Marianela 3

Marianela 3

"Who--the toad?"

 

"Yes, Señor; we are near the end now."

 

"So I see; it looks like an eye staring at us--that is the mouth of the

corridor."

 

No sooner were they out in the air again, than the first thing that

struck the doctor's ear was the same melancholy song as he had heard

before. The blind boy heard it too; he turned round to his companion

and said, smiling with pride and pleasure:

 

"Do you hear her?"

 

"I heard that voice before and it charmed me wonderfully. Who is the

singer?"

 

Instead of answering, the blind boy stopped and shouted with all

the force of his lungs: "Nela! Nela!" and the name was repeated by

a hundred echoes, some quite close, others faint and distant. Then,

putting his hands to his mouth for a speaking-trumpet, he called out:

 

"Do not come to me, I am going that way. Wait for me at the forge--at

the forge!"

 

He turned to the doctor again and explained:

 

"Nela is a girl who goes about with me; she is my guide--my

_Lazarillo_. When it was dusk we were coming home together from the

great meadow--it was rather cool, so, as my father forbids my walking

out at night without a cloak, I waited in Romolinos' cabin, and Nela

ran home to fetch it for me. After staying some little time in the hut,

I remembered that I had a friend coming to see me at home and I had not

patience to wait for Nela, so I set out with Choto. I was just going

down La Terrible when I met you. We shall soon be at the forge now and

there we must part, for my father is not pleased when I go home late,

and Nela will show you the way to the works."

 

"Many thanks, my little friend."

 

The tunnel had brought them out at a spot even more wonderful than that

they had left. It was an enormous gulf or chasm in the earth, looking

like the result of an earthquake; but it had not been rent by the

fierce throbs of planetary fires, but slowly wrought by the laborious

pick of the miner. It looked like the interior of a huge shipwrecked

vessel, stranded on the shore, and broken across the waist by the

breakers, so as to bend it at an obtuse angle. You could fancy you saw

its ribs laid bare, and their ends standing up in an irregular file on

one side. Within the hollow hull lay huge stones, like the relics of a

cargo tossed about by the waves, and the deceptive light of the moon

lent so much aid to the fancy that Golfin could have believed that he

saw among the relics of a ship's fittings, corpses half devoured by

fishes, mummies, skeletons--all dead, silent, half-destroyed and still,

as if they had long been lying in the infinite sepulchre of the ocean.

And the illusion was perfect when he presently heard a sound of waters,

and a regular splash like the dash of ripples in the hollow of a rock,

or through the skeleton timbers of a wrecked vessel.

 

"There is water hereabouts," he said to his guide.

 

"The noise you hear,"--replied the other, stopping,--"and which sounds

like--what shall I say--like the gurgle you make when you gargle your

throat?..."

 

"Exactly--and where is that gurgle? Is it some rivulet that runs near

here?"

 

"No, Señor; over there to the left there is a slope, and beyond it a

wide mouth opens in the ground, a cavern, an abyss without any known

bottom. La Trascava they call it. Some say that it runs down to the sea

at Ficóbriga, and others think that a river flows at the bottom of it

which goes round and round, like a wheel, and never comes out anywhere.

I fancy it must be like a whirlpool. Some again say that down there is

a constant gust of air coming out of the interior of the earth--as we

blow when we whistle--and that this blast meets a current of water;

then they quarrel, and struggle, and fight, and produce that noise that

we hear up here."

 

"And has no one ever been down into this cavern?"

 

"It can only be got into in one way."

 

"How?"

 

"By jumping into it. Those who have gone in have never come out again;

and it is a great pity, for they might have told us what goes on in

there. The other end of the cavern is a long way off from this, for

two years ago, when some miners were working they came upon a rift in

the rock where they heard the very same sound of water as you hear now.

This rift must, no doubt, communicate with the inside galleries, out

of which the blast blows and into which the water rushes. By daylight

you can see it plainly, for you need only go a few steps to the left

to reach the spot and there is a comfortable seat there. Some people

are frightened to go there, but Nela and I sit there to listen to

the voice down inside the cavern--for really, Señor, we can fancy we

hear it talking. Nela declares and swears that she hears words, and

can distinguish them quite plainly. I must confess I never heard any

words; but it goes on murmuring like a soliloquy or a meditation, and

sometimes it is sad and sometimes gay--sometimes angry, and sometimes

good-humored and jolly."

 

"And yet I can make nothing of it but a gurgle," said the doctor

laughing.

 

"It sounds so from this spot.--But we must not stop now, it is getting

late. You must be prepared to go through another gallery."

 

"Another?"

 

"Yes--and this one branches off into two in the middle. Beyond that

there is a labyrinth of turns and zigzags, because the miners have to

make galleries which, when they are worked out, are deserted and left

to their fate. Go on Choto."

 

Choto slipped into a little opening that looked scarcely bigger than

a rabbit-hole, followed by the doctor and his guide, who felt his way

along the dark, narrow, crooked passage with his stick. There could be

no better evidence of the delicacy and subtlety of the sense of touch,

extending beyond the skin of a human hand through a piece of senseless

wood. They went forwards, at first in a curve, and then round corner

after corner, and all the way between walls of damp, and half-rotten

planking.

 

"Do you know what this reminds me of?" said the doctor, perceiving that

his guide took pleasure in similes and comparisons. "Of nothing so

much as the thoughts of perverse man. We represent the consciousness

of evil, when he looks into his conscience and sees himself in all his

vileness."

 

Golfin fancied that he had used a metaphor rather above his companion's

comprehension; but the blind boy proved that he was mistaken, for he

said at once:

 

"For those to whom that inner world looks dark and gloomy, these

galleries must be dismal indeed; but I, who live in perpetual darkness,

find here something which has an affinity with my own nature. I can

walk here as you would in the broadest road. If it were not for the

want of air in some parts and the excessive damp in others, I should

prefer these subterranean passages to any place I know."

 

"That is an idea of brooding fancy."

 

"I feel as if there were in my brain a narrow passage--a

rabbit-hole--like this that we are walking in, and there my ideas run

riot grandly."

 

"Ah! what a pity that you should never have seen the azure vault of

the sky at mid-day!" the doctor exclaimed involuntarily. "Tell me,

does this dark hole--in which your ideas run riot so grandly--lead out

anywhere?"

 

"Oh yes! we shall be outside quite soon now. The vault of the sky you

said--I fancy it must be a perfect, equal curve, which looks as if we

could touch it with our hands, but we cannot really."

 

As he spoke they got out of the tunnel; Golfin drawing a deep breath of

relief, like a man who has cast off a burthen, exclaimed as he looked

up at the heavens:

 

"Thank God that I see you once more stars of the firmament. Never have

you seemed to me more beautiful than at this moment."

 

"As I was going along," said the blind boy, holding out his hand

which held a stone, "I picked up this piece of crystal--now do you

mean to say that these crystals, which to my touch are so sharply cut,

so smooth and so neatly packed side by side, are not a very beautiful

thing? They seem so to me at any rate." And as he spoke he broke off

some of the crystals.

 

"My dear fellow," said the doctor with great feeling and compassion,

"it is sad indeed that you should not be able to know that this stone

is hardly worth looking at, while over our heads there hang the myriads

of marvellous lamps that sparkle in the heavens." The boy threw back

his head and said in a voice of deep regret:

 

"Is it true that you are there, you little stars?"

 

"God is infinitely great and merciful," said Golfin, laying his hand on

his young companion's shoulder. "Who knows--who can say--much stranger

things have happened--are happening every day." As he spoke, he looked

close into his face, trying to see the lad's eyes by the dim light;

fixed and sightless, he turned them in the direction in which he heard

the speaker's voice.

 

"There is no hope," Golfin muttered.

 

They had come out on an open space. The moon, rising higher and

higher, illuminated undulating meadows and high slopes, which looked

like the ramparts of some immense fortification.--To the left, on a

level plateau, the doctor saw a group of white houses crowning the

slope.

 

"There, to the left," said the boy, "is my home--up at the top. Do

you know that those three houses are what remain of the village of

Aldeacorba de Suso. All the rest has been pulled down at different

times in order to dig mines; all the soil underneath is iron ore, and

our fore-fathers lived over millions of wealth without knowing it."

 

He was still speaking when a girl came running to meet them, a tiny

scrap of a child, swift of foot and slightly built.

 

"Nela, Nela!" cried the blind boy. "Have you brought me a cloak?"

 

"Here it is," said the girl, putting it over his shoulders.

 

"Is this the songstress? Do you know you have a lovely voice?"

 

"Oh!" exclaimed the boy, in a tone of innocent admiration, "she sings

beautifully! Now, Mariquilla, you must show this gentleman the way to

the works, and I must go home. I can hear my father's voice already;

he is coming to look for me, and he will be sure to scold me.... I am here, I am coming!"