He thrust a new clip into his pistol without ceasing to watch. They had started talking again in their queer, staccato tones. For the most part, their attention seemed to be directed at Margaret, though occasional apprehensive glances were thrown at his pistol. A deploying movement began. The crowd was stringing out in a semicircle about the tunnel mouth. He felt that they were contemplating a new rush. It would be impossible to hold off a charge spread over a hundred and eighty degrees.
From farther up the passage he might be able to hold them. He began to retreat backwards, never removing his eyes from their faces. But they did not advance at once. He wondered uncomfortably what was going on behind those sad, yet inexpressive faces.
He was a good thirty yards from the entrance before they moved. He saw a sudden stiffening run through them, then they were rushing headlong. His pistol spat viciously. The lead tore holes in their line. The noise of his shots in the confined space was a crashing, deafening roar which made his head sing. He could hear nothing else; certainly he had no suspicion of a hundred naked feet pattering behind him.
One choked cry from Margaret was all his warning, and it came too late. He went down even as he turned, in a rush of grey-skinned bodies. His pistol flew from his hand. His flailing legs and arms were seized and pinned down. A weight of squirming bodies was crushing the air from his lungs. Small fists clenched themselves in his hair and began to hammer the back of his head against the floor. Sickening, splitting thuds. There was a pain behind .his eyes, hurting like the devil. His brain felt as though it were slopping about in its case like thin porridge....
PART II
CHAPTER I
Consciousness began to trickle back in a very filtered form. The first thing Mark was aware of was a familiar, blinding headache. He moved uneasily. There had been the explosion; the whole world turning somersaults; the Sun Bird diving at the sea____No, that was farther off.
Hadn't something else happened since then? He made a tremendous effort to open his eyes. Each lid seemed to be weighted with several pounds as well as being stiff from disuse. And when they lifted, he could not focus properly. There was a hazy vision of a grey surface which whirled and tilted. It steadied after a few seconds, and became clearer. Rock? That was familiar somehow....
Memory suddenly came back in full flood. The passages, the caves, the fantastic mushrooms, and the little men____
'Margaret?' he said feebly.
He turned his head, searching for her. He found himself lying in a cave the size of an ordinary dining-room. In the centre of the ceiling a blue-white lamp was glowing, smaller, but in other particulars like those in the corridors. Beside him, on the floor, stood a bowl of polished stone, full almost to the brim with water. He stretched out a hand to pull it closer, and then stopped in the middle of the action; the hand felt so weak, looked so thin and wasted that he could scarcely recognise it for his own. How long had he been here? he wondered as he leant over the bowl to drink.
The cool water did him good. He leaned his head back on the pillow and considered the surroundings more carefully.
The cave could hardly be called furnished, but someone had made attempts to render it habitable. Against the other walls were set low, couch-like mounds like that on which he himself lay. The coverings of both the small cushions and the larger which served for mattresses were woven from inch-wide strips of some strange material which was leather-like in colour, though not in texture. To give warmth and extra comfort somebody had wrapped a long, blue woollen scarf about him.
In several places the nakedness of the rock walls had been hidden by designs and pictures painted in three or four raw colours. But he noted that though the execution was rough, it was backed by knowledge; the crudity was in the workmanship, not in the observation. The study of a fungus forest was no less informed than the view of an Arab village, but there were figures here and there which puzzled him. Arabs he could recognize, white men and even the dwarf grey folk, but there were others, both men and women, which fitted into neither of these categories.
He raised a hand to his aching head and found that it was heavily bandaged. What had happened since that fight in the corridor? He had a misty notion of faces close to his own, voices which murmured encouragingly, but they had been strangers. Where was Margaret? He must find her. ...
The effort of sitting up set his head pounding again so that he had to clench his teeth. With difficulty he got to his feet and leaned for some swimming seconds against the wall. His legs felt so weakly useless that any movement might double them beneath him. The effort required to force them on was prodigious. Only his anxiety for Margaret drove him to make it.
The cave entrance had been chiselled to the shape of a doorway, though it held no door. It gave on to a corridor, dimly lit and stretching away to both sides. A faint murmur which might be of voices came from the right, and decided him to go that way. In all he made a journey of perhaps fifty yards, but it seemed one of the longest of his life. Four times in his slow course he was forced to rest against the wall, feeling too spent either to continue or return, wishing only to drop where he was. But each time he regathered, at last, just enough strength to drag his unsteady feet forward.
Finally the passage gave on to a cavern. He stood looking at numbers of men and women who crossed its floor on the way from one tunnel mouth to another. He tried to call out to them, but his voice sounded childishly weak. And something queer was happening to the people____They seemed to be swimming about.... The whole cave was reeling drunkenly. His knees suddenly sagged. The floor of the cavern rose obliquely from the left, and hit him.
Arms lifted him into a sitting position; a smooth something was thrust against his lips.
'Here, drink this,' said a voice.
He obeyed feebly. A gulp of some coarse spirit burned its way down. His eyes opened to the hazy sight of two bearded faces hanging over his own. The mouth in one opened:
'What are you doing out here?'
'Margaret,' he managed to say. 'Where is she?'
The two bearded faces looked at one another. The first spoke again.
'That's all right, buddy. Don't you worry. All you got to do is rest. How about getting back now?'
They assisted him to his feet.
'Think you can walk?'
He nodded dumbly, but at the first faltering step his knees doubled up again. The taller of the two men picked him up easily, and strode back along the passage. Very thankfully Mark felt himself laid down on the couch he had so lately left. After an indefinite period which might have been a few minutes or a few hours, someone roused him. The man who had carried him was holding out two bowls, one containing water, and the other, a kind of mash.
'What-?' he began. But the other shook his head.
'No, just you get outside this first. You can talk after.'
He took a drink of water and started on the mash. It had a slightly earthy flavour, curious, though not unpleasant. While he fed he took stock once more of his surroundings. He was back in the decorated cave, all right, but this time he had three companions. The man who had spoken was a tall, broad figure, clad in the rags of a French uniform. His hands, and such parts of his face as were visible behind a matted beard, were lined with ingrained grime. Hair which might be fair when clean had been clumsily restrained, possibly with the aid of a knife. Above it, far back on the head was perched a battered kepi.