 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE BREAKING OF THE STORM When Lady Arabella had crept away in her usual noiseless fashion, the two others remained for a while in their places on the turret-roof. Caswell, because he had nothing to say. Mimi, because she had much to say and wished to put her thoughts in order. For quite a while, which seemed interminable, silence reigned between them. At last Mimi made a beginning. She had made up her mind how to act. "'Mr. Caswell,' she said loudly, so as to make sure of being heard through the blustering of the wind and the perpetual cracking of the electricity.' Caswell said something in reply, but his words were carried away on the storm. However one of her objects was affected. She knew now exactly whereabout on the roof he was, so she moved close to the spot before she spoke again, raising her voice almost to a shout. "'The wicket is shut. Please do open it. I can't get out.' As she spoke she was quietly fingering a revolver which Adam had given to her in case of emergency and which now lay in her breast. She felt that she was caged like a rat in a trap, but did not mean to be taken at a disadvantage whatever happened. Caswell also felt trapped, and all the brute in him rose to the emergency. And a voice which was raucous and brutal, much like that which is heard when a wife is being beaten by her husband in a slum, he hissed out, his syllables cutting through the roaring of the storm. You came of your own accord, without permission or even asking it. Now you can stay or go as you choose, but you must manage it for yourself. I'll have nothing to do with it.' Her answer was spoken with dangerous suavity. "'I am going. Blame yourself if you do not like the time and manner of it. I daresay Adam, my husband, will have a word to say to you about it.' "'Let him say, and be damned to him, and to you too. I'll show you a light. You shan't be able to say that you could not see what you were doing.' As he spoke he was lighting another piece of the magnesium ribbon, which made a blinding glare in which everything was plainly discernible, down to the smallest detail. This exactly suited Mimi. She took accurate note of the wicket, and it's fastening before the glare had died away. She took her revolver out and fired into the lock, which was shivered on the instant, the pieces flying round in all directions, but happily without causing hurt to anyone. Then she pushed the wicket open and ran down the narrow stair, and so to the hall door. Opening this also she ran down the avenue, never lessening her speed, till she stood outside the door of Lesser Hill. The door was open at once on her ringing. "'Is Mr. Adam Sultan in?' she asked. "'He has just come in a few minutes ago. He has gone up to the study,' replied his servant. She ran upstairs at once and joined him. He seemed relieved when he saw her, but scrutinized her face keenly. He saw that she had been in some concern, so led her over to the sofa in the window and sat down beside her. "'Now, dear, tell me all about it,' he said. She rushed breathlessly through all the details of her adventure on the turret roof. Adam listened attentively, helping her all he could, and not embarrassing her by any questioning. His thoughtful silence was a great help to her, for it allowed her to collect and organize her thoughts. "'I must go to Caswell to-morrow, to hear what he has to say on the subject.' "'But, dear, for my sake, don't have any quarrel with Mr. Caswell. I have had too much trial and pain lately to wish it increased by any anxiety regarding you. "'You shall not, dear, if I can help it. Please, God,' he said solemnly, and he kissed her. Then in order to keep her interested so that she might forget the fears and anxieties that had disturbed her, he began to talk over the details of her adventure, making shrewd comments which attracted and held her attention. Presently into alia, he said, "'That's a dangerous game, Caswell, is up to. It seems to me that that young man, though he doesn't appear to know it, is riding for a fall.' "'How, dear, I don't understand. Kite-flying on a night like this from a place like the Tower of Castor Regis is, to say the least of it, dangerous. It is not merely courting death or other accident from lightning, but it is bringing the lightning into where he lives. Every cloud that is blowing up there, and they all make for the highest point, is bound to develop into a flash of lightning. That kite is up in the air and is bound to attract the lightning. Its cord makes a road for it on which to travel to earth. When it does come, it will strike the top of the tower with a weight a hundred times greater than a whole park of artillery, and will knock Castor Regis into pieces. Where it will go after that no one can tell. If there should be any metal by which it can travel, such will not only point the road, but be the road itself. "'Would it be dangerous to be out in the open air when such a thing is taking place?' she asked. "'No, little woman. It would be the safest possible place, so long as one was not in the line of the electric current.' "'Then do let us go outside. I don't want to run into any foolish danger, or far more, to ask you to do so. But surely if the open is safest, that is the place for us.' Without another word she put on again the cloak she had thrown off and a small tight-fitting cap. Adam, too, put on his cap and, after seeing that his revolver was all right, gave her his hand and they left the house together. "'I think the best we can do will be to go around all the places which are mixed up in the affair.' "'All right, dear, I am ready. But if you don't mind, we might go first to mercy. I am anxious about grandfather, and we might see that, as yet at all events, nothing has happened there.' So they went on the high-hung road along the top of the brow. The wind here was of great force and made a strange booming noise as it swept high overhead, though not the sound of cracking and tearing as it passed through the woods of high-slender trees which grew on either side of the road. Mimmy could hardly keep her feet. She was not afraid, but the force to which she was opposed gave her a good excuse to hold on to her husband extra tight. At mercy there was no one up, at least all the lights were out, but to Mimmy, accustomed to the nightly routine of the house, there were manifest signs that all was well, except in the little room on the first floor where the blinds were down. Mimmy could not bear to look at that, to think of it. Adam understood her pain, for he had been keenly interested in poor Lilla. He bent over and kissed her, and then took her hand and held it hard. Thus they passed on together, returning to the high road towards Castor Regis. At the gate of Castor Regis they were extra careful. When drawing near, Adam stumbled upon the wire that Lady Arabella had left trailing on the ground. Adam drew his breath at this, and spoke in a low earnest whisper, I don't want to frighten you, Mimmy dear, but wherever that wire is there is danger. Danger, how? That is the track where the lightning will go. At any moment, even now, whilst we are speaking and searching, a fearful force may be loosed upon us. Run on, dear, you know the way to where the avenue joins the high road. If you see any sign of the wire, keep away from it, for God's sake. I shall join you at the gateway. Are you going to follow that wire alone? Yes, dear, one is sufficient for that work. I shall not lose a moment till I am with you. Adam, when I came with you into the open, my main wish was that we should be together if anything serious happened. You wouldn't deny me that right, would you, dear? No, dear, not that or any right. Thank God that my wife has such a wish. Come, we will go together. We are in the hands of God. If he wishes, we shall be together at the end, whenever or wherever that may be. They picked up the trail of the wire on the steps and followed it down the avenue, taking care not to touch it with their feet. It was easy enough to follow, for the wire, if not bright, was self-colored and showed clearly. They followed it out of the gateway and into the avenue of Diana's Grove. Here a new gravity clouded Adam's face, though Mimi saw no cause for fresh concern. This was easily enough explained. Adam knew of the explosive works in progress regarding the well-hole, but the matter had been kept from his wife. As they stood near the house, Adam asked Mimi to return to the road, ostensibly to watch the course of the wire, telling her that there might be a branch wire leading somewhere else. She was to search the undergrowth and, if she found it, was to warn him by the Australian native, Kuwee! Whilst they were standing together, there came a blinding flash of lightning which lit up for several seconds the whole area of earth and sky. It was only the first note of the celestial prelude, for it was followed in quick secession by numerous flashes, whilst the crash and roll of thunder seemed continuous. Adam, appalled, drew his wife to him and held her close. As far as he could estimate by the interval between lightning and thunderclap the heart of the storm was still some distance off, so he felt no present concern for their safety. Still it was apparent that the chorus of the storm was moving swiftly in their direction. The lightning flashes came faster and faster and closer together. The thunder roll was almost continuous, not stopping for a moment, a new crash beginning before the old one had ceased. Adam kept looking up in the direction where the kite strained and struggled at its detaining chord, but, of course, the dull evening light prevented any distinct scrutiny. At length there came a flash so appallingly bright that in its glare nature seemed to be standing still. So long did it last that there was time to distinguish its configuration. It seemed like a mighty tree inverted, pendant from the sky. The whole country around within the angle of vision was lit up till it seemed to glow. Then a broad ribbon of fire seemed to drop on to the castle of Castor Regis, just as the thunder crashed. By the glare Adam could see the tower shake and tremble and finally fall to pieces like a house of cards. The passing of the lightning left the sky again dark, but a blue flame fell downward from the tower and with inconceivable rapidity running along the ground in the direction of Diana's grove reached the dark silent house which in the instant burst into flame at a hundred different points. At the same moment there rose from the house a rending, crashing sound of woodwork broken or thrown about, mixed with a quick scream so appalling that Adam, stout of heart as he undoubtedly was, felt his blood turn into ice. Instinctively, despite the danger and their consciousness of it, husband and wife took hands and listened trembling. Something was going on close to them, mysterious, terrible, deadly. The shrieks continued, though less sharp in sound as though muffled, in the midst of them was a terrific explosion, seemingly from deep in the earth. The flames from Castor Regis and from Diana's grove made all around almost as light as day, and now that the lightning had ceased to flash, their eyes unblinded, were able to judge both perspective and detail. The heat of the burning house caused the iron doors to warp and collapse. Seemingly of their own accord they fell open and exposed to the interior. The sultans could now look through to the room beyond where the well-hole yawned, a deep narrow circular chasm. From this the agonized shrieks were rising, growing ever more terrible with each second that passed. But it was not only the heart-rending sound that almost paralyzed poor Mimi with terror. What she saw was sufficient to fill her with evil dreams for the remainder of her life. The whole place looked as if a sea of blood had been beating against it. Each of the explosions from below had thrown out from the well-hole, as it had been the mouth of a cannon, a mass of fine sand mixed with blood, and a horrible repulsive slime in which were great red masses of rent and torn flesh and fat. As the explosions kept on, more and more of this repulsive mass was shot up, the great bulk of it falling back again. Many of the awful fragments were of something which had lately been alive. They quivered and trembled and writhed as though they were still in torment, a supposition to which the unending scream gave a horrible credence. At moments more mountainous mass of flesh surged up through the narrow orifice as though forced by a measureless power through an opening infinitely smaller than itself. Some of these fragments were partially covered with white skin as of a human being, and others, the largest and most numerous, with scaled skin as of a gigantic lizard or serpent. Once in a sort of lull or pause the seething contents of the hole rose, after the manner of a bubbling spring, and Adam saw part of the thin form of Lady Arabella forced up to the top amid a mass of blood and slime, and what looked as if it had been the entrails of a monster torn into shreds. Several times some masses of enormous bulk were forced up through the well-hole with inconceivable violence, and suddenly expanding as they came into larger space disclosed sections of the white worm which Adam and Cernophaniel had been looking over the trees with its enormous eyes of emerald green flickering like great lamps in a gale. At last the explosive power which was not yet exhausted evidently reached the main store of dynamite which had been lowered into the wormhole. The result was appalling. The ground for far around quivered and opened in long deep chasms whose edges shook and fell in, throwing up clouds of sand which fell back and hissed amongst the rising water. The heavily built house shook to its foundations. Great stones were thrown up as from a volcano. Some of them, great masses of hard stone, squared and grooved with implements wrought by human hands, breaking up and splintering in mid-air as though riven by some infernal power. Trees near the house and therefore presumably in some way above the hole which sent up clouds of dust and steam and fine sand mingled and which carried an appalling stench which sickened the spectators, were torn up by the roots and hurled into the air. By now flames were bursting violently from all over the ruins so dangerously that Adam caught up his wife in his arms and ran with her from the proximity of the flames. Then almost as quickly as it had begun the whole cataclysm ceased. Though a deep down rumbling continued intermittently for some time, then silence brooded over all, silence so complete that it seemed in itself a sentient thing. Silence which seemed like incarnate darkness and conveyed the same idea to all who came within its radius. To the young people who had suffered the long horror of that awful night it brought relief, relief from the presence or the fear of all that was horrible, relief which seemed perfected when the red rays of sunrise shot up over the far eastern sea, bringing a promise of a new order of things with the coming day. His bed saw little of Adam Sultan for the remainder of that night. He and Mimi walked hand in hand in the brightening dawn round by the brow to castor Regis and on to Lesser Hill. They did so deliberately, in an attempt to think as little as possible of the terrible experiences of the night. The morning was bright and cheerful as a morning sometimes is after a devastating storm. The clouds of which there were plenty in evidence brought no lingering idea of gloom. All nature was bright and joyous, being in striking contrast to the scenes of wreck and devastation. The effects of obliterating fire and lasting ruin. The only evidence of the once stately pile of castor Regis and its inhabitants was a shapeless huddle of shattered architecture, dimly seen as the keen breeze swept aside the cloud of acrid smoke which marked the sight of the once lordly castle. As for Diana's grove they looked in vain for a sign which had a suggestion of permanence. The oak trees of the grove were still to be seen, some of them emerging from a haze of smoke, the great trunks solid and erect as ever, but the larger branch is broken and twisted and rent, with bark stripped and chipped, and the smaller branch is broken and disheveled, looking from the constant stress and threshing of the storm. Of the house as such there was, even at the short distance from which they looked, no trace. Adam resolutely turned his back on the devastation and hurried on. Mimi was not only upset and shocked in many ways, but she was physically dog-tired and falling asleep on her feet. Adam took her to her room and made her undress and get into bed, taking care that the room was well-lighted both by sunshine and the lamps. The only obstruction was from a silk curtain drawn across the window to keep out the glare. He sat beside her holding her hand, well knowing that the comfort of his presence was the best restorative for her. He stayed with her till sleep had overmastered her wearied body. Then he went softly away. He found his uncle and Sir Nathaniel in the study, having an early cup of tea, amplified to the dimensions of a possible breakfast. Adam explained that he had not told his wife that he was going over the horrible places again, lest it should frighten her, for the rest and sleep in ignorance would help her and make a gap of peacefulness between the horrors. Sir Nathaniel agreed. We know, my boy, he said, that the unfortunate Lady Arabella is dead and that the foul carcass of the worm had been torn to pieces. Pray God that its evil soul will never more escape from another most hell. They visited Diana's Grove first, not only because it was nearer but also because it was the place where most description was required, and Adam felt that he could tell his story best on the spot. The absolute destruction of the place and everything in it seemed in the broad daylight was almost inconceivable. To Sir Nathaniel it was as a story of horror full and complete, but to Adam it was, as it were, only on the fringes. He knew what was still to be seen when his friends had got over the knowledge of externals, as yet they had only seen the outside of the house, or rather, where the outside of the house once had been. The great horror lay within, however age and the experience of age counts. A strange, almost elemental change in the aspect had taken place in the time which had elapsed since the dawn. It would almost seem as if nature herself had tried to obliterate the evil signs of what had occurred. True, the utter ruin of the house was made even more manifest in the searching daylight, but the more appalling destruction which lay beneath was not visible. The rent torn and dislocated stonework looked worse than before. The upheaved foundations, the piled up fragments of masonry, the fissures in the torn earth, all were at the worst. The worm's hole was still evident, a round fissure seemingly leading down into the very bowels of the earth, but all the horrid mass of blood and slime, of torn, evil smelling flesh, and the sickening remnants of violent death were gone. Either some of the later explosions had thrown up from the deep quantities of water which, though foul and corrupt itself, had still some cleansing power left, or else the writhing mass, which stirred from far below, had helped to drag down and obliterate the items of horror. A gray dust partly of fine sand, partly of the waste of the falling ruin, covered everything, and though ghastly itself, helped to mask something still worse. After a few minutes of watching it became apparent to the three men that the turmoil far below had not yet ceased. At short irregular intervals the hell-broth in the hole seemed as if boiling up. It rose and fell again and turned over, showing in fresh form much of the nauseous detail which had been visible earlier. The worst parts were the great masses of the flesh of the monstrous worm, in all its red and sickening aspect. Such fragments had been bad enough before, but now they were infinitely worse. Corruption comes with startling rapidity to beings whose destruction has been due wholly or in part to lightning. The whole mass seemed to have become all at once corrupt. The whole surface of the fragments, once alive, was covered with insects, worms, and vermin of all kinds. The sight was horrible enough, but with the awful smell added was simply unbearable. The worm's hole appeared to breathe forth death in its most repulsive forms. The friends with one impulse moved to the top of the brow where a fresh breeze from the sea was blowing up. At the top of the brow, beneath them as they looked down, they saw a shining mass of white which looked strangely out of place amongst such wreckage as they had been viewing. It appeared so strange that Adam suggested trying to find a way down so that they might see it more closely. We need not go down, I know what it is, Sir Nathaniel said. The explosions of last night have blown off the outside of the cliffs. That which we see is the vast bed of china clay through which the worm originally found its way down to its lair. I can catch the glint of the water of the deep quags far down below. Well, her ladyship didn't deserve such a funeral or such a monument. The horrors of the last few hours had played such havoc with Mimi's nerves that a change of scene was imperative if a permanent breakdown was to be avoided. I think, said old Mr. Sultan, it is quite time you young people departed for that honeymoon of yours. There was a twinkle in his eyes as he spoke. Mimi's soft shy glance at her stalwart husband was sufficient answer. End of Chapter 28 End of The Lair of the White Worm by Brom Stoker.