Then the rows of somber high stalagmites emerged from the darkness again. They stood like an immobile army of limestone troops, whimsically reflecting the light from the lamps and casting pitch-black shadows. For thousands of years they had been standing there, and they would remain standing for thousands of years into the future, watching the millenia pass. The enigmatic Pronis, prior to writing his testament, drawing his map, and carving it into the lid of the chest to be hidden behind a stone wall, must have passed through these majestic chambers, descending deeper and deeper into the subterranean world. For whom had he hidden the chest? He must have been a courageous man to have wandered all alone through such somber and menacing places.
“How beautiful and how unusual!” uttered Lida under her breath in excitement. “To think that all this has been created by no more than dripping water and limestone! Tiny drops falling from the ceiling, leaving imperceptible deposits of dissolved limestone… How long it must have taken for those giants to grow to their present size and form all these fantastic shapes!”
Artem understood Lida’s feelings very well, because he himself was impressed: he had never seen anything like it before!
“Rockslide ahead!” Dmitro Borisovich called out. “The way is blocked.”
Another barrier? Would they have to turn back without reaching their destination?
The path, meandering among the stalagmites, had taken them to the opposite wall of the cave and ended there.
Everybody stood in gloomy silence, eyeing the new hindrance. How thick was it? Would it be possible to get through? No one could provide an answer. Huge pieces of rock and earth seemed to have been tossed just at that spot on purpose by a hostile monster.
“Diana, what’s the matter?” Ivan Semenovich asked the dog.
The boxer, who had so far been running quietly at her master’s side — it was not her first trip underground with him, after all — barked fiercely and sharply again and again. She was standing before the rockfall, her muscles taut, her body straining forward, and seemed to be trembling with rage. She was staring at the rocks and earth blocking their way as if they were something alive and hostile. Another bark — worried and aggressive at the same time! Then the dog began to move away slowly.
The people exchanged worried glances: the dog’s reaction to the obstacle had puzzled them greatly as Diana had always been vivacious and friendly. What had come over her? Ivan Semenovich spoke in an attempt to dispell the gloom:
“Well, my friends,” he said as though nothing unusual had taken place. “It seems to me that Diana has expressed the feeling we all share: the rockfall is our common enemy! She doesn’t have any other means of expressing her reaction to a potential enemy except for barking…”
A well-presented and timely joke can work wonders. It can dispell a bad mood, cheer a body, make someone smile. And the transition from a smile to laughter, to more funny jokes, and even to genuine cheerfulness is an easy one. Ivan Semenovich knew all this very well. So he noted with satisfaction that even Lida who had been affected by the incident more than anyone else, smiled in response to his words.
“Let’s discuss what we can do in the present situation,” the geologist said. “Artem, what does your friend Pronis’s map suggest?”
“Unfortunately, nothing, Ivan Semenovich. Apparently, Pronis could not have foreseen a rockfall at this spot. According to the map, a narrowing of the passage should occur, or perhaps the beginning of another corridor where we have this blockage now. Then, there should be two forks, one after the other, further along the way. And then the passage seems to come to an end. If it weren’t for this obstacle, we would be very close to our destination… What a bad stroke of luck!”
“Well, it’s here and we can’t do anything about it!” Dmitro Borisovich muttered in annoyance. “It can ignore you, but you can’t ignore it, my over-confident young man!”
“Restrain yourselves, my friends! Show some restraint. We have not yet decided what’s to be done. Here are the facts: beyond the obstacle lies the route we should follow; the obstacle, to put it mildly, is a major one,” Ivan Semenovich remarked, raising the lamp to light up the huge pieces of rock and earth in front of them as if to size them up. “It’d be rather difficult to move all this. Hence, the solution to the problem. A very simple and reasonable solution. The only acceptable solution for anyone who doesn’t suffer from explorer’s itch.”
The silence that followed was pregnant with meaning.
“What solution do you have in mind?’ Artem asked impatiently.
“To turn back and return with workers and all the necessary equipment to dig through the rockfall in accordance with the regulations for conducting subterranean work. That’s the most reasonable thing to do — provided, I reiterate, the people involved do not suffer from explorer’s itch.”
“Oh no!” Lida and Artem cried out simultaneously. Dmitro Borisovich shook his head disapprovingly. It was clear no one wanted to postpone the attempt to get through.
Ivan Semenovich laughed happily.
“I must admit I expected just such a response,” he said, his tone filled with intrigue. “What a powerful thing this explorer’s itch is! I have to confess I’m not entirely free of it myself. So, to cut short any further argument over the retreat, let’s come up with a second solution to our problem.”
Everybody looked at him in expectation. Even the dog raised her head, looking at the geologist as if in proof of Lida’s conviction that she understood everything perfectly well but lacked only the ability to speak.
“The second solution is the following: to try to make our way through right now,” Ivan Semenovich said quietly.
“But how?” Dmitro Borisovich flashed a bespectacled glance at him. “What can we actually do with this rockfall pow?”
“Dig through.”
“Dig through without any help? There are thousands of tons of earth and limestone in front of us blocking our way. How can we get through without any heavy tools? Without many strong hands to help? With only our light pickaxes? I must say that your suggestion is, at best, groundless optimism,” fumed Dmitro Borisovich, his indignation mostly for effect. “I would never have expected such flippancy from you, Ivan Semenovich.”
“As a matter of fact, Dmitro Borisovich, optimism, as far as I’m concerned, can never do any harm,” the geologist retorted merrily. “Especially, when it is not so groundless as you assume, as you’ll have a chance to learn in a short while. Your impulsiveness, on the contrary, can hardly do any good. That’s the way it is, my dear archeologist! And I am not suggesting that we move all these thousands of tons of rocks with our rather weak hands. Now take a look, and tell me what you think of my preliminary calculations, or rather my ideas.”
He raised his lamp to light up the huge pile of rocks. The two giant stalagmites, standing like gateposts, were almost completely buried under the earth and rocks.
“I think we could attempt a breakthrough at this section. According to Pronis’s map, here, between these two stalagmites, another subterranean corridor or narrowing of the cave should begin. Is that so, Artem?”
“Yes, that’s correct, Ivan Semenovich.”
“So I think that at this spot it’s not thousands, or even hundreds tons of rock and earth that block our way but much less. Look: it’s mostly earth, a lot of it, true, but if you train your eyes upward, you’ll see that between the stalactites and tips of the stalagmites there sits a huge piece of rock, that looks like a pentagon. It was this rock which blocked the earth that was pouring down during the rock- fall. So, I would hazard a guess that in this section of the infall between these two stalagmites, only a thin wall of mostly soft earth has built up. It should be no more than a meter or so thick. So a mere meter of earth separates us from the passage we want to explore. You seem to be very sceptical, Dmitro Borisovich, so let’s see if I’m right.”
The geologist struck the wall of the rockfall to the right of the stalagmite, half buried in earth, which formed the right-hand post of their imaginary gate, watched as he did so by the distrustful archeologist. The sound of the impact was dull. Artem glanced at Lida surreptitiously: such a sound indicated that the wall was of considerable thickness. But Ivan Semenovich moved on, listening to the sound of the pickaxe striking the wall. When he hit the stalagmite itself, the sound was of a different, ringing quality.
“Isn’t it natural for crystallized limestone to ring when struck?” asked the mistrustful archeologist. “That doesn’t mean a thing yet, Ivan Semenovich, since the limestone…” He stopped short as the geologist struck the wall between the two stalagmites. There was definite change in the sound, suggesting there was a hollow space beyond the wall of earth. The indistinct echo died out only several seconds later.
“What do you say now?”
Ivan Semenovich lowered his pickaxe.
“It seems… it seems…” Dmitro Borisovich was hesitant. It was difficult to say for sure whether the blockage was too big or not — but now there was at least hope of getting through and moving forward. The archeologist grabbed his friend’s hand in a gesture of appreciation and said enthusiastically:
“I believe you’re right! No further proof is necessary!”
“Let’s consider the argument closed,” Ivan Semenovich announced solemnly, “and get down to work, my friends.”
The four pickaxes were raised in the air at almost the same time, but two struck a split second sooner, for Artem was eager to do something, and the archeologist was impatient to make up for time lost in futile argument. The strokes rained, sending stones and earth to the foot of the wall.
“One… two… one… two,” Artem paced himself putting all his strength into the blows. The others worked in silence. The pickaxes flew in a measured tempo, striking the earth and sending echoes through the cave.
Lida stopped for a moment to wipe the perspiration from her forehead. It seemed to her that the reverberations from beyond the wall were louder. Were they really making progress? She had to get back to work; there would be time to rest later.
Artem did not slacken his efforts. His pickaxe rose and fell with swift, mechanical precision. The hole in front of him was growing perceptibly. Stroke after stroke after stroke, without a letup.
Then his pickaxe suddenly slipped into an empty space beyond the wall. Before Artem had time to realize what had happened, grayish smoke began billowing from the hole with a whistling, hissing sound, covering the handle in a moment.
“Hold it!” Ivan Semenovich cried out, alarmed.
A jet of gray smoke shot from the small opening made by Artem’s last stroke. It was coming out under great pressure like water from a fire hose, sizzling and spreading in the air, sinking slowly to the ground. It flowed down in waves, burying the feet of the four people.
The alarmed dog began barking furiously. She jumped onto a broken stalagmite with a flat top and standing there, went on barking resentfully at the spurting smoke.
“What kind of gas is it?” asked Lida in a half-puzzled half-frightened voice, stirring the thick gray waves at her feet with the pickaxe.
Nobody knew the answer. It was definitely not mine gas since it had not exploded or caught fire when it came in touch with the flames of their miner’s lamps. Besides, the limestone environment was not conducive to the natural production of the mine gas. The archeologist, greatly intrigued, together with the rest, watched the gas flow down the slope like some viscous liquid. Then he stopped over and scooped a handful of the strange gas. It swayed in an elipsoid cloud in his palm without dissolving into the air or even dissipating. A very strange phenomenon indeed. Dmitro Borisovich sniffed the gas.
“It doesn’t smell of anything. But…”
He buried his nose into the gas.
“But you can’t breathe it. It lacks some vital ingredient, most probably oxygen.”
Artem inhaled some of the gas too but failed to discover either a taste or a smell in it. Something viscous and deadly heavy had lodged in his chest after he had breathed it in. An extremely unpleasant thing, this gas.
“Oh, look!” Lida cried out.
The gas was slowly filling the cave, its level rising exactly the way as if it were water pouring in. The gray waves of the gas undulated very close to the clear white flames of the lamps. Then one of the flames sputtered and;went out! The acetylene began spurting from the lamp with a characteristic sound, spreading its unpleasant sweetish smell around.
“The gas seems to be carbonic acid. It does not burn, neither does it allow anything else to burn. And you can’t breath it, since it has no oxygen,” Ivan Semenovich said, thinking aloud. “Artem, turn the gas regulator on the lamp down to cut off the flow of the acetylene.”
Noise of something breaking loose came from the wall: a huge piece of earth had been dislodged under the pressure of the gas and fell down with a crash. Now the gas began spurting like a big fountain, describing a wide arc in the air and falling down to flow into the cave in seething waves.
“We must retreat, my friends! The level of the gas is rising, and we can’t breath it. It’s dangerous to remain here any longer,” Ivan Semenovich said and then stopped short, going pale. Where could they retreat? To get out, they would have to go downward, retracing the route they had taken to reach the wall — a route which began on high ground but sank quite considerably to form a depression and rose again only a short distance from the rockfall. So down in the hollow, the gas would be the thickest as it was naturally flowing downwards. There was no way they could return the way they had come. In other words, there was nowhere to retreat! And the level of the gas kept rising; it was already up to their knees. What was to be done?
As far as they could see in the dim light of the remaining lamps, the waves of the dreadful gas were surging all around them; the level was rising implacably. It was impossible to.stop up the opening, for it had become wider under the pressure of the gas.
Ivan Semenovich looked around: Dmitro Borisovich appeared calm, his anxiety betrayed only by his tightly pursed lips; Lida was leaning against a stalagmite in a halfswoon; Artem was standing at her side. The young man’s big eyes moved back and forth from Lida to Ivan Semenovich anxiously, as though seeking advice, waiting for an order from the geologist that he would carry out immediately. The dog kept on barking furiously at the dense gas that was flowing ever closer to her.
“Climb on top of the broken stalagmites! The flow of the gas will probably decrease!” Ivan Semenovich called out. “The quantity of gas beyond that wall cannot be unlimited! Quick!”
It was the only thing left to do now — to move higher and higher, away from the dreaded waves of gas! Maybe it would all settle in the lowest part of the cave… But Ivan Semenovich realized now that this was a futile hope. To see it, all one had to do was to look around. The gas was pouring in much faster than it was settling in the bottom of the cave; its level was continuously rising. The bases of the stalagmites were already covered with the dense gray fog. The fog was rising inexorably and soon it would reach the people who had climbed onto the tops of the broken stalagmites. Evidently there was no hope that its flow would decrease since the gas was spurting from the hole with greater intensity than before.
Artem was supporting Lida, who had fainted, with one arm and holding on to the tip of the stalagmite with his other hand. Disconnected, confused thoughts flashed one after the other through his mind:
.
It seemed to Artem that he had been unconscious for some time. A strange weekness and despair had overwhelmed him. His eyes had closed quite by themselves; his head drooped lower and lower. But with his trembling hand that had gone numb, he was still holding tight to Lida whose limp body seemed heavier and heavier. The only one of his senses that remained fully alert was his hearing, and what is more it even seemed sharper. Artem heard every word the two older men said very distinctly; every little sound around him came in loud and clear; but he could neither respond nor move. It looked as though a thick covering had been thrown over everything. Under this covering were he and Lida whom he was holding… but no… she was moving away… And at some indefinite distance apart were the rest. Then Artem heard the voice of Ivan Semenovich:
“The gas is pouring over Diana… She’ll probably be the first to go…”
To go where? Artem tried to understand what the geologist meant but in vain: Ivan Semenovich’s words remained incomprehensible to him. Meanwhile, another voice reached Artem. This time it was Dmitro Borisovich speaking:
“Artem, hold on! There’s still a chance! Maybe…”
Maybe what? What did Dmitro Borisovich have in mind? Gathering all the strength left in him, Artem called back in a stiff led voice: