第25章 CHAPTER VI(5)
She stood there for a moment, gazing, as it seemed, directly at him. She raised her hands, and pressed them to her lips, then threw them outwards, with a gesture eloquent of innocent and tender passion. Freeman's heart leaped: involuntarily he stretched out his arms, and murmured, "Miriam!" The next moment, a tall, dark figure, with white hair, wrapped in a blanket, came stalking behind her, and made a beckoning movement.
Miriam did not turn, but her bearing changed; her hands fell to her sides; she seemed bewildered. Freeman sprang angrily to his feet: the picture became blurred; it flowed into streaks of vague color; it was gone. There were only the brassy sky, and the painted crags quivering in the heat.
"That was not a mirage: it was a miracle," muttered the young man to himself.
"Forty miles at least, and it seemed scarcely three hundred yards! What does it mean?"
The sun sank behind the hills, and a transparent shadow filled the gorge. Freeman, uneasy in mind, and unable to remain inactive, filled his canteen at the spring, and descended to the rugged trail at the bottom.
Clambering over boulders, leaping across narrow chasms, letting himself down from ledges, his preoccupation soon left him, and physical exertion took the precedence. Half an hour's work brought him to the out- jutting promontory which had concealed the further reaches of the valley. These now lay before him, merging imperceptibly into indistinctness.
"This atmosphere is unbearable," said Freeman. "I must get a little higher up."
He turned to the right, and saw a natural archway, of no great height, formed in the rock. The arch itself was white; the super- incumbent stone was of a dull red hue. On the left flank of the arch were a series of inscribed characters, which might have been cut by a human hand, or might have been a mere natural freak. They looked like some rude system of hieroglyphics, and bore no meaning to Freeman's mind.
A sort of crypt or deep recess was hollowed out beneath the arch, the full extent of which Freeman was unable to discern.
The floor of it descended in ridges, like a rough staircase. He stood for a few moments peering into the gloom, tempted by curiosity to advance, but restrained partly by the gathering darkness, and partly by the oppressiveness of the atmosphere, which produced a sensation of giddiness. Something white gleamed on the threshold of the crypt.
He picked it up. It was a human skull; but even as he lifted it it came apart in his hands and crumbled into fragments. Freeman's nerves were strong, but he shuddered slightly. The loneliness, the silence, the mystery, and the strange light-headedness that was coming over him combined to make him hesitate. "I'll come back to-morrow morning early," he said to himself.
As if in answer, a deep, appalling roar broke forth apparently under his feet, and went rolling and reverberating up and down the canon. It died away, but was immediately followed by another yet more loud, and the ground shook and swayed beneath his feet. A gigantic boulder, poised high up on the other side of the canon, was unseated, and fell with a terrific crash. A hot wind swept sighing through the valley, and the air rapidly became dark. Again came the sigh, rising to a shriek, with roarings and thunderings that seemed to proceed both from the heavens and from the earth.
A dazzling flash of lightning split the air, bathing it for an instant in the brightness of day: in that instant Freeman saw the bolt strike the great white pyramid and splinter its crest into fragments, while the whole surface of the gorge heaved and undulated like a stormy sea. He had been staggering as best he might to a higher part of the ravine; but now he felt a stunning blow on his head: he fell, and knew no more.