Ch. 10: Bubbling Well Road - Page 2

hands before the face, or to back into it,
leaving both hands free to manage the rifle. None the less it was a
path, and valuable because it might lead to a place.

At the end of nearly fifty yards of fair way, just when I was preparing
to back into an unusually stiff tussock, I missed Mr. Wardle, who for
his girth is an unusually frivolous dog and never keeps to heel. I
called him three times and said aloud, 'Where has the little beast gone
to?' Then I stepped backwards several paces, for almost under my feet a
deep voice repeated, 'Where has the little beast gone?' To appreciate an
unseen voice thoroughly you should hear it when you are lost in stifling
jungle-grass. I called Mr. Wardle again and the underground echo
assisted me. At that I ceased calling and listened very attentively,
because I thought I heard a man laughing in a peculiarly offensive
manner. The heat made me sweat, but the laughter made me shake. There is
no earthly need for laughter in high grass. It is indecent, as well as
impolite. The chuckling stopped, and I took courage and continued to
call till I thought that I had located the echo somewhere behind and
below the tussock into which I was preparing to back just before I lost
Mr. Wardle. I drove my rifle up to the triggers, between the grass-stems
in a downward and forward direction. Then I waggled it to and fro, but
it did not seem to touch ground on the far side of the tussock as it
should have done. Every time that I grunted with the exertion of driving
a heavy rifle through thick grass, the grunt was faithfully repeated
from below, and when I stopped to wipe my face the sound of low laughter
was distinct beyond doubting.

I went into the tussock, face first, an inch at a time, my mouth open
and my eyes fine, full, and prominent. When I had overcome the
resistance of the grass I found that I was looking straight across a
black gap in the ground--that I was actually lying on my chest leaning
over the mouth of a well so deep I could scarcely see the water in it.

There were things in the water,--black things,--and the water was as
black as pitch with blue scum atop. The laughing sound came from the
noise of a little spring, spouting half-way down one side of the well.
Sometimes as the black things circled round, the trickle from the spring
fell upon their tightly-stretched skins, and then the laughter changed
into a sputter of mirth. One thing turned over on its back, as I
watched, and drifted round and round the circle of the mossy brickwork
with a hand and half an arm held clear of the water in a stiff and
horrible flourish, as though it were a very wearied guide paid to
exhibit the beauties of the place.

I did not spend more than half-an-hour in creeping round that