# Drome/Chapter 21

Chapter 21
Into the Chasm
Milton Rhodes threw himself prone on the rock and his right arm around the angel's waist.
"Quick, Bill, quick! Her arm—the whole weight of the monster!"
Her screams had ceased, but from her throat broke a moan, long, tremulous, heartrending—a sound to shake and rend my already quivering nerves to enhance most dreadfully the indescribable horror of the scene and the moment.
I could do nothing where I was, had to step over the prostrate forms, which, in my heated imagination, were being dragged over the edge.
The wings of the demon were still beating against the rock, the blows not so strong but more spasmodic—the sound a leathery, sickening tattoo.
It will probably be remembered that the angel had held the demon with her right hand. I was now on the angel's right; and, stretched out on the rock, I reached down over the edge in an effort to free her from that dragging monster, the black depths over which we hung turning me dizzy and faint.
I now saw how the angel had been caught and that she had been dragged so far over the edge that I could not, long-armed though I am, reach the leash. So I grasped her arm and, with a word of encouragement, began to pull. Slowly we drew the monster up. Another moment,. and the chain would be within the reach of my other hand. Yes, there. Steady, so. I had reached down my other hand, my fingers were in the very act of closing on the chain, when, horrors, I felt myself slipping along the smooth rock—slipping over into that appalling gulf.
To save myself, I had to let go the angel's arm, and, as the chain jerked to the monster's weight, an awful cry broke from the angel and from Milton Rhodes, and I saw her body dragged farther over.
"Cut it, Bill, cut it!"
"It's a chain."
Rhodes groaned.
"We must try again. Great heaven, we can't let her be dragged over!"
"This horrible spot makes the head swim."
"Steady, Bill, steady," said Rhodes. "Here, hold her while I get a grip with my other arm. Then I'll get a hold on you with my right."
"We'll all be dragged over."
"Nonsense," said Rhodes. "And, besides, I've got a hold with my feet now, in a crack or something."
A few moments, and I was again reaching down, Rhodes' grip upon me this time. Again I laid hold on ​the angel's arm, and again she and I drew the monster up. This time, though, I got my other hand on the chain. And yet, even then, the chain hanging slack above my hand, the angel was some time in freeing her own, from the fingers of which blood was dripping. But at last she had loosened the chain, and then I let go my hold upon it, and down the demon went, still flapping its wings, though feebly now, and disappeared into those black and tearful depths.
I have no recollection of any sound coming up. Undoubtedly a sound came. Little wonder, forsooth, that I did not hear it.
A moment, and I was back from the edge, and Milton and Ï were drawing the angel to the safety of that narrow way. She sank back in Rhodes' arms, her eyes closed, her head, almost hidden in the gleaming golden hair, on her shoulder.
"She's fainted," said I.
"Little wonder if she has, Bill."
But she had not. Scarcely had he spoken when she opened her eyes. At once she sat lip, and I saw a faint color suffuse those snowy features.
"Well," said I to myself, "whatever else she may be, our angel is human."
We remained there for a little while, recovering from the effects of the horrible scene through which we had passed, then arose and started for that place of safety there amongst the wonderful, stupendous limestone pillars. I was now moving in advance, and I confess (and nothing could more plainly show how badly my nerves had been shaken) that I would gladly have covered those few remaining yards on all fours—if my pride would have permitted me to do so.
Yes, there we stood, by that very pillar behind which the angel had waited for us with her demon. There was her lamp—lantern rather—dark, of course, though not extinguished.
I looked at it and looked all around.
"We saw two lights," I said. "And yet she was waiting here alone."
"There certainly were two lights, Bill—two persons at least. Her companion went somewhere; that is the only explanation I can think of."
"I wonder where," said I, "and what for."
"Help, perhaps. You know, Bill, I have an idea that, if we had delayed much longer, our reception there," and he waved a hand toward the bridge, "would have been a very different one."
"It was interesting enough to suit me. And, as it is, heaven only knows what is to follow."
The angel, standing there straight and still, was watching us intently, so strange a look in her eyes—those eyes were blue—that a chill passed through my heated brain, and I actually began to wonder if I was being hypnotized. Hypnotized? And in this cursed spot!
I turned my look straight into the eyes of the angel, and, as I looked, I flung a secret curse at that strange weakness of mine and called myself a fool for haying entertained, even for a fleeting moment, a thought so absurd.
Rhodes had noticed, and he turned his look upon me and upon the woman—this creature so indescribably lovely and yet with, so indefinable, mysterious a Sibylline something about her. For some moments there was silence. I thought that I saw fear in those blue eyes of hers, but I could not be sure. That strange look, whether one of fear or of something else, was not all that I saw there; but I strove in vain.to find a name or a meaning for what I saw.
​Science, science! This was the age of science, the age of the airplane, the submarine, radium, television and radio; and yet here was a scene to make Science herself rub her eyes in amazement, a scene that might have been taken right out of some wild story or out of some myth of the ancient world. Well, that ancient world, too, had its science, some of which science, I fear (though this thought would have brought a pooh-pooh from Milton Rhodes) man has lost to his sorrow. And, like that ancient world, so perhaps had this strange underground world which we had entered—or, rather, were trying to enter. And perhaps of that science or some phases of it, this angel before us had fearful command.
One moment I told myself that we should need all the courage we possessed, all the ingenuity and resource of that science of which Milton Rhodes himself was the master; the next, that I was letting my imagination overleap itself.
My thoughts were suddenly broken by the voice of Milton.
"Goodness, Bill, look at her hand! I forgot!"
He stepped toward the angel and gently lifted her blood-dripping hand. The chain had sunk right into the soft wrist. The angel, however, with a smile and a movement with her left hand, gave us to understand that the hurt was nothing.
The next moment she gave an exclamation and gazed past me down the pillared cavern. Instantly I turned, and, as I did so, I too exclaimed.
There, far off amongst the columns, two yellow, wrathful lights were gleaming, and dark hurrying figures were moving toward us.