it was not a pleasant sensation to find themselves alone, shut up in a cave, only a faint glimmer of light being visible, and from which there appeared to be no means of escape. there was a peculiar clammy dampness about the atmosphere, and a strange vault-like smell. it might have been an old tomb, so weird was everything surrounding them.
‘the stone must have swung back into its place,’ said edgar. ‘yacka will open it when he returns.’
‘all the same, i don’t like it,’ said will. ‘suppose he could not move the stone again. if anything happened to him, we have very little chance of getting out.’
‘there is no occasion for alarm at present,’ said edgar. ‘i trust yacka, and he will soon return. to pass away the time we may as well examine the cave. it is evidently only one of many. the whole of these rocks and hills are honeycombed.’
they stepped cautiously, and felt the sides of the cave, finding them smooth and even.
‘here is another of these peculiar formations like a bunch of grapes,’ said edgar. ‘perhaps there is another stone that swings round. we can try at any rate.’
he pushed the hard knob, as he had seen yacka do, and cried out excitedly:
‘it moves, will; come and help me! push hard! i can feel it giving way.’
slowly the huge stone moved, and there was an opening wide enough for them to pass through.
edgar went through first, but came back quickly when will called out the opening was closing up again and the stone swinging back into its place. edgar had just time to step back into the cave when the stone swung to.
‘that is the way the other must have closed up,’ said edgar. ‘it made no noise. let us have another try, the cave on the other side is much larger than this.’
‘if we get through,’ said will, ‘the stone will swing back, and we shall be worse off than before. yacka will not be able to find us when he returns.’
‘he will follow us,’ said edgar. ‘he must know of this cave and the way to enter it.’
‘if you mean going on, i will follow you,’ said will.
they moved the stone again, and this time they both stepped quickly through before it swung back.
the cave they entered was, as edgar said, much larger than the one they had just left. it was lighted by the same dim light, but they could not see from whence it came.
‘here is another knob,’ said will. ‘they must have been made by the blacks. perhaps we are on the way to the cave of enooma. i wonder what yacka will think if we reach it before him.’
‘he will think we have been guided there by the white spirit,’ said edgar, ‘and will regard us with superstitious awe. it would be a good thing if we could come across the cave he spoke of without his help.’
the stone turned in a similar way to the others, but this time they found themselves in a long passage, like an old mining tunnel in a rock.
they walked cautiously along, but there was more light here than in the cave they had left. edgar kicked a loose stone and it rolled some distance in front and then vanished, and they heard a splash. the stone had fallen into a deep hole, and as they peered down they saw the water rolling slowly along at a considerable depth.
‘it must be an underground river,’ said edgar. ‘we have had a narrow escape.’
they shuddered to think what would have befallen them had they not been warned by the stone. round one side of the opening was a narrow pathway, and along this they passed safely to the opposite side, looking well ahead in case there should be more of these death traps.
the passage wound through the rock in a tortuous manner, and after they had gone a considerable distance, they sat down to rest and wonder where it would lead them. will wished they had remained in the cave and waited for yacka’s return, and edgar began to think he had ventured upon a foolhardy journey.
‘we are in for it now,’ he said, ‘and shall have to go on, for we cannot find our way back, and even if we did, we could not push the stones round from this side. it looks very much like the workings of an old mine, but there can have been no mining done here, because the blacks know nothing of such work. what’s that?’
they listened intently and heard a faint sound in the distance like someone in pain and wailing aloud.
‘come along,’ said edgar, ‘there is someone ahead of us.’
they walked on as fast as they were able, and presently came to the end of the passage. here they found another stone blocking the exit, but it had been partly pushed aside as though someone had just entered, and it had not swung back into its place. edgar passed through, and as he did so held up his hand to caution will not to make a noise.
it was a strange, weird sight they saw. they had[171] entered another large cave, but it was of a totally different formation to those they had seen. at the far end of the cave was a beautiful crystal wall nearly thirty feet high. the stalagmites were short and thick, and the stalactitic formations extremely long, many being over a hundred feet in length. massive deposits could be seen on all sides heaped up in the most curious manner. many of them were of a wondrous salmon colour, others were deep red, and brown, and several glittered with a dull blood-red glow.
they were awed by this grand, majestic freak of nature. to the left was another passage, full of magnificent columns of stalactites and stalagmites, all pure white and diamond-like in brilliance; they seemed to be coated with sparkling and lustrous gems. these columns rose from floor to roof like huge pillars in some vast cathedral. they were of different formations, but all about the same height. all the colours of the rainbow sparkled in the various pillars, and the effect was dazzling.
passing down this magnificent column passage, untouched by the art of man, and marvelling at its strange beauty, they came to a beautiful shawl-like formation of the purest white, which hung suspended from the roof between two massive pillars until it reached within a yard of the floor. this curtain was of the most delicate pattern, the tracery being very fine, in some places almost as fine as a spider’s web. there were designs on it of flowers and leaves unlike any they had ever seen in reality. it was evident this curtain shut off some chamber beyond from the passage of columns they had just passed through.
edgar was about to speak, when they again heard the wail that had before startled them.
this time it sounded nearer, on the other side of the curtain, and edgar stooped down in order to pass underneath. will followed him, and both clutched their revolvers.
they were now in a richly-stocked chamber of large size, the colours on the rock and the roof being of a dazzling white, like alabaster. in a recess at the end was a white recumbent figure, resting on a huge salmon-coloured slab, from which hung down like drapery a yellow-tinted curtain of stone, with red-veined tracery running through it in all manner of intricate shapes and ways.
before this stone figure, resting upon its hard bed, knelt the black figure of yacka, standing out with extraordinary distinctness from his white surroundings. yacka prostrated himself before the white figure, and from time to time gave a low, yet piercing, wailing cry.
they stood looking upon the strange scene in silence, and neither felt inclined to break it.
yacka suddenly seemed to be aware that someone was present, for he rose to his feet and, turning round, faced them.
he did not seem at all surprised to see them, and beckoned to them to advance.
when they reached the stone upon which yacka stood, the black said:
‘kneel, kneel. this is the white spirit of the enooma. this is enooma, and this is her cave. she dwells here. she has lived here from the beginning, and yacka is her son. kneel before the white spirit.’
to humour him they knelt. there was something solemn about the proceedings—something it was difficult to understand. as they knelt, yacka wailed again, and the peculiar cry echoed through the white, vaulted chamber.
‘i knew you would come,’ said yacka. ‘enooma told me you would find your way. she whispered to me that you were of her race, and her people.’ the black’s voice had a sad tone in it. ‘she has found her white sons, and the poor black must know her no more; yacka is no longer the only son of enooma. he has brought you to her, and she claims you as her own. you are of her race and her people. rise and look upon the face of enooma, the white spirit, and say did yacka speak false when he brought you here.’
edgar and will rose to their feet, and, standing on a large slab which yacka pointed out to them, they looked down upon the figure before them.
to edgar it looked like the figure of a very beautiful woman carved in alabaster. she lay on her back, with her hands hidden beneath the folds of a fine piece of stone lacework. the lower part of the figure had a similar covering, so that the actual part of a woman visible to them was the face only. but the lace covering of the body was of such fine work that the figure could almost be seen underneath.
the face of enooma wore a calm and peaceful expression, such as is invariably found upon the carved monuments of the dead, and bearing but little sign of the mind that worked within before death.
‘can this be the image of a being that once lived here?’ said edgar to will.
yacka stood some distance away, and could not hear them.
‘impossible,’ said will. ‘no white woman has ever been here.’
‘it may not have been a white woman,’ said edgar. ‘carved as this is, one could not tell whether the original was black or white. it is an alabaster figure, or looks like it.’ he touched the figure on the face with his hand, and drew it back suddenly. ‘it feels quite hot,’ he said.
‘probably so intensely cold that you imagined for the moment it burned you,’ said will.
edgar touched the face again, but, strange to say, could not keep his hand upon it.
‘you try,’ he said; and will put his hand out.
yacka saw the motion, and called out:
‘touch her not! only one must touch her.’
will smiled as he said:
‘i will do her no harm, yacka.’
‘at your own risk,’ said the black, ‘touch her, but do not blame me; i warned you.’
will put out his hand again, and then a strange thing happened. before he touched the face his feet slipped, and he fell off the slab with such force that, his head coming into violent contact with the stone, he was stunned.
edgar jumped down and held up his head, and in a few moments will recovered his senses.
‘i warned you,’ said yacka.
‘it was a pure accident,’ said will.
edgar made no remark, but he thought it a strange coincidence.
a peculiar rumbling sound was heard, and yacka listened intently. in a moment there was a terrific crash. the rock upon which they stood shook, and the sides of the cave seemed to rock.
the slab upon which rested the white spirit of enooma rocked to and fro, and the figure seemed to move.
crash followed crash, and roar upon roar. the forces of nature seemed to have suddenly burst loose, and a general upheaval was taking place. so violent became the oscillation, that they were compelled to lie down on the floor of the cave.
‘it is enooma’s welcome to her own people,’ said yacka, who was not in the least afraid.
‘it is an earthquake,’ said edgar in an awestruck voice.
‘what is an earthquake?’ said yacka.
edgar made no reply. he could not. for the first time he felt a strange fear creep over him. with a trembling hand he pointed to the white figure of enooma.
they looked with wondering eyes, and on yacka’s face was an expression of absolute terror. the slab on which enooma rested cracked and split, and the white figure disappeared from view.
with a terrible cry of rage yacka sprang to his feet, and looked down the opening into which the white spirit of enooma had disappeared.
