I shall not soon forget it.
Presently we approached a great chamber more brightly lighted than
the corridors. Thuvia halted us. Quietly she stole toward the
entrance and glanced within. Then she motioned us to follow her.
The room was filled with specimens of the strange beings that
inhabit this underworld; a heterogeneous collection of hybrids--the
offspring of the prisoners from the outside world; red and green
Martians and the white race of therns.
Constant confinement below ground had wrought odd freaks upon their
skins. They more resemble corpses than living beings. Many are
deformed, others maimed, while the majority, Thuvia explained, are
sightless.
As they lay sprawled about the floor, sometimes overlapping one
another, again in heaps of several bodies, they suggested instantly
to me the grotesque illustrations that I had seen in copies of
Dante's INFERNO, and what more fitting comparison? Was this not
indeed a veritable hell, peopled by lost souls, dead and damned
beyond all hope?
Picking our way carefully we threaded a winding path across the
chamber, the great banths sniffing hungrily at the tempting prey
spread before them in such tantalizing and defenceless profusion.
Several times we passed the entrances to other chambers similarly
peopled, and twice again we were compelled to cross directly through
them. In others were chained prisoners and beasts.
Pages:
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89