “For myself, I propose to continue.”
“Until the end?” asked the injured man.
“Until the end,” Véraguez repeated.
And, indeed, neither the soul of a poet nor the soul of any scientist in the world would have been able to resist the magical attraction of those shadowy lands, with their promise of extraordinary sensations and discoveries. There was an immense perspective now; on the left bank there were abrupt declivities, a hectic succession of cavernous rocks, hard red granites and basalts hollowed out into cyclopean staircases, with overhanging summits, seemingly ready to collapse: an eerie necropolis pieced by tunnels, long corridors that lost themselves in the bowels of the Earth. To the right was a veritable plain, a forest of ferns punctuated by phantasmal mushrooms as tall as trees, forming striking silvery clearings in which the rodent fauna were augmented by albino lemurs, sadly perched, whose soft plaints were sometimes audible, and by owls as white as swans, alternating with livid vampires as big as eagles.
“Wonderful! Marvelous!” whispered Alglave, as he wrote his notes.
Even the crewmen were stupefied with admiration and superstitious terror.
Then, suddenly, a new miracle was added to all the rest.
In the distance, a sort of violet light emerged, which seemed to expand like a dawn, although no original source could be seen. It increased rapidly, tinting the pale plain, and its animals and plants, with a fairy glow. It settled on the rocky shore in a vague enchantment, in which all the shades of violet were blended.
Dark at first, it brightened, and soon had the softness of a ray of moonlight filtering through glass faintly stained with indigo. As some animals retreated, others emerged, and the white vampire bats mingled with other huge bat species the color of lead.
From then on the view extended to the limits of the subterranean horizon, about a kilometer away. A startling beauty emanated from fields of snowy lichen, mysteriously-opened penumbras, and mushroom clearings arranged in colonnades as tall as old bare-created willows on the edge of fish-ponds. Pallor was everywhere! A pallor full of silent life; a pallor emerging in the gentle alternation of darkness and lunar light; a supernatural pallor telling a tale of prodigies, of patient conflicts far from the Sun that nourished the world above; a pallor conserving forms of fauna and flora that had once lived in the pride of coloration!
“Shall we get off, now?” asked Fugère.
“Let’s go on further!” said Alglave, feverishly. “I think even greater surprises are in store for us.”
Meanwhile, the two Indians pricked up their keen ears and displayed a certain anxiety.
“What can you hear?” Véraguez asked.
“We can hear running water!” Whamo replied.
Alglave, whose ears were almost as good as an Indian’s, listened in his turn. Soon, it seemed to him that he could hear the sound of white water: the turbulence of rapids or a cascade. “Watch out!” he said. “I believe that legend will prove correct once again, and that we’re about to reach the abyss.” He shouted “Slow down!” to the engineer.
Anxiously, the explorers kept a careful watch on the current, directing the searchlight, whose beam was brighter than the mysterious light. Two hours went by in this fashion. Soon, they could all hear the sound of a cataract quite clearly.
“Stop!” shouted Alglave. “Drop anchor!”
“And this time, let’s get off,” Véraguez added.
Within a few more minutes, the boat was anchored, and then solidly moored to the bank on the side of the plain. Six of the 12 crewmen were chosen to accompany the explorers, along with the two Indians; the other six remained with Fugère, who having acquired a slight fever, did not feel strong enough to go with his companions. Well-equipped and armed, furnished with battery-powered electric lanterns, Alglave, Véraguez and their escort got under way.
The ground underfoot was soft and slightly damp. The friction of livid conifers and ferns generated a slight apprehension even among the most courageous, including Alglave.
As the little troop came out into an uncovered space, four or five of the rats whose colossal proportions had surprised the travelers appeared. They stared at the humans with their reddish eyes, and did not recoil, being masters of this domain, whose tigers or lions they were. They hesitated, though, seemingly disinclined to take the offensive, surprised to see these enormous bipedal newcomers.
At that moment, one of the men in the escort raised his rifle. Alglave knocked it down again. “Don’t fire without our orders!” he said, in an authoritarian tone. “If no one had fired at the jaguars last night, they wouldn’t have attacked us—and we wouldn’t have had the pain of seeing our companion wounded. If you attack these rodents, they’ll almost certainly fall on us, along with hidden relatives that will be attracted to the battle.”
He had stopped, and he looked at the strange beasts. “They bear a certain odd resemblance to large peccaries. You know what solidarity those animals show—they sacrifice their lives to the very last if anyone touches one of them rather than let the aggressor escape. These appear to be very strong and well-equipped with teeth. Look, they’re increasing in number!”
Three or four more rodents had, in fact, joined the troop—and they certainly presented a formidable appearance, with the stature of wild boars, solid jaws and sharp teeth.
“They don’t seem to be determined to attack, though,” murmured Véraguez.
“They’ll almost certainly leave us alone,” said Alglave. “We’re too astonishing—but that’s mutual. Let’s go!”
The hesitant rodents let them go without following them. Marsupials made off. Silky wasps brushed their faces. The bats sometimes came close, and were especially inclined to follow them, as if curious.
“What astonishes me most,” said Véraguez, “isn’t the animals—it’s that the giant ferns can sustain themselves!”
“Yes, that’s unusual. A naturalist wouldn’t admit it, any more than a physicist would admit that light! Can’t we suppose that the light—whatever its source may be—was once stronger, and that the vegetation has adapted to its infinitely slow diminution over the course of millennia, utilizing rays that are scarcely utilized at all on the surface? That, combined with the constant temperature, perhaps particular magnetic conditions, and perhaps…but what good are chimerical causes, where the reality is in front of us!”
The noise of the cataract had increased in volume. After an hour the sound had become deafening.
“We’re getting closer!”
Suddenly, Whamo and the other Indian, who were marching some way ahead, stopped.
An echo of thunder shook the vaults. Animals were rarer here, especially those of large size. The current was calm and uniform. Its bed broadened out over a declining slope. All the torrential fury was some distance away, at the falls, which were revealed to the ear but not the eye.
Whamo raised his arms and shouted, but his voice was lost in the din like a swarm of insects in the wind.
Véraguez and Alglave hurried forward, and then—motionless, open-mouthed and prey to vertigo—they stared into the gulf.
The immeasurable pit! First, the furious sheets of water, the battle of waters as resplendent as the summits of the Himalayas, resounding like a herd of storms, with the gracefulness of lace and the ponderousness of granite—and the pale rain of spray leaping up above that subterranean Niagara. The legions of the torrent ran over four ledges: four steps of a staircase, each one 20 meters high. And from top to bottom, the streaming, the leaping, the ruptures, the rocky islets, the oblique encounters, and the infinite play of the light, symbolizing the violent force, the irresistible force, the unconscious fury of the element with 1000 nuanced delicacies…
And yet, it was not the cataract that exercised the greatest dominion over the imagination of the voyagers.
More grandiose and even more unimaginable were the surroundings: the pale gulf that was a pale country. Beneath vaults that retained the same height, there was an immense territory down below. Life there appeared to partake of a superabundant splendor: vast sylvan extents, mossy plains, marsupials and giant rats, and, most especially, an extraordinary quantity of bat—this time of an absolutely unprecedented size, as powerful as the largest Andean condors. Oh, those giant bats, flying majestically over the cataract, and soaring over the plain! All the grace of birds was in them, with something more—some mysterious intelligence of movement, marking a race of superior mammals.
They’re the kings of this creation, Alglave thought. An attempt by Nature to make—who can tell?—a flying man.
The strange structural resemblance between bats and humans, which had often struck him, came to mind.
A voice shouted in his ear, however: that of his companion, seemingly intoxicated by the unknown: “Let’s go on! Let’s go on!”
“Yes, that’s it. Let’s go on!”
It was not difficult. Beside the cataract there was a perfectly accessible downward slope, which the troop set about descending.
They had scarcely begun when numerous flocks of vampires came toward them and then hovered, seemingly observing them. They continued to move forward, and the animals went with them; above their heads, in front of them and behind there was a swarm of wings, a disturbing, curious—possibly hostile—animality.
When they reached the bottom, Alglave and Véraguez stopped.
The bats were still arriving. Soon there were several thousand. Many of them settled in niches, on ferns or on trees. And everywhere, other animals made way for them, with a sort of respect, as for a victorious species.
“What shall we do?” shouted Véraguez.
“Keep going!”
And on they went. For an hour they followed the course of the river without the country varying much, without any animal attempting to bar their way but still followed, albeit to a lesser extent, by the curiosity of the vampires. Their astonishment was silenced; all that remained in them was the desire to go forward, to keep going: the devouring curiosity of scientists.
Eventually, however, Véraguez said: “Fugère’s waiting for us.”
“Well,” Alglave replied, “let’s send him a messenger or two, while we have something to eat and then continue on our way. We can go on for another two hours. We won’t leave the edge of the river.”
“What if the light goes out?”
“We have our lanterns!”
“So be it!”
When the messengers had been sent and the meal taken, they stubbornly resumed their march.
Symptoms of fatigue were becoming manifest among the companions, save for Alglave and the two Indians. Even Véraguez asked to take a short rest.
As they stopped, they noticed for the second or third time, through a mushroom clearing, bats falling upon marsupials or rodents, then remaining attached to the animals’ flanks without the latter putting up any resistance.
“Look, Véraguez!” said Alglave. “Doesn’t that seem bizarre? These vampires nourish themselves on the blood of quadrupeds, and the latter submit to it meekly.”
“Yes,” Véraguez replied, in a dull voice. “The slow jaws...that’s surprising…”
“Well, I have an idea that these beasts are domesticated…I’m increasingly inclined to believe that these immense bats are possessed of superior intelligence, have been able to tame the rest of the fauna, and that they only take the ration of blood that each animal can donate, as we take milk from cows…or as ants take the sweet secretion of domestic mites.”
“Certainly!” Véraguez’s tone astonished him, as did the attitude of two of the men of the escort, who were huddled on the ground and seemed to be trying to stop themselves going to sleep.
“What’s the matter with you?” he shouted.
“I’m sleepy,” Véraguez replied, dully.
“Sleepy?”
“Yes.” And he curled up like the two men.
Anxiously, Alglave looked around. It seemed to him that the light was getting dimmer—that a mist was descending on the clearings, the lichens and the water. He felt his own eyelids growing heavy.
“What’s happening, then? That’s strange!” Seeing his friend lying down, he shouted: “Véraguez! Get up, Véraguez!”
Véraguez was asleep. Two of the men were also asleep; the others—even Whamo—were struggling painfully against torpor. Only the Indian they had saved was resisting successfully; he and Alglave exchanged an anxious glance.
“What is it? What is it?” Alglave repeated, with increasing anguish. He was terrified by the notion that the mysterious sickness might be mortal: a subtle poison or an asphyxiating gas. He shook his companion again.
“Véraguez! Be brave, my friend!”
Véraguez remained inert; soon, Whamo and the others were obliged to lie down, succumbing in their turn.
“But this is frightful! Death, perhaps…futile, cowardly death…without having been able to study these mysteries…” For, in the depths of his disturbance, the stubborn curiosity of the scientist still remained, the immense regret for a scientific treasure that would be lost if their expedition perished.
At that moment, he felt someone touch his arm. It was the Indian, who plucked at his sleeve and pointed to a sort of mound. Mechanically, Alglave followed. His anguish sank into torpor; with difficulty, he reached the mound. There, within a minute, he recovered his strength and the lucidity of his gaze and his mind.
“Thank you! Thank you!” he said, shaking the savage’s hand.
The latter signaled to him to wait, and, rapidly going down again, he ran toward the group of sleepers. Soon, Alglave saw him return, dragging a body—that of Véraguez—awkwardly. He ran to help him; they succeeded in towing the explorer to the top of the mound. Only then did Alglave reflect on the intelligent significance of the Indian’s actions. A cave-dweller, he must have compared what had happened, by analogy, with asphyxiation by carbon dioxide.
He was more intelligent than me!
Successively, taking the rest necessary to dissipate the numbing effect that followed each excursion, Alglave and the Indian towed all their companions to the mound. Strangely and ominously enough, though, although their respiration was normal and their pulse-beats regular, none of the sleepers woke up, in spite of shouting and shaking.
It’s not carbon dioxide, then? Alglave thought, despairingly.
Standing on top of the mound, he no longer felt the numbing effect; his companion showed the same endurance. Sadly, he studied the landscape. He observed instinctively that his conjecture regarding the vampires seemed to be correct; everywhere, they were falling upon quadruped animals and sucking their blood, with the tranquility of owners exercising incontestable rights.
But why are the animals resistant to the sleep that vanquished us?
As he asked himself that question, he observed that some animals were, indeed, preparing to rest. Everywhere, rodents and marsupials were lying down on the lichens and mosses. And again, Alglave perceived that the light was getting dimmer.
Was darkness falling, then? Was there a correlation between that and the sleep? But that morning, when the boat had been moving through the gloom, they had seen animals fleeing the glare of the searchlight.
This isn’t the same region. That was above the cataract—up above!
The light continued to get progressively dimmer. Soon there was nothing but a confused, spectral penumbra in which the vampires were flying. Then, Alglave thought he ought to light one of the battery-powered electric lanterns—but he turned it over and over, pressing the switch, without any result.
“Damn!”
His anxiety increased when he had failed with a second lamp. He tried the others, one after another—in vain.
This is definitely some electrical phenomenon correlated with the extinction of the light—which might itself be electrical in origin.
Desperately, he began to shake his companions again—still in vain, alas, but also without discovering any alarming symptoms in their sleep. The heart, the pulse and the respiration were still normal—and, surprised, his thoughts wandered over irreconcilable hypotheses, for, if he and the Indian remained awake on the mound, why were they not waking up? What peculiarity determined that sleep, once begun, was perpetuated?
The darkness was still increasing. Alglave could only make out the savage standing next to him vaguely. With a slow, sad gesture—a fraternal gesture of farewell—he took the hand of his companion in misfortune, whose language he did not speak, with whom he could not exchange any definite thought. An amicable and resigned smile appeared on the broad face of the cave-dweller: a smile that touched Alglave’s heart.
“Adieu! Adieu!” repeated the voyager.
Guttural syllables replied to him—and they stood motionless in the oppressive darkness, punctuated by the distant rumor of the cataract: complete darkness, as opaque as a wall, humid and sinister; the darkness of slow death.
And in that darkness, they sensed the torpor invading them in their turn.
What are these soft exhalations, these fan-beats passing by in darkness, these sighs, these dull, muffled whispers?
Alglave thinks about that, in a confused dream, for the torpor continues to take hold of him, though infinitely slowly, extinguishing everything, including anguish, in some mysteriously voluptuous nirvana.
I’m going to die…to die!
He is astonished not to be more frightened. His hand searches his surroundings; it encounters silky fur and pulls away with a thrill of horror. He deduces that the vampires are falling upon his companions, and that they will soon fall upon him and feed on his blood. He tries to get up; he puts out his arms—but his weakness is extreme, and he falls back, sinking into a profound sleep…not without having felt, on his neck and his breast, the soft, warm weight and the palpitation of a beast that has no difficulty making the king of creation into its prey.
An indeterminate time goes by: hours of darkness. The men on the mound remain motionless, dead or unconscious. And yet, one of them sighs and gets up, with a murmur. After a few minutes, that one stamps his feet, and shakes the others, making hoarse, deep exclamations—but without waking anyone. His footfalls resound on the mound, drawing away rapidly into the frightful darkness, soon confused with the eternal din of the cataract.
More hours in the vast somnolence of the caves. Even the vampires have been asleep for a long time. Death reigns in the immanence. The darkness, it seems, will go on forever…and yet, here comes a slight noise, the sounds of slender feet, slight cries, gnawing and chewing sounds. An observer would deduce the awakening of creatures, the approach of a phenomenon of delight.
This lasts one, two or perhaps three hours.
Finally, a glimmer of light appears, as feeble as a mist at first, then as soft as the Moon behind a triple layer of violet clouds, then brighter and more beautiful in its marvelous indigo shades. It is the daylight of the caverns!
That daylight finds the men on the mound asleep, motionless, perhaps dying. A flock of bats flies over them, but without settling on them.
Suddenly, one of them moves; it is Whamo, who stretches himself and stands up, still very dazed. He looks around, perceives that his brother Indian has disappeared, and then, dully, begins to shake Alglave.
After a brief interval, Alglave stirs and opens his eyes. “Eh? What? Is it over, then?”
He stands up and looks round. He feels weak, but not to the extent of being unable to walk, His eyes follow the flight of the bats with a vague affection.
“They’ve used us, but haven’t abused us!” These words are confirmed by the successive awakening of his companions. They are weak, almost incapable of walking.
Stupefied, Véraguez asks: “What happened, then?”
His surprise increases in response to Alglave’s explanations, along with the joy of still being alive. “We’re too weak to get back to the boat…before having eaten,” he says, eventually.
They all have little wounds on their necks where the giant vampires have sucked their blood, but they all have to admit the beasts’ moderation—and Véraguez, like Alglave, experiences a sort of gratitude.
“We need to eat,” one man said. “But we’ve exhausted our provisions.” With a gesture, he makes it understood that he will go and kill some animal or other.
“Let’s be very careful!” said Alglave. “I’m quite convinced that we’d pay for that with our lives. Let’s march instead. If the light lasts as long as the first time—and I assume that it’s periodic—we can get back to the boat without difficulty…for it had already been light for a long time before the cataract forced us to disembark.” He addressed himself to Whamo: “Where is the man of your race, then?”
“Gone!” Whamo replied. “He’s gone to seek help—I’m sure of it!”
“Me too. Well, let’s get going!”
At first, although the little troop was severely debilitated, all went well. Their progress was rather slow, in truth, but they wasted no time. Stimulated by dread, they all gave their maximum effort. At length, however, an extreme lassitude was manifest even among the most vigorous. Most of all, they felt the need to restore their strength, to regain the blood sucked by the vampires.
Alglave and Véraguez opposed all complaints very forcefully, stimulating their men as much by example as by speech. It was, however, necessary for them to call a halt.
“Sir, I beg you!” said one of the hungriest, then. “Let us kill some animal.”
Alglave was about to refuse when Véraguez intervened: “Come on, my friend…if not a rodent, at least we can kill a marsupial…”
Confronted by pleading expressions, blanched, emaciated and feverish faces, Alglave ended up giving in. “All right! But I won’t take any responsibility…”
Immediately, four men headed for a dense thicket of ferns, carbines at the ready, and set an ambush there. Two anguished minutes went by; then a shot rang out. The echoes resounded in a sinister fashion. Almost at the same time, a rain of stones fell noisily. A cry of pain was heard, and when the dust had cleared, they picked up one of the four men from the ambush; his arm was broken. As for the marsupial he had aimed at, it had not been hit. It was fleeing, along with other animals—not because of the rifle-shot but because of the rain of stones.
“Do you want to shoot again?” Alglave asked his men.
They bowed their heads, humiliated, while Véraguez examined the injured man’s arm. After 20 minutes’ rest, the march was resumed. The unfortunates dragged themselves along, demoralized, full of horror for the subterranean country, which no longer seemed—even to Alglave, alas!—to be anything but an immeasurable necropolis from which he would never emerge.
A further incident complicated the disaster; the man with the broken arm, who was continually delaying the others, uttered a sigh of distress, hung on to one of his comrades, and fainted. It was necessary to stop again and try to reanimate the poor devil. Another lay down on the ground then, declaring that he would rather die than continue a futile march. Furthermore, on examining the little caravan as a whole, it was evident that they could not go on much longer. As for transporting the invalids, they could not even think of it, given the state of extenuation they were all in.
This is the end! Alglave thought, discouraged. We’ve escaped the narcotization only to perish from inanition!
His head was buzzing, his sight slow and weak; he did not feel much fitter than the others. He imagined capturing some animal without using firearms, but then ejected the idea on observing the uncertainty of his gait and his movements.
Oh well—so be it! The die is cast!
He sat down, dejectedly. Through his enfevered brain passed the vision of a beautiful and grandiose work, a marvelous account of his voyage into The Wonderful Cave Country; then he closed his eyes resignedly, and waited…
A shrill cry woke him up and brought him to his feet. He saw Whamo standing up and making signs—and then, in the distance, human silhouettes.
“The man of our tribes!” Whamo said. “He’s coming back with help!”
Alglave was soon able clearly to distinguish the Indian he had saved, with three crewmen. Releasing a mighty “Hurrah!” he ran forward. It was salvation; it was life: provisions, cordials, hope!
Five hours later, they all got back to the boat, and the memory of the marvels they had glimpsed dominated that of their mortal anguish.
At the beginning of autumn, the boat ploughed through the immense river again, this time moving downstream. Alglave, Véraguez and Fugère were standing in the prow as dusk fell—the hour of memory. They were chatting about the miraculous expedition they had brought to a successful conclusion, the difficulties they had experienced in learning to explore the subterranean realms, to surmount or avoid the obstacles. Fugère occasionally re-read his notes, the annals of the fantastic voyage. A strong and sweet pride rendered them thoughtful.
Next to them stood the Indians to whom they owed so much precious service, who had become friends, sharing in their good and bad luck alike.
Night fell: a lunar night like the one in which they had encountered the jaguars. And there was still the fecund and monstrous life, the furtive conjunctions of love, carnivorous ambushes, pursuit, terror, the genius of attack and defense in formidable freedom—and, above all, the fundamental need of the weak and the strong alike: hunger, for pasture or for prey.
And the lunar light spread out in the lukewarm ether with a divine beauty, over the free forests and the immense waters.