Chapter XIX: Outside the Temple

The two white men were overcome with a feeling of stupefaction.

The night, bitter cold, descended upon them and chilled their bodies, but they did not feel the bite of the cold: they could think of nothing but watching. Settled on the platforms the tribe was taking its evening meal. Before the fire silhouettes were ranged like phantoms, and their shadows, grotesquely exaggerated, were flung against the rock, where they jerked about and disappeared suddenly with enormous gestures and fantastic distortions. A smell of roasting flesh floated down the valley in thick waves. Now and again a body, elongated by the flickering light of the fires, appeared momentarily, and the brown fur with which he was clothed shone out for a second with a bizarre effect. The hunters were grouped round the fires in bands of six; some women, a dozen or so of children and some old men joined them. Behind them yawned the caverns. From time to time could be heard the crackling of a stick in the fires or the snapping of a bone under the blows of a hatchet.

When the meal was over the feasters gave themselves up to a period of relaxation. The tribe, gorged with food and stupefied by the heat of the fires, lay lounging about the platforms. Men's voices, rough and monotonous, rose and fell. They spoke little, accompanying their short phrases with gestures and signs. Here and there a laugh rang out and echoed in crude and guttural tones against the cliff. In a corner of the nearest platform near the opening of the cave the skin of the beast, the flesh of which had provided the feast, was drying, stretched out on four stakes with its head hanging down. In the clear light of the fires it stood out distinctly. The missionary examined with profound interest the enormous black hairy pelt. The massive skull surmounted by a rounded forehead accentuated by two great lumps, the gaping muzzle with its formidable teeth left no doubt in his mind.

"_Ursus spelæus_--the cave bear," he whispered, "the usual prey of primitive man, and the one of which most bones have been found in the caves of Aurignac, of Sainte-Reine, of Fontaine, of Moutier and of Lhern.

The old men, the women and children, now rising, went back into their caverns. A youngster, before disappearing, stopped for a moment in front of the skin and amused himself by banging the heavy muzzle with slaps of his open hand. The enormous snout thus put into motion began to swing backwards and forwards, while at each stroke a drop of blood fell, which the child caught in mid-air in the palm of his hand and licked up.

A sharp command sounded from the group of men, and the youngster stopped his game, hastened into the cave and was lost to sight.

Left alone, the hunters spread round the fires prolonged their session. From time to time one of them would rise, draw his powerful body erect and give a long stretch, then sitting down once more would stretch his hands towards the flame. Others worked: a round stone in their heavy hands, and another piece of stone between their knees, they shaped the flint by little precise, minute blows, at which, sparking, the chips flew up and scattered around the workman. Now and again, neglecting their task for a minute, they lifted their heads and looked down into the bottom of the ravine. At such moments their faces, lit up with the red gleams of the fires, revealed themselves as primitive and violent.

Two hours passed thus; then as the fog became denser they shook themselves one by one and disappeared into their caves.

The empty platforms suddenly seemed larger: the fires, piled up for the night, shot their lights higher and further before the caverns: their circles of purple light were the only things left to watch throughout the night.

* * * * *

They waited another hour, then Lursac, turning towards the priest, said:

"They must be asleep now ... let us go on."

They began to move forward cautiously, and stole along the foot of the cliff. Keeping under cover of the shadows at its base they passed quickly in front of the caves and gained the shelter of the grassy passage. They worked in the direction of the plain and the further forest: the grasses among which they slowly forced their way came up to their waists and their clothes were soon nothing but wet, cold sheaths bound tight against their bodies.

At last they reached the plain, and the going became easier and faster. When they turned their heads from time to time they could see behind them like a long silvered plaque, each time a little smaller and less distinct, the motionless surface of the marsh, and on the left, high up, the seven fires marking the entrance to the caverns. In front of them the threshold of the wood towards which they were moving became clearer every moment, and between the cliffs which were beginning to close in towards each other the darkness seemed denser and denser.

Pierre walked ahead. With an instinctive motion, thinking of the skin of the cave-bear killed by the clan, he loosened his revolver in its holster and pulled it out when they found themselves among the first trees of the forest. However, this second forest proved to be less dense than the one which they had crossed in the morning, and it was seamed with long tracks, narrow paths it is true, but quite possible to follow. One of them bearing somewhat to the right followed close to the base of the cliff. This one they took. As near as they were able to make it out, it ran in a southerly direction following closely the very juts and hollows of the cliff. They followed it for a long time. Occasionally the flight of some invisible animal, an unknown roaring, or a cry which they did not recognize made them stop. At other times the bushes thrust apart by the passage of some animal that they could not see crashed together loudly, the noise being magnified by the stillness of the night, and they stood rooted to the spot until the noises ceased. The alarm past, they pursued their way. Fatigue, however, began to weigh on their limbs and to cloud their minds. As they walked their motions became no more than a succession of automatic movements. The dark, however, now became less opaque and a diffused light began to flow between the leaves. Raising their heads in the middle of a clearing, they saw above them, bound in a watery halo, a dull reddish moon swimming in the sky. A few minutes afterwards they stopped. The forest had come to an end. Between it and the extremity of the ravine a belt of ground studded with low bushes sloped gradually upward and terminated in a dark line which seemed to be that of a foundation wall, above which, rising to about half the height of the cliffs against which their irregular mass was silhouetted, buildings arose. Against the grayish sky, roofs could be seen in profile, and springing above them, still higher and more clearly visible, the pointed shadows of four towers in a circle.

"The temple!" whispered Pierre.

Without making any answer the priest continued his advance. Gliding from bush to bush they made their way up towards the buildings and reached a sort of long, narrow platform. Before them in the solid shadow stretched a heaped-up mass of rocks.

Father Ravennes looked up; the roofs seemed far above him.

"Let us rest till daylight," he advised, sitting down.

Pierre assented. An immense fatigue gnawed at his powers of endurance. His arms and legs were stiff with strain and his heavy lids weighed upon his eyes. He flung himself down on the ground and stretched out alongside of the missionary.

For a moment his mind remained sentient and he began to make plans and to consider chances for the rescue of Wanda.

The temple, swathed in darkness, seemed deserted. There was no noise, no light. The moon, covered with a blanket of clouds, disappeared, and suddenly the darkness became thicker yet.

The cry of an owl somewhere in the direction of the forest rang through the night, and from the sallow down-bearing sky a cold mist floated.

Overpowered by exhaustion, Pierre fell asleep. The priest bent over him. Twisted in an uncomfortable position, his face creased with nervous lines, the young man began talking out loud in his sleep, and his incoherent words as well as his panting breath revealed the nightmare from which he was suffering. In his fevered brain recollections, images drawn from the depths of his memory--his arrival at the Post, the course of the expedition--were mixed with visions called up by Father Ravennes: the continent of Gondwana and its vanished fauna; its prehistoric inhabitants; giant trees of Africa, Australia, America; the aurochs; the death of Ngur and Pâa, fantastic silhouettes of the temple; the sorceresses; Jieng, the mammoths--were all tangled together to form a grotesque and disordered circle turning about one clear central figure that dominated them, that of Wanda.

The missionary, perceiving how he suffered, thought of waking him; but he shook his head:

"What is the good?" he murmured. "There is nothing to do now but to have patience; and however tormented his sleep is, it will at any rate enable him to gather a little strength!"

Thoughtfully he watched the sombre mass of the buildings stretching upwards in the darkness. The cold made him shiver, so he got up and walked a while along the platform. Then he came back to his place by Lursac, and sitting with his back against a rock he took his rosary and slowly began to recite the prayers.