Читать книгу The Color out of Space and Other Mystery Stories / «Цвет из иных миров» и другие мистические истории - Говард Лавкрафт, Говард Филлипс Лавкрафт, Adolphe de Castro - Страница 4

The horrible conclusion I had made was now an awful reality. I was lost, completely lost, in the vast maze of the Mammoth Cave. I turned left and right, but I could not see in any direction any guidepost to show me the way to the right path out of the cave. I thought I would never see the light of day, or the pleasant hills of the beautiful world outside.

The last hope had left me. Yet, I was an educated man, so I did not panic. I had often read of the poor victims who went immediately crazy and hysterical in such situations. I had none of this. I stood calm and quiet when I clearly realized that I had lost my way. I also suspected I had probably walked far beyond the limits of a usual search. If I must die, I decided, then this could be as good a place as any.

My disaster was the result of no one’s fault except my own. Without telling the guide, I had left the group of sightseers and wandered for over an hour in the forbidden parts of the cave. And now I could not find the way back to my companions.

The light of my torch had already begun to fade. Soon I would be surrounded by the total blackness of the earth. As I stood in the dying light, I wondered what exactly my end would be. Starving would kill me, I was sure of this. I remembered the stories which I had heard of the colony of people, who had gone to live in a gigantic cave to find health from the air of the underground world, with its steady temperature and peaceful quiet. Instead, they had found death in strange circumstances. I had seen the sad remains of their cottages as I passed them by with the other sightseers, and had wondered what unnatural effect this cave would have on me. Now, I told myself, I had a chance to find it out.

As the last light of my torch faded, I decided to make sure[16]I had done everything possible to escape. So I started shouting loudly in the vain hope of attracting the attention of the guide. Yet, as I called, I believed in my heart that my cries were useless, and that my voice, reflected by the black maze, could not be heard by anyone.

Suddenly, however, I was startled because I thought that I heard the sound of soft steps on the rocky floor of the cave. Would I be saved so soon? Was it the guide who had noticed my absence and was now looking for me in this limestone maze? The steps were coming closer. I was going to shout again when I froze and listened in horror. In the total silence of the cave these footsteps were not like those of any mortal man. The steps of the guide wearing boots would have sounded like blows. These ones were soft, as of the paws of a cat. Besides, at times, when I listened carefully, I seemed to hear four instead of two feet.

I was now sure that I had attracted some wild beast by my cries, maybe a mountain lion which had lived within the cave. Perhaps, I thought, God had chosen for me a quicker death than that of hunger. Yet the instinct of self-preservation[17] was waking up inside me, and I decided to fight for my life. So I became very quiet, in the hope that the unknown beast would lose its way[18] and pass me by. But it was hopeless because the strange footsteps were coming closer. Perhaps the animal could smell me from a great distance.

I needed a weapon to protect myself against an unseen attack in the dark, so I picked two pieces of rock which were lying around me on the floor of the cave, and, holding one in each hand, I waited. Meanwhile, the paws came near. Certainly, the behavior of the creature was very strange. Most of the time, I heard four footsteps, yet sometimes I thought I could hear only two moving feet. I wondered what animal it was. I thought it could be some unfortunate beast who had also lost its way in that cave. It had been eating fish, bats, and rats of the cave. I tried to imagine the physical features of the beast. But then I remembered that even if I killed it, I would never be able to see it. My torch had long since died[19], and I did not have any matches. Nearer, nearer, the dreadful footsteps came. I wanted to scream, but I could not. I was terrified and frozen to the spot. I doubted if my arm would throw the stone at the oncoming thing when the right moment came.

Now the steady pat, pat of the steps was close, very close. I could hear the heavy breathing of the animal and realized that it must have come from a great distance and was tired. Suddenly the spell broke. My right hand threw the piece of limestone toward that point in the darkness from which the heavy breathing came. I must have missed because I heard the thing jump at a distance away, where it seemed to pause.

Then I threw my second stone, this time quite successfully because I listened with joy as the creature fell down and never moved again. Relieved, I leaned against the wall. Then I heard heavy breathing in gasps and realized that I had just wounded the creature. I had no wish to examine the thing. I did not come near the body, nor did I throw more stones at it. Instead, I ran at full speed in what was, as far as I could guess, the direction from which I had come. Suddenly, I heard a sound, and then regular sounds. This time there was no doubt. It was the guide. And then I shouted, yelled, screamed with joy as I saw the faint light of a torch. I ran to meet him, and before I knew it, I was on the ground at the feet of the guide, babbling, telling my terrible story, and at the same time thanking God and my savior. Some time later I became my normal self. The guide had noticed my absence when the group returned to the entrance of the cave and started checking all the by-passages, looking for me for about four hours.

By the time he had told me this, I, brave in his company, told him about the strange beast which I had wounded. It was only a short distance back in the darkness, and I suggested that we go and see what kind of creature my victim was. So we went deeper into the cave, to the scene of my terrible experience. Soon we found a white object on the floor – an object even whiter than the limestone itself. The monster appeared to be a large ape. Its hair was snow-white, mostly on the head, where it was so long that it fell over the shoulders. The face was turned away from us, as the creature lay almost face down. The limbs looked strange, which explained why the beast used sometimes all four, and sometimes two for its movement. There were long claws on the tips of its fingers or toes. The hands or feet were crooked, probably due to living in the cave for so long. There seemed to be no tail.

The breathing had now become very feeble, and the guide had taken out his gun to shoot the creature, when a sudden sound made by the beast made him drop the weapon. The sound was difficult to describe. It was not like the normal note of any known species, and I wondered if this was the result of living in complete silence for so long. The sound continued, and then, all of a sudden, a spasm of energy seemed to pass through the body of the beast. With a jerk, the white body rolled over and turned its face to us. For a moment, I was so shocked that I did not see anything else except the eyes. They were black, deep black. As I looked more closely, I saw that they were set in a face differently than those of the average ape. The nose was quite big too. As we looked at it, the thick lips opened, and several sounds came out, after which the thing relaxed in death.

The guide was trembling so violently that the torch light shook, casting weird shadows[20] on the walls around us. I did not move, but stood still, my horrified eyes fixed on the floor.

Eventually, fear left, and then there was only wonder and awe because the sounds made by that figure that lay dead on the limestone had told us the terrible truth. The creature I had killed, the strange beast of the cave was, or had once been, a man!