Генри Хаггард - When the World Shook

"Back to the wall!" cried Oro triumphantly. "The time is short!"

So back we went, Oro pausing a while behind and overtaking us with long, determined strides. Yva led us, gliding at my side and, as I thought, now and again glanced at my face with a look that was half anxious and half pitiful. Also twice she stooped and patted Tommy.

We reached the wall, though not quite at the spot whence we had started to examine the grooved roads. At least I think this was so, since now for the first time I observed a kind of little window in its rocky face. It stood about five feet from its floor level, and was perhaps ten inches square, not more. In short, except for its shape it resembled a ship's porthole rather than a window. Its substance appeared to be talc, or some such material, and inches thick, yet through it, after Oro had cast aside some sort of covering, came a glare like that of a search–light. In fact it was a search–light so far as concerned one of its purposes.

By this window or porthole lay a pile of cloaks, also four objects which looked like Zulu battle shields cut in some unknown metal or material. Very deftly, very quietly, Yva lifted these cloaks and wrapped one of them about each of us, and while she was thus employed I noticed that they were of a substance very similar to that of the gown she wore, which I have described, but harder. Next she gave one of the metal–like shields to each of us, bidding us hold them in front of our bodies and heads, and only to look through certain slits in them in which were eyepieces that appeared to be of the same horny stuff as the searchlight window. Further, she commanded us to stand in a row with our backs against the rock wall, at certain spots which she indicated with great precision, and whatever we saw or heard on no account to move.

So there we stood, Bickley next to me, and beyond him Bastin. Then Yva took the fourth shield, as I noted a much larger one than ours, and placed herself between me and the search–light or porthole. On the other side of this was Oro who had no shield.

These arrangements took some minutes and during that time occupied all our attention. When they were completed, however, our curiosity and fear began to reassert themselves. I looked about me and perceived that Oro had his right hand upon what seemed to be a rough stone rod, in shape not unlike that with which railway points are moved. He shouted to us to stand still and keep the shields over our faces. Then very gently he pressed upon the lever. The porthole sank the fraction of an inch, and instantly there leapt from it a most terrific blaze of lightning, which shot across the blackness in front and, as lightning does, revealed far, far away another wall, or rather cliff, like that against which we leant.

"All works well," exclaimed Oro in a satisfied voice, lifting his hand from the rod, "and the strength which I have stored will be more than enough."

Meanwhile the humming noise came nearer and grew in volume.

"I say," said Bickley, "as you know, I have been sceptical, but I don't like this business. Oro, what are you going to do?"

"Sink half the world beneath the seas," said Oro, "and raise up that which I drowned more than two thousand centuries ago. But as you do not believe that I have this power, Bickley, why do you ask such questions?"

"I believe that you have it, which was why I tried to shoot you yesterday," said Bastin. "For your soul's sake I beg you to desist from an attempt which I am sure will not succeed, but which will certainly involve your eternal damnation, since the failure will be no fault of yours."

Then I spoke also, saying:

"I implore you, Lord Oro, to let this business be. I do not know exactly how much or how little you can do, but I understand that your object is to slay men by millions in order to raise up another world of which you will be the absolute king, as you were of some past empire that has been destroyed, either through your agency or otherwise. No good can come of such ambitions. Like Bastin, for your soul's sake I pray you to let them be."

"What Humphrey says I repeat," said Yva. "My Father, although you know it not, you seek great evil, and from these hopes you sow you will harvest nothing save a loss of which you do not dream. Moreover, your plans will fail. Now I who am, like yourself, of the Children of Wisdom, have spoken, for the first and last time, and my words are true. I pray you give them weight, my Father."

Oro heard, and grew furious.

"What!" he said. "Are you against me, every one, and my own daughter also? I would lift you up, I would make you rulers of a new world; I would destroy your vile civilisations which I have studied with my eyes, that I may build better! To you, Humphrey, I would give my only child in marriage that from you may spring a divine race of kings! And yet you are against me and set up your puny scruples as a barrier across my path of wisdom. Well, I tread them down, I go on my appointed way. But beware how you try to hold me back. If any one of you should attempt to come between me and my ends, know that I will destroy you all. Obey or die."

"Well, he has had his chance and he won't take it," said Bastin in the silence that followed. "The man must go to the devil his own way and there is nothing more to be said."

I say the silence, but it was no more silent. The distant humming grew to a roar, the roar to a hellish hurricane of sound which presently drowned all attempts at ordinary speech.

Then bellowing like ten millions of bulls, at length far away there appeared something terrible. I can only describe its appearance as that of an attenuated mountain on fire. When it drew nearer I perceived that it was more like a ballet–dancer whirling round and round upon her toes, or rather all the ballet–dancers in the world rolled into one and then multiplied a million times in size. No, it was like a mushroom with two stalks, one above and one below, or a huge top with a point on which it spun, a swelling belly and another point above. But what a top! It must have been two thousand feet high, if it was an inch, and its circumference who could measure?

On it came, dancing, swaying and spinning at a rate inconceivable, so that it looked like a gigantic wheel of fire. Yet it was not fire that clothed it but rather some phosphorescence, since from it came no heat. Yes, a phosphorescence arranged in bands of ghastly blue and lurid red, with streaks of other colours running up between, and a kind of waving fringe of purple.

The fire–mountain thundered on with a voice like to that of avalanches or of icebergs crashing from their parent glaciers to the sea. Its terrific aspect was appalling, and its weight caused the solid rock to quiver like a leaf. Watching it, we felt as ants might feel at the advent of the crack of doom, for its mere height and girth and size overwhelmed us. We could not even speak. The last words I heard were from the mouth of Oro who screamed out:

"Behold the balance of the World, you miserable, doubting men, and behold me change its path—turning it as the steersman turns a ship!"

Then he made certain signs to Yva, who in obedience to them approached the porthole or search–light to which she did something that I could not distinguish. The effect was to make the beam of light much stronger and sharper, also to shift it on to the point or foot of the spinning mountain and, by an aiming of the lens from time to time, to keep it there.

This went on for a while, since the dreadful thing did not travel fast notwithstanding the frightful speed of its revolutions. I should doubt indeed if it advanced more quickly than a man could walk; at any rate so it seemed to us. But we had no means of judging its real rate of progress whereof we knew as little as we did of the course it followed in the bowels of the earth. Perhaps that was spiral, from the world's deep heart upwards, and this was the highest point it reached. Or perhaps it remained stationary, but still spinning, for scores or hundreds of years in some central powerhouse of its own, whence, in obedience to unknown laws, from time to time it made these terrific journeys.