CHAPTER XV.

THE FIRE CALDRON.

Tad stood in the garden of the castle, with Nereid and her father. Rhana was on the parapet, talking to the Middge crowd. Tad did not miss Arturo and me; he assumed we were close behind him. His attention was on Rhana. He knew her perhaps better than did any of us. When first he had been brought here, with a vague memory that the freighter on which he had been traveling was sinking, Rhana had taken him to the castle. He had lived there for a time, and had taught her much that she knew of our language.

He listened now to her, but of her language he still understood only occasional phrases. Entt joined him.

“She says the Middge need not fear. She will show them a way of escape from here. Or they can stay--”

“How can they stay?” Tad whispered. “Those flood-gates will break in a week or two at most.”

“She says, no danger. Or, if they care to go, a passage upward.”

“There isn’t any. Or if there is, Entt, the Middge can’t find it.”

“It must be found,” said Nereid. “Not where she says--we cannot trust her. We Middge must find it ourselves.”

For a long time now the Middge had been secretly sending out exploring parties, but so far without success.

Fen interrupted impatiently: “We listen to her, not talk.” Rhana’s speech went on. Then she stopped. At her final command the mob began dispersing. Soon the garden was nearly empty.

Bhool stood behind Tad. “Masters, we go?”

Nereid had just suggested it. “My father, should we not go home? There will be messengers there for you by now. You remember? We must go to the meeting in the Caldron.”

“Yes, you say right, child. There will be attack upon the gates. We must try to get them closed.”

Bhool insisted: “We go now, Masters. I go with you.”

It was then they missed Arturo and me. Nereid said: “Arturo, we will start now--”

But he was not behind her. Tad saw her look around; saw her run a few feet, gaze and then run back. He saw her face. It went suddenly blank. And then fear sprang to it. She gave a timid little cry: “Arturo!” She stood trembling and stricken.

She knew then, or guessed, I am sure. She stood, with trembling intense thoughts trying to reach us. But could not.

They searched around the garden. They did not see the dark arch in the wall into which we had been drawn; Tad thinks it was closed up, presenting only stones.

Bhool searched with them. He whined, “Masters, this is dangerous. If she sees us here, punishment with the chains.”

They decided we must have been separated from them, unable to find them in the departing crowd. We would go home; they would find us there waiting.

But we were not there. Instead were three Middge couriers. They had been there some time. Fen listened to them. His old face brightened.

“Good news,” said Entt. “A passage upward has been found. At the Caldron the meeting is called now. The weapons are not ready, but an attack will be made.”

“On the gate-house?” Tad demanded.

“Yes.”

Bhool was eagerly listening to what was being said. Tad shoved him out of the way.

“Fen, are you going to this meeting?” Tad asked.

“Yes. Now.” He added in his own language: “Bhool, get ready the _arras_. We will ride.”

Bhool left reluctantly. But Nereid did not want to go. We might come back here--she wanted to be here. But they would not let her stay.

Tad left us a note. They would be back in a few hours--three or four at most. Tad was worried over us. But he tried to persuade himself that in a little while we would be in. The note did not say where they had gone, some Gian might come upon it who could read it. He ended in his whimsical fashion: “Go to sleep--it will do you good for what is coming.”

Nereid had said nothing. She sat in a shadowed corner. Her face was solemn, fear-stricken. She sat thinking--calling intensely to us. We were both unconscious at this time. She thought once she had reached Arturo. She leaped to her feet; sank back. “No, it is nothing! He is gone.”

Bhool arrived at the street doorway with the _arras_. Sleek black animals, large as a horse, with long narrow faces and bulging eyes. They moved with a panther tread, soundless on padded feet.

* * * * *

The couriers were already gone. Bhool said: “I will carry her.” He indicated Nereid.

“You ride with me,” Tad declared, “if you go at all. I don’t see why you should.”

But the fellow seemed too frightened to stay in the house. Nereid mounted behind her father. Entt rode alone. Tad put Bhool in front of him on the broad saddle.

Like giant leopards the three arras loped off down the narrow street. They reached the open country, where the road was a waving gray ribbon over the rocks. Occasionally they were challenged by Middge guards. Then on again.

A ride infernal. The glare grew. The air was steadily hotter, as a sulphurous quality came to it. Down, as though into a legendary inferno. The passage broadened. Its walls spread; its rocky, shaggy ceiling lifted until Tad no longer could see it.

Bhool whimpered: “I do not like it here.” But Tad did not answer. If Tad had only known what was in that fellow’s mind!

Ahead, the red glare now was solid. The passage was gone. They ascended a gentle rising slope, came to the brink of a crest and stopped.

The caldron of fire lay before them.

* * * * *

Tad had never been here before. He gazed, awe-struck. He was on the lip of a huge circular caldron which lay perhaps a thousand feet beneath this upper rim. A round, shallow bowl. The ceiling over it was too high to be visible; behind the rim, rocky walls rose up into the black void.

The whole area was a dull glare of red; but soon Tad’s eyes grew accustomed to it, and he refused the glasses which Entt proffered. This upper lip of the bowl was bent in a huge circle; it stretched in both directions as far as Tad could see--a small segment of the whole--a caldron here a hundred miles across, at least.

There were boiling pits of red molten fire down there. One was quite close--a mile or so away. It boiled sluggishly, a viscous mass in a giant pot. Its surface bubbled; moved and crawled. Red, with a purple-green sheen on it.

A hundred such pits showed; the distance merged them into a solid red glare.

Far off, there seemed a lake of fire; a cloud of black gas hung over it; rolled slowly upward, and away.

The nearer jagged rocks here on the rim were painted with the lurid red. It hung like a mist everywhere--a monstrous red shadow of it slanted up into the void overhead. The heavy choking smell of sulphur was in the air; a black coil of smoke was drifting up from one side, slanting off on an air-current, a suction toward the further distance.

A scene infernal. Slumbering forces. Restless. Stirring. Nature infernal, here in leash. A slumbering giant down here, breathing uneasily.

And when, throwing off his bonds, the giant rose? Honeycomb passages, breaking upward with his lungs! His surging breath--we at the surface then would call this a volcano. Or if, still far underground, the porous rock strata broke sidewise; shivered, trembled and broke--an earthquake then, to dash a tidal wave against our coasts, to engulf our islands--or with a trembling, quaking earth-surface, to bring down our cities in ruins.

This slumbering giant!