Chapter VII: A Way Out

Just at that moment, through a rift in the smoke, he fancied that he saw the sparkle of water, and toward it he bent his steps. If there really was a stream there, it might block the course of the conflagration, and afford safety on its farther bank.

So on and on, amidst the smoke, he sped, with the roar of the fire behind him. His one hope lay in finding the stream and in managing to cross it.

He did not heed the choking sensation in his throat. His own life and the fate of a nation depended on his success. He must find the water.

He had run but a few paraparths when he again caught sight of the water between the trees, for he had been nearer than he had thought. In another moment he gained the bank, but he groaned at the sight. For the opposite shore was also in flames. Evidently the ant men had anticipated his move.

What could he do now? Great volumes of smoke were pouring in on him from behind. The air was full of flying embers, and the heat was becoming almost unendurable. The hunted man had gained the bank of the stream, only to find his escape cut off there by the flames on the other side.

Cabot was facing a double peril, as he fully realized. The Formians who were pursuing him, and who had set these fires, would prove as merciless as the flames in their dealings with him, whom they rightly regarded as the cause of the misfortunes of their nation. Thus either way out of this dilemma appeared to be worse than the other. And still the rain held off.

At this moment a slight shift in the wind drove back the heat behind him. The smoke which now came from across the little river was cool and thin enough to be bearable, and accordingly he quickly determined to stick close to the bank, and to proceed cautiously northward, the direction in which the stream appeared to be flowing.

Perhaps no one was on guard at the place where the stream emerged from the burning area, and he could there make his escape.

But, alas, no such luck! His flight was interrupted by the sight of an ant man, who, as seen through the smoke, loomed twice his natural size.

Cabot took careful aim and fired two shots, at which his enemy crumpled up, but not without first radiating a warning to his fellows. This made it too late to get through at this point, so Cabot turned and retraced his steps upstream.

Finally he came to a place where the fire appeared to be burning only on his own side of the river. Although the current was swift he determined to chance it and swim across, so he waded out into the stream. The cool of the water felt soothing to his dry body, and near the surface the air was clear and free from smoke. Cabot filled his lungs again and again with this blessed air, then stopped to lave his parched lips in the cool stream.

When he raised his head to resume the crossing, what should he see on the opposite shore but two of his black enemies! Firing rapidly at them, he backed up the bank again and lay down under cover of a log.

The Formians now promptly withdrew, and soon were lost in the smoke of several new fires which they had started.

He heard a boom in the distance. What! Were they bombing Luno Castle again? Another boom in a slightly different direction! Where else could they be dropping bombs? And then he realized this must be thunder.

Now the wind shifted again, driving the flames up to Cabot’s side of the river and forcing him back into the water. Burning brands came scudding across the surface, so that even the water proved but little protection. However, by making his way upstream, he finally came to a place where the bank overhung, and the brook was about five feet deep. Here the bank protected him from the flying embers, and he was able to breathe the clear air near the surface of the stream. Now the fire could not touch him, even if it should sweep to the very edge of the brook.

The sky got darker and darker. The rain began to descend. The storm, which had been so long threatening, had broken at last, and the rain was falling torrentially. Indeed, it soon was coming down in sheets, and Cabot knew that if he could only maintain his position a little longer, he would be saved from the fire, and would then have only the Formians to cope with. The flames in the forest had not been under such headway that they could long withstand such a deluge as was now coming down.

But the rain, by quenching the fire, greatly increased the volume of the smoke, which now came billowing thickly out over the surface of the water. Also the river began to rise. The swollen stream was quickly responding to the addition of the heavy downpour of rain, and Cabot realized that he would soon be driven from his hiding place. Yet if he went ashore in that thick smoke, he would not be able to breathe. He was between the devil and the deep river.

And, to make matters worse, the smoke was settling closer and closer over the water, so that Myles was finally forced to bring his nostrils to within a fraction of an inch of the surface, in order to get any fresh air at all.

As he stood thus, with his nostrils just above the surface of the water, and his eyes smarting with the acrid smoke, the smoke suddenly lifted sufficiently to disclose a large log which the current was carrying swiftly, end-on, directly toward his head. Then, with a crash, it struck.

* * * * *

How long or how far the swift current carried him he knew not, but it must have been many stads, for when his eyes finally opened again, the brook had become a river.

He found himself now clinging instinctively to the very log which had dislodged him, and doubtless it was this instinctive act which had saved his life.

After resting a moment, and recovering his wits, he investigated his surroundings. The river was roaring along the bottom of a deep gorge, and right before him rose the face of a steep rocky cliff, against which the river seemed to rush and end, turning neither to the right nor to the left. In a flash it dawned on Cabot where he was. This was “the lost river,” a natural phenomenon which had long perplexed the scientists of Poros, and had long been revered by the proletariat as a symbol and emblem of eternity.

“It will undoubtedly mean eternity to me,” thought Cabot, “for in a moment I shall strike the face of that cliff, and all will be over.”

But, just before he reached the cliff, the log and he were sucked down, down, by some irresistible undertow. He strangled and struggled upward, but the pressure held him down. His lungs were bursting with excruciating pain. His ears hurt. His mouth was filled with blood. Oh, how he longed for the crash against the cliff, which would end it all!

But the crash never came.

He could bear it no longer, yet there was no alternative except to bear it. And then, as suddenly as it had sucked him beneath the surface, the river released its grip on his legs, and he shot upward, clear of the watery grave. With what joy did he fill his straining lungs with God’s fresh air! Again and again he breathed, as he clung to the friendly log, until at last the pain in his throat departed, and he was somewhat his normal self once more.

He was drifting quietly along on the surface of a placid stream. A few moments ago all had been broad daylight, but now all was dark as a Porovian night. Every ripple of the water echoed above and to both sides, thus leading Cabot to infer that he was in some subterranean grotto. So he struck out for the shore.

The shore proved to be a precipitous wall; but finally, after groping along it for a way, he came to a ledge about a foot above the surface, and onto this ledge he pulled himself. Shedding his toga, he wrung it out, and finally massaged himself with it into a state resembling dryness. But his wings and false antennae were gone, and his radio apparatus seemed to be a hopeless mess.

At any rate, the air was fortunately not cold in the cave, so he lay down on the ledge and slept.