The Greatest Sci-Fi Books of Erle Cox. Erle Cox
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Название: The Greatest Sci-Fi Books of Erle Cox
Автор: Erle Cox
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066389307
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Testing the pavement as he advanced, Dundas walked slowly towards the figure in the centre of the chamber. When he reached it and paused beneath it he was standing with the curtained archway right before him. So far so good, but he knew now from experience how little reliance could be placed on appearances, so he advanced with unabated caution. Prepared as he was for surprises, the one that overtook him was perhaps the one furthest from his thoughts. Without a sound or warning, and with overwhelming suddenness, he found himself in total darkness. It was not the misty darkness of night, but a dense impenetrable rayless blackness that could be almost felt. It was overpowering in its intensity. The shock of its coming held him motionless and petrified. On the instant he realised the peril of his position. He felt for his matches, and as he did so remembered they were lying on the table in the library where he had eaten his lunch. Holding himself well in hand, he tried to recollect his bearings from the entrance in order to try to regain the corridor. But even as he stood–and it could not have been for more than a few seconds– something else happened. Close beside him, so close that he almost cried out in amazement, was the sound of a long, deep human sigh. He swung round. Again it came, this time further away, but intensely real. Then he stood straining his senses in that horrible black stillness to catch the sound again, and, waiting, he realised that his movements had made him lose his bearings for the corridor.
How long he stood there he could not afterwards remember. It seemed ages until the crowning terror came and wiped all sense of time from his stricken mind. Suddenly the air about him seemed full of tremulous palpitating sound. It seemed as if, all about him, thronged a whispering ghostly multitude. For a little while the sound rose and fell, and seemed to die away in unmeasured distances. Then again came a little space of silence. Then the stillness was broken by a sound so awful that Dundas felt a cold sweat break out over his body. It was a shriek, inhuman and evil, that cut into the darkness again and again. The sound broke off suddenly, and was followed by a burst of horrible laughter. Then came a trampling and scuffling of feet around him, bestial snarls, shouts of laughter, and again silence. Alan stood with clenched hands fighting back the cry that rose to his lips. He dared not move. A single step in any direction might mean death, and yet he knew that his racked nerves could not stand the strain much longer. Again there came the sound of movement in the darkness, this time at a distance. Voices whispered tensely in some strange unknown tongue, and then came a sound more awful than anything yet. It was a groan of agony as though wrung by damnable tortures from some straining body. Somewhere near by a hellish work was being done. Some pain-racked creature writhed in hideous torment. There were guttural ejaculations, the clank of metal, then scream on scream pierced the paralysed listener through and through. He realised that the sounds were coming closer. The horrible darkness seemed full of bestial obscene ravings. He felt as if a legion of fiends surrounded him. Then close behind him the scream rang out again. The strain snapped, and sheer panic seized him. With a cry he rushed blindly away in the darkness, to be stopped by charging into a wall. Scarce feeling the shock of the impact, he ran forward again, heedless of where he went, for the scream had changed into a diabolic howling. Once more his wild rush was stopped. Reckless with fear, he blundered forward again. Then as he ran something soft and clinging enfolded him for a moment. With a wild shout he flung it away from him. His knees gave way beneath him, and with out-flung arms he fell to the floor.
Then came a great wonder. Even as he fell the sounds ceased, and the light burst out again, and, panting and half sobbing, he found himself lying with trembling limbs spread out on the pavement of the sixth gallery.
Chapter XIV
For a long time Alan lay face downwards, with his head resting on his arms to recover his scattered senses. That he had been the victim of a fiendish device he now realised, and the realisation that his panic was due to nothing but a trick did not serve to heighten his self-esteem. He told himself that he might have expected some such assault on his imagination. That it had been deliberately planned to break the nerve of the discoverer he felt sure, and, lying there, a nebulous idea came to his mind as to how it had worked. He felt very little consolation in the reflection that not one man in a thousand would have kept his head and his courage. "That's twice I've been scared stiff by nothing in this dashed museum. What a beastly nightmare it was while it lasted. I suppose if I had not been in such an infernal hurry to get in I would have found a warning in that book in the library." He sat up with a sigh, and looked round him. "Well, I'll be hanged if there seems to be much to make such a fuss about. Good Lord! Are they real?"
Alan pulled himself to his feet slowly and stood staring down the gallery. The great room, large as it was, was slightly shorter than the others–probably by as much as the width of the ante-chamber. Its contents were few in number, but as Alan looked them over he found they lacked nothing in interest. The whole of the far end nearest the main doorway from the vestibule was occupied by what appeared to be a small temple built within the gallery. It was about thirty feet wide and sixty feet long. The architecture was somewhat Grecian in design. Two steps the whole width of the front led up to a portico supported by two pillars at either end, and the middle of the front was filled by a closed doorway. Fairly in the centre of the gallery, and about twenty feet from the steps of the portico, was set a heavily built chair with a low back, and it was so placed that anyone occupying it would be seated squarely facing the temple. It was neither the temple nor the chair that had drawn the startled question from Alan's lips, and brought him to his feet.
The portico was occupied by three nude female figures. One stood leaning beside the doorway, with her arm outstretched, beckoning him forward. Another was reclining on the pavement near her feet, leaning on her elbow, with her other arm upraised. The third was seated on the step of the portico. One hand was clasped about her knee, while the forefinger of the other was pressed to her smiling lips with a gesture of mischievous mystery. Fascinated by their glorious beauty, Dundas walked slowly towards them. Each figure was the embodiment of perfect grace and loveliness, and the supreme craft that had moulded them had endowed them with all but life. What made the deception more perfect was the fact that the figures were tinted in such a manner that even when he stood close beside them he could scarcely realise that art, and not nature, had given them being. Alan looked from one smiling face to another. The spirit of mischief that animated the three found reflection in himself, and he raised his cap and bowed ceremoniously.
"Upon my word, girls, I don't wonder at your fuss when you heard me coming. If you'd only sent me word, I'd have waited until you had completed your toilet, although it looks as if you had been locked out and your raiment locked in. A most embarrassing situation, I'll admit." He looked up at the door in front of him. Across the lintel was blazoned a word in half a dozen characters of burnished gold on the black background. "Now, can either of you tell me," he asked, "whether that is the name of the cottage or the name of the owner? At the same time you might tell me how the deuce you managed to raise such an infernal (pardon the expression) row, and also which of you turned out the light? I don't think it was a friendly action, though it speaks more for your modesty than your sense of humour." His eyes roved round the gallery inquiringly. "I think, for my own peace of mind, I had better investigate those beastly noises first. Ah!" For the first time the peculiar appearance of the walls attracted his attention. There was no balcony here to detract from their height. They rose from floor to arched ceiling for forty feet unbroken. At the first glance they appeared to be covered with a vast perforated metal screen. Dundas walked up and down, and examined the screen closely Then he gave vent to a long whistle. The perforations were circular and varied in size from a foot in diameter down to less than an inch. They were closely set, and occupied every visible inch of space. Through their whole arrangement there ran a carefully carried-out series of artistic designs. What caused the whistle of enlightenment from Dundas was the discovery that the perforations СКАЧАТЬ