Chapter 15: The Valley Of The Sacrifice

For the first half-hour of their climb down into the valley of the scratch, the three friends were too preoccupied with their own safety to talk more than an occasional sentence. They came upon many places that at first glance appeared impassable, or at least sufficiently hazardous to cause them to hesitate, but in each instance the changing contour of the precipice offered some other means of descent.

After thirty minutes of arduous effort, the Big Business Man sat down suddenly upon a rock and began to unlace his shoes.

“I’ve got to rest a while,” he groaned. “My feet are in terrible shape.”

His two companions were glad of the opportunity to sit with him for a moment.

“Gosh, I’m all in, too!” said the Very Young Man with a sigh.

They were sitting upon a ledge about twenty feet wide, with the wall down which they had come at their back.

“I’ll swear that’s as far down there as it ever was,” said the Big Business Man, with a wave of his hand towards the valley below them.

“Further,” remarked the Very Young Man. “I’ve known that right along.”

“That’s to be expected,” said the Doctor. “But we’re a third the way down, just the same; that’s the main thing.” He glanced up the rocky, precipitous wall behind them. “We’ve come down a thousand feet, at least. The valley must be three thousand feet deep or more now.”

“Say, how deep does it get before it stops?” inquired the Very Young Man.

The Doctor smiled at him quietly. “Rogers’s note put it about twelve thousand,” he answered. “It should reach that depth and stop about”--he hesitated a moment, calculating--”about two o’clock,” he finished.

“Some climb,” commented the Very Young Man. “We could do this a lot better than we’re doing it, I think.”

For some time they sat in silence. From where they sat the valley had all the appearance of a rocky, barren cañon of their own world above, as it might have looked on the late afternoon of a cloudless summer day. A gentle breeze was blowing, and in the sky overhead they could still see the huge light that for them was the sun.

“The weather is certainly great down here anyway,” observed the Very Young Man, “that’s one consolation.”

The Big Business Man had replaced his shoes, taken a swallow of water, and risen to his feet, preparing to start downward again, when suddenly they all noticed a curious swaying motion, as though the earth were moving under them.

“Now what?” ejaculated the Very Young Man, standing up abruptly, with his feet spread wide apart.

The ground seemed pressing against his feet as if he were weighted down with a heavy load. And he felt a little also as though in a moving train with a side thrust to guard against. The sun was no longer visible, and the valley was plunged in the semidarkness of twilight. A strong wind sprang up, sweeping down upon them from above.

The Very Young Man and the Big Business Man looked puzzled; the Doctor alone of the three seemed to understand what was happening.

“He’s moving the ring,” he explained, with a note of apprehension in his voice.

“Oh,” ejaculated the Big Business Man, comprehending at last, “so that’s the----”

The Very Young Man standing with his back to the wall and his legs spread wide looked hastily at his watch. “Moving the ring? Why, damn it----” he began impetuously.

The Big Business Man interrupted him. “Look there, look!” he almost whispered, awestruck.

The sky above the valley suddenly had become suffused with red. As they watched it seemed to take form, appearing no longer space, but filled with some enormous body of reddish color. In one place they could see it broken into a line of gray, and underneath the gray, two circular holes of light gleamed down at them.

The Doctor shuddered and closed his eyes; his two friends stared upward, fascinated into immobility.

“What--is--that?” the Very Young Man whispered.

Before he could be answered, the earth swayed under them more violently than before. The red faded back out of the sky, and the sun appeared sweeping up into the zenith, where it hung swaying a moment and then poised motionless. The valley was flooded again with light; the ground steadied under them and became quiet. The wind died rapidly away, and in another moment it was as though nothing unusual had occurred.

For a time the three friends stood silent, too astonished for words at this extraordinary experience. The Doctor was the first to recover himself. “He moved the ring,” he said hurriedly. “That’s twice. We must hurry.”

“It’s only quarter past ten. We told him not till eleven,” protested the Very Young Man.

“Even that is too soon for safety,” said the Doctor back over his shoulder, for already he had started downward.

It was nearly twelve o’clock when they stopped again for rest. At this time the valley appeared about seven or eight thousand feet deep: they estimated themselves to be slightly more than half-way down. From eleven until twelve they had momentarily expected some disturbing phenomena attendant upon the removal of the ring by the Banker from the clubroom to its place in the Museum. But nothing unusual had occurred.

“He probably decided to leave it alone for a while,” commented the Big Business Man, as they were discussing the matter. “Glad he showed that much sense.”

“It would not bother us much now,” the Doctor replied. “We’re too far down. See how the light is changing.”

The sky showed now only as a narrow ribbon of blue between the edges of the cañon’s walls. The sun was behind the wall down which they were climbing, out of sight, and throwing their side of the valley into shadow. And already they could begin to see a dim phosphorescence glowing from the rocks near at hand.

The Very Young Man, sitting beside the Doctor, suddenly gripped his friend by the arm. “A bird,” he said, pointing down the valley. “See it there?”

From far off they could see a bird coming up the center of the valley at a height apparently almost level with their own position, and flying towards them. They watched it in silence as it rapidly approached.

“Great Scott, it’s big!” muttered the Big Business Man in an undertone.

As the bird came closer they saw it was fully fifty feet across the wings. It was flying straight down the valley at tremendous speed. When it was nearly opposite them they heard a familiar “cheep, cheep,” come echoing across the valley.