Chapter 20: On to the Pyramid

It was like Walt Harkness to rush impetuously after where Diane was being drawn away; but who, under the same circumstances, would have done otherwise? Yet it was like Chet, too, to keep a sane and level head, to check the first wild impulse to dash to their rescue, to realize that he would be throwing himself away by doing it and helping them not at all. It was like Chet to stop and think when thinking was desperately needed, though what it would lead to he could not have told. There were many factors that entered into his calculations.

Half-consciously he had walked to the barricade that he might stare into the blackness beyond. The worst of the storm had passed, and the strong Earth-light forced its way through the thinning clouds in a cold, gray glow. It served to show the great gateway to the jungle, empty and black, until Chet saw more of the man-beasts he had called messengers.

A file of them, stolid, woodenly walking--he could not fail to know them from the ape-men of the tribe. And they moved through the darkness toward the sounds of shouts and laughter.

Chet saw them when they returned; following them were three others. Schwartzmann was not one of them; but the pilot, Max, Chet could distinguish plainly; the other two, he was sure, were the men of Schwartzmann’s crew.

And, for each of them, all laughter and shouted jests had escaped. They moved like wooden toys half-come to life. And they, too, vanished where Walt and Diane had gone through the high arch of the jungle’s open door.

Chet knew Kreiss was beside him; at a short distance, Towahg, staring above the palisade, buried his unkempt, hairy head in the shelter of his arms. All of Towahg’s savage bravery had oozed away at direct sight of the pyramid men; Chet, even through his heavy-hearted dismay, was aware of the courage that must have carried this primitive man to their rescue on that other black night when the pyramid had been about to swallow, them up.

To the pyramid all Chet’s thoughts had been tending. There Diane and Harkness were bound; there he, too, must go, though the thought of driving himself into that black maw, through the overpowering stench and down to the pit where some horror of mystery lay waiting, was almost more than his conscious mind could accept. But, with the sight of Towahg and the abject fear that had overwhelmed him, Chet found his own mind calmly determined, though through that cool self-detachment came savage spoken words.

“If poor Towahg could go near that damned place,” he reasoned, “am I going to be stopped by anything between heaven and hell?”

And his mind was suddenly at ease with the certainty of the next step he must take. He turned to speak to Kreiss, but paused instead to stare into the dark where shadows that were not the ghosts of clouds were moving. Then his whispered orders came sharply to the scientist and to Towahg.

“Come!” he commanded. “Come quickly; follow me!”

The two were behind him as he found the narrow opening in the barrier’s farther side, passed through, and crouched low in the darkness as he ran toward the lake where the shallow water of the shore took no mark of their hurrying feet.

At the end of the lake he stopped. Beside him, Kreiss, weakened by his wound, was panting and gasping; Towahg, moving like a dark shadow, was close behind.

“I saw them,” said Kreiss, when he had breath enough for speech, “--more beasts from the pyramid. They were coming for us! But we can go back there after a day or so.”

“You can,” Chet told him; “Towahg and I are going on.”

“Where?” Kreiss demanded.

“To the pyramid.”

Chet’s reply was brief, and Kreiss’ response was equally so. “You’re a fool,” he said.

“Sure,” Chet told him: “I know there’s nothing I can do to help them. But I’m going. All I ask is to get one crack at whatever it is that is down in that beastly pit and if I can’t do that maybe I can still save Diane and Walt from tortures you and I can’t imagine.” He touched his pistol suggestively.

“Still I say you are a fool,” Kreiss insisted. “They are gone--captured; they will die. That is regrettable, but it is done. Now, besides Herr Schwartzmann who escaped, only we two remain; the savage, he does not count. We two!--and a new world!--and science! Science that remains after these two are gone--after you and I are gone! It is greater than us all.

“But I, staying, shall contribute to the knowledge of men; I shall make discoveries that will bear my name always. This world is my laboratory; I have found deposits such as none has ever seen on Earth.

“Be reasonable, Herr Bullard. The enemy has tracked us down by his superior cleverness. We will go far away now where he never shall find us, you and I. Do not be a fool; do not throw your life away.”

Chet Bullard, a figure of helpless, hopeless despair, stood unspeaking while he stared into the black depths of the jungle, and the night wind whipped his tattered clothing about him.

“A fool!” he said at last, and his voice was dull and heavy. “I guess you’re right--”

Herr Kreiss interrupted: “Of course I am right--right and reasonable and logical!”

Chet went on as if the other had not spoken:

“If I hadn’t been a fool I would have found some way to prevent it; I would have killed that ape-thing when first I saw it; I would have got them free.”

He turned slowly to face his companion in the darkness.

“But you were wrong, Kreiss; you forgot a couple of things. You said they found us by their superior cleverness. That’s wrong. They found us because you left a trail they could follow. We threw them off once, Towahg and I, but the messenger wouldn’t be fooled. Then Schwartzmann and his pack followed the messenger in.