As we breakfasted, I approached directly that matter which my growing liking3 for him was turning into strong desire.
“Drake,” I asked. “Where are you going?”
“With you,” he laughed. “I’m foot loose and fancy free. And I think you ought to have somebody with you to help watch that cook. He might get away.”
The idea seemed to appall4 him.
“Fine!” I exclaimed heartily5, and thrust out my hand to him. “I’m thinking of striking over the range soon to the Manasarowar Lakes. There’s a curious flora6 I’d like to study.”
“Anywhere you say suits me,” he answered.
We clasped hands on our partnership7 and soon we were on our way to the valley’s western gate; our united caravans9 stringing along behind us. Mile after mile we trudged10 through the blue poppies, discussing the enigmas11 of the twilight12 and of the night.
In the light of day their breath of vague terror was dissipated. There was no place for mystery nor dread13 under this floor of brilliant sunshine. The smiling sapphire14 floor rolled ever on before us.
Whispering little playful breezes flew down the slopes to gossip for a moment with the nodding flowers. Flocks of rose finches raced chattering15 overhead to quarrel with the tiny willow16 warblers, the chi-u-teb-tok, holding fief of the drooping17, graceful18 bowers19 bending down to the little laughing stream that for the past hour had chuckled20 and gurgled like a friendly water baby beside us.
I had proven, almost to my own satisfaction, that what we had beheld21 had been a creation of the extraordinary atmospheric22 attributes of these highlands, an atmosphere so unique as to make almost anything of the kind possible. But Drake was not convinced.
“I know,” he said. “Of course I understand all that — superimposed layers of warmer air that might have bent23 the ray; vortices in the higher levels that might have produced just that effect of the captured aurora24. I admit it’s all possible. I’ll even admit it’s all probable, but damn me, Doc, if I BELIEVE it! I had too clearly the feeling of a CONSCIOUS force, a something that KNEW exactly what it was doing — and had a REASON for it.”
It was mid-afternoon.
The spell of the valley upon us, we had gone leisurely25. The western mount was close, the mouth of the gorge26 through which we must pass, now plain before us. It did not seem as though we could reach it before dusk, and Drake and I were reconciled to spending another night in the peaceful vale. Plodding27 along, deep in thought, I was startled by his exclamation28.
He was staring at a point some hundred yards to his right. I followed his gaze.
The towering cliffs were a scant29 half mile away. At some distant time there had been an enormous fall of rock. This, disintegrating30, had formed a gently-curving breast which sloped down to merge31 with the valley’s floor. Willow and witch alder32, stunted33 birch and poplar had found roothold, clothed it, until only their crowding outposts, thrusting forward in a wavering semicircle, held back seemingly by the blue hordes34, showed where it melted into the meadows.
In the center of this breast, beginning half way up its slopes and stretching down into the flowered fields was a colossal35 imprint36.
Gray and brown, it stood out against the green and blue of slope and level; a rectangle all of thirty feet wide, two hundred long, the heel faintly curved and from its hither end, like claws, four slender triangles radiating from it like twenty-four points of a ten-rayed star.
Irresistibly37 was it like a footprint — but what thing was there whose tread could leave such a print as this?
I ran up the slope — Drake already well in advance. I paused at the base of the triangles where, were this thing indeed a footprint, the spreading claws sprang from the flat of it.
The track was fresh. At its upper edges were clipped bushes and split trees, the white wood of the latter showing where they had been sliced as though by the stroke of a scimitar.
I stepped out upon the mark. It was as level as though planed; bent down and stared in utter disbelief of what my own eyes beheld. For stone and earth had been crushed, compressed, into a smooth, microscopically38 grained, adamantine complex, and in this matrix poppies still bearing traces of their coloring were imbedded like fossils. A cyclone39 can and does grip straws and thrust them unbroken through an inch board — but what force was there which could take the delicate petals40 of a flower and set them like inlay within the surface of a stone?
Into my mind came recollection of the wailings, the crashings in the night, of the weird41 glow that had flashed about us when the mist arose to hide the chained aurora.
“It was what we heard,” I said. “The sounds — it was then that this was made.”
“The foot of Shin-je!” Chiu–Ming’s voice was tremulous. “The lord of Hell has trodden here!”
I translated for Drake’s benefit.
“Has the lord of Hell but one foot?” asked Dick, politely.
“He bestrides the mountains,” said Chiu–Ming. “On the far side is his other footprint. Shin-je it was who strode the mountains and set here his foot.”
Again I interpreted.
Drake cast a calculating glance up to the cliff top.
“Two thousand feet, about,” he mused42. “Well, if Shin-je is built in our proportions that makes it about right. The length of this thing would give him just about a two thousand foot leg. Yes — he could just about straddle that hill.”
“You’re surely not serious?” I asked in consternation43.
“What the hell!” he exclaimed, “am I crazy? This is no foot mark. How could it be? Look at the mathematical nicety with which these edges are stamped out — as though by a die —
“That’s what it reminds me of — a die. It’s as if some impossible power had been used to press it down. Like — like a giant seal of metal in a mountain’s hand. A sigil — a seal —”
“But why?” I asked. “What could be the purpose —”
“Better ask where the devil such a force could be gotten together and how it came here,” he said. “Look — except for this one place there isn’t a mark anywhere. All the bushes and the trees, all the poppies and the grass are just as they ought to be.
“How did whoever or whatever it was that made this, get here and get away without leaving any trace but this? Damned if I don’t think Chiu–Ming’s explanation puts less strain upon the credulity than any I could offer.”
I peered about. It was so. Except for the mark, there was no slightest sign of the unusual, the abnormal.
But the mark was enough!
“I’m for pushing up a notch44 or two and getting into the gorge before dark,” he was voicing my own thought. “I’m willing to face anything human — but I’m not keen to be pressed into a rock like a flower in a maiden’s book of poems.” Just at twilight we drew out of the valley into the pass. We traveled a full mile along it before darkness forced us to make camp. The gorge was narrow. The far walls but a hundred feet away; but we had no quarrel with them for their neighborliness, no! Their solidity, their immutability45, breathed confidence back into us.
And after we had found a deep niche46 capable of holding the entire caravan8 we filed within, ponies47 and all, I for one perfectly48 willing thus to spend the night, let the air at dawn be what it would. We dined within on bread and tea, and then, tired to the bone, sought each his place upon the rocky floor. I slept well, waking only once or twice by Chiu–Ming’s groanings; his dreams evidently were none of the pleasantest. If there was an aurora I neither knew nor cared. My slumber was dreamless.
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1
slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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2
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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3
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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appall
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| vt.使惊骇，使大吃一惊 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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7
partnership
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| n.合作关系，伙伴关系 | |
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8
caravan
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| n.大蓬车；活动房屋 | |
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9
caravans
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| （可供居住的）拖车（通常由机动车拖行）( caravan的名词复数 )； 篷车； （穿过沙漠地带的）旅行队（如商队） | |
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10
trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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11
enigmas
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| n.难于理解的问题、人、物、情况等，奥秘( enigma的名词复数 ) | |
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12
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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13
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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14
sapphire
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| n.青玉，蓝宝石；adj.天蓝色的 | |
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15
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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16
willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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18
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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bowers
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| n.（女子的）卧室( bower的名词复数 )；船首锚；阴凉处；鞠躬的人 | |
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20
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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22
atmospheric
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| adj.大气的，空气的；大气层的；大气所引起的 | |
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23
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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24
aurora
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| n.极光 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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26
gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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plodding
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| a.proceeding in a slow or dull way | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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29
scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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30
disintegrating
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| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的现在分词 ) | |
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31
merge
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| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
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32
alder
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| n.赤杨树 | |
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stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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hordes
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| n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落 | |
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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imprint
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| n.印痕，痕迹；深刻的印象；vt.压印，牢记 | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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microscopically
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| 显微镜下 | |
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39
cyclone
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| n.旋风，龙卷风 | |
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40
petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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41
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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42
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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43
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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44
notch
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| n.(V字形)槽口，缺口，等级 | |
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45
immutability
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| n.不变(性) | |
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46
niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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47
ponies
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| 矮种马，小型马( pony的名词复数 )； ￡25 25 英镑 | |
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48
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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