"They come!" whispered Rador. "Quick! We must not meet them here!"

And then--

"Holy St. Brigid!" gasped Larry.

From the rift in the tunnel's continuation, nigh a mile beyond the cleft through which we had fled, lifted a crown of horns--of tentacles--erect, alert, of mottled gold and crimson; lifted higher--and from a monstrous scarlet head beneath them blazed two enormous, obloid eyes, their depths wells of purplish phosph.o.r.escence; higher still--noseless, earless, chinless; a livid, worm mouth from which a slender scarlet tongue leaped like playing flames! Slowly it rose--its mighty neck cuira.s.sed with gold and scarlet scales from whose polished surfaces the amber light glinted like flakes of fire; and under this neck shimmered something like a palely luminous silvery shield, guarding it. The head of horror mounted--and in the shield's centre, full ten feet across, glowing, flickering, shining out--coldly, was a rose of white flame, a "flower of cold fire" even as Rador had said.

Now swiftly the Thing upreared, standing like a scaled tower a hundred feet above the rift, its eyes scanning that movement I had seen along the course of its lair. There was a hissing; the crown of horns fell, whipped and writhed like the tentacles of an octopus; the towering length dropped back.

"Quick!" gasped Rador and through the fern moss, along the path and down the other side of the steep we raced.

Behind us for an instant there was a rushing as of a torrent; a far-away, faint, agonized screaming--silence!

"No fear _now_ from those who followed," whispered the green dwarf, pausing.

"Sainted St. Patrick!" O'Keefe gazed ruminatively at his automatic.

"An' he expected me to kill _that_ with this. Well, as Fergus O'Connor said when they sent him out to slaughter a wild bull with a potato knife: 'Ye'll niver rayilize how I appreciate the confidence ye show in me!'

"What was it, Doc?" he asked.

"The dragon worm!" Rador said.

"It was Helvede Orm--the h.e.l.l worm!" groaned Olaf.

"There you go again--" blazed Larry; but the green dwarf was hurrying down the path and swiftly we followed, Larry muttering, Olaf mumbling, behind me.

The green dwarf was signalling us for caution. He pointed through a break in a grove of fifty-foot cedar mosses--we were skirting the gla.s.sy road! Scanning it we found no trace of Lugur and wondered whether he too had seen the worm and had fled. Quickly we pa.s.sed on; drew away from the _coria_ path. The mosses began to thin; less and less they grew, giving way to low clumps that barely offered us shelter. Unexpectedly another screen of fern moss stretched before us.

Slowly Rador made his way through it and stood hesitating.

The scene in front of us was oddly weird and depressing; in some indefinable way--dreadful. Why, I could not tell, but the impression was plain; I shrank from it. Then, self-a.n.a.lyzing, I wondered whether it could be the uncanny resemblance the heaps of curious mossy fungi scattered about had to beast and bird--yes, and to man--that was the cause of it. Our path ran between a few of them. To the left they were thick. They were viridescent, almost metallic hued--verd-antique.

Curiously indeed were they like distorted images of dog and deerlike forms, of birds--of _dwarfs_ and here and there the simulacra of the giant frogs! Spore cases, yellowish green, as large as mitres and much resembling them in shape protruded from the heaps. My repulsion grew into a distinct nausea.

Rador turned to us a face whiter far than that with which he had looked upon the dragon worm.

"Now for your lives," he whispered, "tread softly here as I do--and speak not at all!"

He stepped forward on tiptoe, slowly with utmost caution. We crept after him; pa.s.sed the heaps beside the path--and as I pa.s.sed my skin crept and I shrank and saw the others shrink too with that unnameable loathing; nor did the green dwarf pause until he had reached the brow of a small hillock a hundred yards beyond. And he was trembling.

"Now what are we up against?" grumbled O'Keefe.

The green dwarf stretched a hand; stiffened; gazed over to the left of us beyond a lower hillock upon whose broad crest lay a file of the moss shapes. They fringed it, their mitres having a grotesque appearance of watching what lay below. The glistening road lay there--and from it came a shout. A dozen of the _coria_ cl.u.s.tered, filled with Lugur's men and in one of them Lugur himself, laughing wickedly!

There was a rush of soldiers and up the low hillock raced a score of them toward us.

"Run!" shouted Rador.

"Not much!" grunted Larry--and took swift aim at Lugur. The automatic spat: Olaf's echoed. Both bullets went wild, for Lugur, still laughing, threw himself into the protection of the body of his sh.e.l.l.

But following the shots, from the file of moss heaps on the crest, came a series of m.u.f.fled explosions. Under the pistol's concussions the mitred caps had burst and instantly all about the running soldiers grew a cloud of tiny, glistening white spores--like a little cloud of puff-ball dust many times magnified. Through this cloud I glimpsed their faces, stricken with agony.

Some turned to fly, but before they could take a second step stood rigid.

The spore cloud drifted and eddied about them; rained down on their heads and half bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s, covered their garments--and swiftly they began to change! Their features grew indistinct--merged! The glistening white spores that covered them turned to a pale yellow, grew greenish, spread and swelled, darkened. The eyes of one of the soldiers glinted for a moment--and then were covered by the swift growth!

Where but a few moments before had been men were only grotesque heaps, swiftly melting, swiftly rounding into the semblance of the mounds that lay behind us--and already beginning to take on their gleam of ancient viridescence!

The Irishman was gripping my arm fiercely; the pain brought me back to my senses.

"Olaf's right," he gasped. "This _is_ h.e.l.l! I'm sick." And he was, frankly and without restraint. Lugur and his others awakened from their nightmare; piled into the _coria_, wheeled, raced away.

"On!" said Rador thickly. "Two perils have we pa.s.sed--the Silent Ones watch over us!"

Soon we were again among the familiar and so unfamiliar moss giants.

I knew what I had seen and this time Larry could not call me--superst.i.tious. In the jungles of Borneo I had examined that other swiftly developing fungus which wreaks the vengeance of some of the hill tribes upon those who steal their women; gripping with its microscopic hooks into the flesh; sending quick, tiny rootlets through the skin down into the capillaries, sucking life and thriving and never to be torn away until the living thing it clings to has been sapped dry. Here was but another of the species in which the development's rate was incredibly accelerated. Some of this I tried to explain to O'Keefe as we sped along, rea.s.suring him.

"But they turned to moss before our eyes!" he said.

Again I explained, patiently. But he seemed to derive no comfort at all from my a.s.surances that the phenomena were entirely natural and, aside from their more terrifying aspect, of peculiar interest to the botanist.

"I know," was all he would say. "But suppose one of those things had burst while we were going through--G.o.d!"

I was wondering how I could with comparative safety study the fungus when Rador stopped; in front of us was again the road ribbon.

"Now is all danger pa.s.sed," he said. "The way lies open and Lugur has fled--"

There was a flash from the road. It pa.s.sed me like a little lariat of light. It struck Larry squarely between the eyes, spread over his face and drew itself within!

"Down!" cried Rador, and hurled me to the ground. My head struck sharply; I felt myself grow faint; Olaf fell beside me; I saw the green dwarf draw down the O'Keefe; he collapsed limply, face still, eyes staring. A shout--and from the roadway poured a host of Lugur's men; I could hear Lugur bellowing.

There came a rush of little feet; soft, fragrant draperies brushed my face; dimly I watched Lakla bend over the Irishman.

She straightened--her arms swept out and the writhing vine, with its tendrilled heads of ruby bloom, five flames of misty incandescence, leaped into the faces of the soldiers now close upon us. It darted at their throats, striking, coiling, and striking again; coiling and uncoiling with incredible rapidity and flying from leverage points of throats, of faces, of b.r.e.a.s.t.s like a spring endowed with consciousness, volition and hatred--and those it struck stood rigid as stone with faces masks of inhuman fear and anguish; and those still unstricken fled.

Another rush of feet--and down upon Lugur's forces poured the frog-men, their booming giant leading, thrusting with their lances, tearing and rending with talons and fangs and spurs.

Against that onslaught the dwarfs could not stand. They raced for the sh.e.l.ls; I heard Lugur shouting, menacingly--and then Lakla's voice, pealing like a golden bugle of wrath.

"Go, Lugur!" she cried. "Go--that you and Yolara and your Shining One may die together! Death for you, Lugur--death for you all! Remember Lugur--death!"

There was a great noise within my head--no matter, Lakla was here--Lakla here--but too late--Lugur had outplayed us; moss death nor dragon worm had frightened him away--he had crept back to trap us--Lakla had come too late--Larry was dead--Larry! But I had heard no banshee wailing--and Larry had said he could not die without that warning--no, Larry was not dead. So ran the turbulent current of my mind.

A h.o.r.n.y arm lifted me; two enormous, oddly gentle saucer eyes were staring into mine; my head rolled; I caught a glimpse of the Golden Girl kneeling beside the O'Keefe.

The noise in my head grew thunderous--was carrying me away on its thunder--swept me into soft, blind darkness.

CHAPTER XXIV

The Crimson Sea