Arthur Doyle - The Maracot Deep

He put his hand into his breast and he took out a piece of script. “You will give this to the chief of the water-rats,” said he. “I regret that you gentlemen should share their fate, but since you are the primary cause of their misfortune it is only justice, after all. I will see you again later. Meanwhile I would commend a study of these pictures and carvings, which will give you some idea of the height to which I had raised Atlantis during the days of my rule. Here you will find some record of the manners and customs of the people when under my influence. Life was very varied, very highly coloured, very many-sided. In these drab days they would call it an orgy of wickedness. Well, call it what you will, I brought it about, I rejoiced in it, and I have no regrets. Had I my time again, I would do even so and more, save only for this fatal gift of eternal life. Warda, whom I curse and whom I should have killed before he grew strong enough to turn people against me, was wiser than I in this. He still revisits earth, but it is as a spirit, not a man. And now I go. You came here from curiosity, my friends. I can but trust that that curiosity is satisfied.”

And then we saw him disappear. Yes, before our very eyes he vanished. It was not done in an instant. He stood clear of the pillar against which he had been leaning. His splendid towering figure seemed blurred at the edges. The light died out of his eyes and his features grew indistinct. Then in a moment he had become a dark whirling cloud which swept upwards through the stagnant water of this dreadful hall. Then he was gone, and we stood gazing at each other and marvelling at the strange possibilities of life.

We did not linger in that horrible palace. It was not a safe place in which to loiter. As it was, I picked one of those noxious purple slugs off the shoulder of Bill Scanlan, and I was myself badly stung in the hand by the venom spat at me by a great yellow lamelli branch. As we staggered out I had one last impression of those dreadful carvings, the devil’s own handiwork, upon the walls, and then we almost ran down the darksome passage, cursing the day that ever we had been fools enough to enter it. It was joy indeed to be out in the phosphorescent light of the bathybian plain, and to see the clear translucent water once again around us. Within an hour we were back in our home once more. With our helmets removed, we met in consultation in our own chamber. The Professor and I were too overwhelmed with it all to be able to put our thoughts into words. It was only the irrepressible vitality of Bill Scanlan which rose superior.

“Holy smoke!” said he. “We are up against it now. I guess this guy is the big noise out of hell. Seems to me, with his pictures and statues and the rest, he would make the wardsman of a red light precinct look like two cents. How to handle him — that’s the question.”

Dr. Maracot was lost in thought. Then he rang the bell and summoned our yellow-clad attendant. “Manda,” said he. A minute later our friend was in the room. Maracot handed him the fateful letter.

Never have I admired a man as I did Manda at that moment. We had brought threatened ruin upon his people and himself by our unjustifiable curiosity — we, the strangers whom he had rescued when everything was hopelessly lost. And yet, though he turned a ghastly colour as he read the message, there was no touch of reproach upon the sad brown eyes which turned upon us. He shook his head, and despair was in every gesture. “Baal-seepa! Baal-seepa!” he cried, and pressed his hands convulsively to his eyes, as if shutting out some horrible vision. He ran about the room like a man distracted with his grief, and finally rushed away to read the fatal message to the community. We heard a few minutes later the clang of the great bell which summoned them all to conference in the Central Hall.

“Shall we go?” I asked.

Dr. Maracot shook his head.

“What can we do? For that matter, what can they do? What chance have they against one who has the powers of a demon?”

“As much chance as a bunch of rabbits against a weasel,” said Scanlan. “But, by Gosh, it’s up to us to find a way out. I guess we can’t go out of our way to raise the devil and then pass the buck to the folk that saved us.”

“What do you suggest?” I asked eagerly, for behind all his slang and his levity I recognized the strong, practical ability of this modern man of his hands.

“Well, you can search me,” said he. “And yet maybe this guy is not as safe as he thinks. A bit of it may have got worn out with age, and he’s getting on in years if we can take his word for it.”

“You think we might attack him?”

“Lunacy!” interjected the doctor.

Scanlan went to his locker. When he faced round he had a big six-shooter in his hand.

“What about this?” he said. “I laid hold of it when we got our chance at the wreck. I thought maybe it might come useful. I’ve a dozen shells here. Maybe if I made as many holes in the big stiff it would let out some of his Magic. Lord save us! What is it?”

The revolver clattered down upon the floor, and Scanlan was writhing in agonies of pain, his left hand clasping his right wrist. Terrible cramps had seized his arm, and as we tried to alleviate them we could feel the muscles knotted up as hard as the roots of a tree. The sweat of agony streamed down the poor fellow’s brow. Finally, utterly cowed and exhausted, he fell upon his bed.

“That lets me out,” he said. “I’m through. Yes, thank you, the pain is better. But it is K.O. to William Scanlan. I’ve learned my lesson. You don’t fight hell with six-shooters, and it’s no use to try. I give him best from now onwards.”

“Yes, you have had your lesson,” said Maracot, “and it has been a severe one.”

“Then you think our case is hopeless?”

“What can we do when, as it would seem, he is aware of every word and action? And yet we will not despair.” He sat in thought for a few moments. “I think,” he resumed, “that you, Scanlan, had best lie where you are for a time. You have had a shock from which it will take you some time to recover.”

“If there is anything doing, count me in, though I guess we can cut out the rough stuff,” said our comrade bravely, but his drawn face and shaking limbs showed what he had endured.

“There is nothing doing so far as you are concerned. We at least have learned what is the wrong way to go to work. All violence is useless. We are working on another plane — the plane of spirit. Do you remain here, Headley. I am going to the room which I use as a study. Perhaps if I were alone I could see a little more clearly what we should do.”

Both Scanlan and I had learned to have a great confidence in Maracot. If any human brain could solve our difficulties, it would be his. And yet surely we had reached a point which was beyond all human capacity. We were as helpless as children in the face of forces which we could neither understand nor control. Scanlan had fallen into a troubled sleep. My own one thought as I sat beside him was not how we should escape, but rather what form the blow would take and when it would fall. At any moment I was prepared to see the solid roof above us sink in, the walls collapse, and the dark waters of the lowest deep close in upon those who had defied them so long.

Then suddenly the great bell pealed out once more. Its harsh clamour jarred upon every nerve. I sprang to my feet, and Scanlan sat up in bed. It was no ordinary summons which rang through the old palace. The agitated tumultuous ringing, broken and irregular, was calling an alarm. All had to come, and at once. It was menacing and insistent. “Come now! Come at once! Leave everything and come!” cried the bell.

“Say, Bo, we should be with them,” said Scanlan. “guess they’re up against it now.”