The configuration of the caves puzzled her more than a little. One 'day' she had managed to evade her guards, and had made her way back to the cavern where she and Mark had landed. She had stood at the top of the ramp and looked down on the Sun Bird still lying where Mark had moored her—how long ago? But the water no longer rushed through the cavern. The break had been blocked. Only a current so slight as scarcely to trouble the surface flowed across from the tunnel down which they had swept, to an opening on the opposite side. The cavern lake was now so smooth that reflection rivalled original.
Gazing down on the hull of the maimed Sun Bird, Margaret was tempted. It would be so easy just to run down the ramp, to jump aboard and cast off. Surely it would be better to drift away into that other tunnel and take one's chance, than to continue this existence among the pygmies. Probably she would fail, but what did that mean? Just to die a little earlier; to perish in the attempt rather than to wait here and drown. And she might have the luck to get free—to save this subterranean place and its people—and Mark. She imagined herself fighting officials, working night and day, pulling strings until at last the Qabes pumps should cease to turn. An expedition would be sent down to free Mark and the other inhabitants of the prison system.
For a long time she looked, but though her fancy soared, her body did not move. She was afraid, but that was not the whole cause of her hesitation—she was no more afraid to go than to stay. Another feeling held her back. A sensa'tion that she might help here, that someone—Mark?—might need her, and she would have deserted. It would be all but impossible for her to escape alone, and by trying she might in some way wreck the chances of others. It was not very clear; but it was very compelling. With a sigh, she had turned away from the sight of the Sun Bird, and gone back to search for her distracted guards.
There had, she knew, been other breaks since the one which had engulfed Mark and herself, and yet there was the Sun Bird floating at practically the same level as before. It was puzzling. She decided to ask Garm about it, without revealing her reasons. At that time they had talked with difficulty, but as far as she could understand he had replied:
'The caves are on many levels. Often they are like a series of deep holes connected by passages. Only in those where the floors of the caverns to be connected are of even, or almost even depth, do the passages enter and leave at ground level. Often it has been more convenient to cut an entrance part way up a wall, and make a ledge sloping to the ground. Thus the actual tunnelling can be made shorter. Sometimes there have been fissures, and at others formations of harder rock to be avoided. There is no regularity. Therefore, it follows that although some of the breaks have sent water pouring down to the lowest levels, others have entered these well-like caves, and we have been able to stop them before they could reach the side passages and overflow. It is lucky that there are less of us than there were, for already all the lowest caverns are flooded deeply.'
With this she had to be satisfied, though it left much unexplained. Why, for instance, was there a slight current through the Sun Bird's cave? Was it making its way to the pygmies' lower levels? If so, why hadn't they stopped it? The only other possibility seemed to be that the water was flowing beyond the pygmy system; that the incoming water had joined the course of a subterranean river already flowing through the cave. In the end she had sighed and given it up—one had to give up so many problems in this incomprehensible place.
It was a relief to know that there had been no more breaks lately. Each time she had heard of one her heart raced painfully, until she was sure that the prison caves had not been threatened. At first she had been angry with herself for her own anxiety—it rose, involuntary and unwanted. She had not yet forgiven Mark for the slaughter of the pygmies. It had been the sudden intrusion of violence which had shocked her even more than the violence itself. For a long time she had been unable to picture Mark without seeing those pathetically childlike bodies sprawling before him. Had she been able to reach the Sun Bird again before her first wrathful resentment had cooled, there would have been no hesitation to deter her.
Familiarity with the idea had now damped down the sense of shock. Insensibly she had begun to adopt something of the pygmy attitude. The thing had happened. Lives had been lost; it was unfortunate, but it could not be helped. There was no demanding the blood of the slayer; no suggestion that he might have behaved differently. The pygmies seemed to attach less importance than did her own people to the act of dying. Or did they? Wasn't it rather that her people attached an exaggerated importance to the more sensational and spectacular forms of death? At home, more indignation and publicity was expended upon one murder (justified or not) than upon a hundred fatal road accidents. But death was just as final. Obviously then, it was the manner which counted, not the act; if it were not so, there would be no difference between hanging by the law, and hanging by private individuals, whereas everybody knows that the law may do many things which the private individual may not. Yes, it was the manner which stirred people's emotions. If you were to shoot a man because he was a public danger, everybody would be enraged, but if you killed an excellent citizen through negligent driving, nobody minded very much. It was all very confusing____ Anyhow, the emergent fact was that the pygmies did not draw these nice distinctions, they seemed to put all deceases under the heading of death from misadventure. Death, after all, was as natural as birth, all that had been done was to accelerate its advance. Everyone was condemned to death by being born, you couldn't change that.
As time went on the picture of the slain pygmies began to have less significance. They were no longer the shocking evidence of an unsuspected streak of brutality in Mark's nature____At least, the idea of a streak of brutality was no longer shocking. In fact, there were things in favour of a streak (a narrow streak, of course) of brutality. ...
Garm broke in upon an interesting line of thought. The baffling time sense which the pygmies had evolved came into play as though an alarm clock had gone off in his mind.
'We must go now,' he interrupted.
Margaret had long ceased to be surprised by this bump of temporality. She rose, and crossed to Bast, gathering her up as she loosed the cord. Garm gulped down the dregs of his cupful of spirit, and led the way to the outer passage.
CHAPTER II
The worship of Bast centred in one of the larger caverns. Immense labour had gone to make this place a fit dwelling for a goddess. The usual pygmy custom of smoothing only the most dangerous corners and cutting away the more obtrusive projections could not give a sufficiently polished effect for a divine sanctuary. The incon-veniencies of rough adaptation might be good enough for themselves, but they were inadequate for a goddess. In pursuance of the axiom that good housing is more necessary for a bodiless spirit than for one's own flesh and blood, they had done their best. They had smoothed the rock walls almost to regularity before covering them with carvings in low relief. Broad bands of pictorial representation, alternating with narrower bands of purely conventional pattern now encircled the whole hall from floor almost to roof.
Margaret suspected that the broader bands contained a history, but, if so, it must have been designed for the edification of greatly gifted readers. Frequently the stiffness and angularity of the figures made them no more informative than the geometrical patterns above and below. Isolated groups in which battles—between slingers and stone-throwers—were taking place could be identified as could certain processions which might consist either of victors or vanquished; but the interdependence, if any, of these events was elusive.