The world below
“I’m afraid your sight is not much use, even in daylight,” she
considered, “but please swim as low as you are able, for the Dwellers
may not be equally deficient.
“There is one who has scraped together all the ash and litter of the
burning, and it has flamed up afresh.”
I changed to the breast-stroke, and she sank to three feet under the
surface, as I answered, “I suppose they will make an end of it entirely.
Is it because of the Forbidden Thing, and do they, I wonder, wrongly
blame the Killers for using it?
“I cannot understand why they should object to fire so strongly. In the
world from which I come there are so many inventions less useful and
with greater potentialities of mischief; and their own works show that
their engineering skill and practice is advanced beyond the knowledge of
my contemporaries.”
She answered, “Perhaps it is only that they do not wish the creatures
that they allow to live on the surface to develop knowledge. I can only
guess, as you can. But we are likely to learn many things before the
next dawn comes, though we shall not see it.”
I did not answer, for a trailing growth of water-weed had caught my left
leg, and I kicked free with difficulty. The next moment I was surrounded
by the floating growth, and I was some moments under water before I
could release myself sufficiently to continue.
My companion regarded me with the merriment which my bodily difficulties
always prompted, only now it was more irrepressible, because she was
intoxicated by the joyous freedom that the water gave her, after so long
an absence.
“Is it really so,” she asked, “that if you were below the surface for
more than a few moments your body would become useless beyond repair,
and you would die out of it entirely? and did you know this when you
offered to swim so far across the surface?”
“It is true enough,” I answered, “but I have no intention of drowning.
In my world, we live dangerously in many ways, and when there is
sufficient necessity we take such risks as we must, and we have contempt
for those who will not take them.”
“It is very well,” she replied, with a mocking gaiety of mind which
would not quieten, “but the contempt of your fellow-men is a somewhat
distant eventuality; and as I desire your company when we invade the
tunnel of the Dwellers, I hope you may decide that the risk will still
be sufficient if you swim in some other direction.”
I replied, “I am swimming to the nearest point at which we can land, and
at the best pace I can. I do not know what better I can do, unless I am
to sink to the bottom. But if you can give me any reason why I should
not swim in this direction I shall be glad to have it.”
She said, “I can give you two, and they are both rather good ones. Let
me show you them as I see them.”
She then gave me a most unwelcome vision of a mass of floating weed
through which to swim would be hopeless, and downward, through clear
water below it--for it was not rooted--to where our acquaintances of the
morning lay scattered on the lake-floor, with wide unwinking eyes
looking upward, doubtless for the capture of any prey which might be
caught in the green snare above them. I do not think it needs excuse
that the sight appalled me. We were in the very middle of the lake, and
I was tired already.
“How far do the weeds extend?” I asked.
“I cannot say. It is farther than I can see. If you will turn and rest
for a minute, I will find out which way we can best attempt to go round
them. But swim quietly backward, for you will not wish to rouse our
friends below while I am absent. I know that when you meet any strange
thing your first thought is to fear, and then to fight it, but as your
axe is gone, and you would not find it easy to reach your clasp-knife, I
suggest that you should not rouse them.”
I agreed very heartily, although I knew that she mocked me, and, indeed,
the idea of using an axe in the water to defend myself from such an
attack was sufficiently comic, as she visualised it to me.
The fact was that now she was in her natural element the idea of any
living thing within it provoking either fear or hostility had regained
its normal absurdity. Had she been alone, I knew that she would have
dived beneath the weeds at once, without a second glance or thought for
the creatures that lay below her.
She had left now, and I swam back for a short distance, and then turned
on my back, and floated on the sunny water, glad of the rest, but
becoming increasingly frightened as I reflected that at any moment I
might find myself in the grip of those wide flat jaws. I understood why
these beasts had their eyes so flatly placed, as I recalled that
unwelcome vision. How far could their sight extend to the surface of the
lake above them? Were they resting oblivious of such small things as I,
that might be swimming in the water, or did they watch there, as a
kestrel hovers, ready to rush upward at the first sight of their
expected prey?
I was somewhat reassured, as the moments lapsed, by a shoal of silvery
fish which passed me. They were as long as salmon, but much slimmer, and
they swam in a long line two or three broad, straight toward the place
of danger which I was avoiding. They, at least, had no cause for fear,
unless they were too stupid to know, or sufficiently agile to avoid it.
And then she was again beside me:
“It is not very far round on the left, and there is clear water for a
long way forward. There is a cold spring at the bottom when we have
rounded the weed. The water there is purer than the lake itself, and I
am desirous to bathe in it. If you swim on, I shall catch you up very
quickly. But we will stay together till we are clear of this place.”
We swam on, side by side, in silence. I was already aware that I must
conserve my strength to the utmost, if I were to reach the shore
unaided. After a short distance, the weed receded so that we were able
to approach the shore obliquely, and then it disappeared from before us,
and again we could head straight forward.
It was here that my companion left me. I know that she was in some doubt
as she did so, for she asked me whether I would not prefer to float
only, till she could rejoin me. But I was anxious to get forward while
my strength lasted, and I had caught a glimpse of her mind, from which I
knew how keenly she desired and needed her intended pleasure, so I
answered only, “I will go on. You will catch me easily. The farther I
leave the beasts behind us, the better pleased I am. But you will keep
your mind open, in case there should be anything to let you know.”
“Surely,” she answered, and the next instant had left me.
The headland was nearer now, and it was with the hope that the struggle
would soon be over that I settled down to swim the remaining distance.
Once I called to my companion, and she gave me a sight of herself as she
lay with lifted fur on the lake-floor, and let the cold stream go
through it. But, for the most part, I tried to think of distant or
abstract things, to turn my mind from the weariness which now made every
stroke an effort.
Then a swell came from the left hand, as though a large boat were
passing at no great distance.
I looked round in wonder, but for a moment I could see nothing to cause
it.
Then a huge black body rose from the water, like an enormous porpoise,
and turned a somersault which sent a heavier swell across the level
surface of the lake.
My stroke quickened without conscious effort as I beheld it. But at the
first moment I was not greatly frightened. It was evident that it did
not pursue me, and my course was not toward it. Fortunately, I called my
companion, and the answer, “I am coming now,” was unperturbed in its
promptness. I had an instant’s vision of her, as the loose fur
contracted, and the slim swift body shot forward.
But the next minute was rapid in thought and action.
My mind called urgently, “There is another one that has risen nearer.”
“They may not see you while they are on the surface. Their eyes look
upward only.”
“They may do so, as they roll in their gambols--I think they have done
so now. They are both coming.”
“I am coming quickly.”
“It is useless. What can you do against them?”
The two huge brutes were racing over the surface in their competition to
secure me, with a speed which would have left a motor-boat behind very
quickly. I could not doubt that in twenty seconds they would be
quarrelling over my divided body.
My terror warned her only to avoid the danger which must destroy me.
“Refuse fear,” she called back, “it is that which gives them power to
destroy you.”
But fear I must, and as she realised it, I think--though I am not
sure--that there was a second during which her own mind faltered. But if
so, it was for an instant only. Then she realised the full peril of the
moment, and her courage rose to meet it.
Cool and swift, and very urgent, she thrust forward the full force of
her mind to overcome the panic which had possessed me. “I shall be
first. Swim on. Listen. You are safe if you hear me. You must stop
thinking. Give your mind to mine, and I can save you. Do not think at
all, but believe it. It is everything that you do this.”
The rest is a dream only.
I was dimly conscious that the first of the rushing beasts was upon me,
and that it dived slightly as it came, so that it should snap at me from
below. I saw the wide flat shovel-jaws opened to take me, and then two
things happened. Almost into the mouth of the gaping jaws she came
between us--she had swum at least three times the distance that our
opponents had covered--and at the same instant the second monster
charged sideways into its rival in its eagerness to get a share of the
expected dainty.
They were afraid of her, clearly. They both recoiled for a moment.
But it was clear also that they regarded me as a prey of which she had
no right to deprive them.
On they came again from different sides, and into their very teeth she
swam to thwart them.
Even so, had they been capable of concerted action, I do not see how she
could have saved me. But she was cooler, swifter, more agile, with a
mind that mocked them and bewildered. Nor was she content with defensive
movements only, but as either would draw back for a moment, she followed
the retreated mouth as though she dared it to harm her, as no doubt she
did.
How it would have ended I cannot say, but at that moment fate interposed
to help us. We were still a hundred yards from the shore, when the
ground beneath us shallowed, and they pursued us no further.
We climbed out into a place of shade and of mossy softness, but I was
too exhausted to regard it. Where I sank I lay. Perhaps, she was
exhausted also. Anyway she gave me no thought, but remained in silence
beside me.
After a time I slept.
CHAPTER IV
THE SILENCE IN THE WOOD
When I waked, she was sitting looking into the water with brooding eyes
in which amusement flickered more than once as I watched them, but which
seemed, for the most part, to be puzzled by some thoughts for which she
could find no solving.
She looked at me at last, and saw that I was awake, and offered me her
mind in a moment.
“I am glad,” she thought, “that I saved you, and I think that the
Leaders will approve it; but of this I cannot be as certain as I gladly
would be.
“As we were made companions in this enterprise, it seemed that it was
right to do so. But it is a law of our kind that, as no creatures in all
the oceans will dare to harm us, so we do not interfere between them.
Were we to withhold their prey from them, I cannot say that our immunity
would continue. It is a thing so fundamental that from the beginning I