Chapter 9
"To My Dying Hour"
Scranton folded the clipping and placed it between the leaves of the journal.
"There!" he said. "My story is ended. You have all the principal facts now. Additional details may be found in this old record—if you are interested in the case and care to peruse it."
Milton Rhodes reached forth a hand for the battered old journal.
"I am indeed interested," he said. "And I wish to thank you again, Mr. Scranton, for bringing to me a problem that promises to be one of extraordinary interest."
"I suppose you will visit the mountain, the Tamahnowis Rocks, as soon as possible."
Rhodes nodded.
"It will take some time—some hours, that is—to make the necessary preparations; for this journey, I fancy, is going to prove a strange one and perhaps a terrible one, too. But tomorrow evening, I trust, will find us at Paradise. If so, on the following morning, we will be at the Tamahnowis Rocks."
"We?" queried Scranton.
"Yes; my friend Carter here is going along. Indeed, without Bill at my side, I don't know that I would-care to face this thing."
"Me?" I exclaimed. "Where did you get that? I didn't say I was going."
"That is true, Bill," Milton laughed; "you didn't say you were going."
A silence ensued, during which Scranton sat in deep thought, as, indeed, did Rhodes and myself. Oh, what was I to make of this wild and fearful thing?
"There is no necessity," Scranton said suddenly, "for the warning, I know; and yet I can't help pointing out that this adventure you are about to enter upon may prove a very dangerous, a very horrible one."
"Yes," Rhodes nodded; "it may prove a dangerous, a horrible adventure indeed."
"Why," I exclaimed, "all this cabalistic lingo and mystery? Why not be explicit? There is only one place that the angel could possibly have come from—this terrible creature that says 'Drome' and has a demon for her companion."
"Yes, Bill," Mil ton nodded; "there is only one place. And it was from that very place that she came."
"Good heaven! Why, that supposition is absurd—it is preposterous."
"Do you think so, Bill? The submarine, the airplane, radio—all were absurd, all were preposterous, Bill, until men got them. Why, it was only yesterday that the sphericity of this old world we inhabit ceased to be absurd, preposterous. Don't be too sure, old tillicum. Remember the oft-repeated observation of Hamlet:
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
"That is true enough. But this"
"Awaits us!" said Milton Rhodes. "The question of prime importance to us now is if we can find the way to that place whence the angel and the demon came; for, so it seems to me, there can be little doubt that it is only on rare occasions that these strange beings appear on the mountain."
"It is," Scranton remarked, "as, of course, you know, against the rules to take any firearms into the Park; but, if I were you, I should never start upon this enterprize without weapons."
"You may rest assured on that point," Milton told him: "we will be armed."
"Well," said Scranton, suddenly rising from his chair, "you are doubtless anxious to start your preparations at once, and I am keeping you from them. There is one thing, though, Mr. Rhodes, that I, that"
He paused, and a look of trouble, of distress, settled upon his pale, pinched features.
"What is it?" Rhodes queried.
"I am glad that you are going, and yet—yet I may regret this day, this visit, to my dying hour. For the thing I have brought you is dangerous—it is awful."
"And probably," said Milton, "very wonderful indeed."
"But," Scranton added, "one should not blink the possibility that"
"Tut, tut, man?" Milton Rhodes exclaimed, laughing. "We mustn't find you a bird of ill-omen now. You mustn't think things like that."
"Yet I can't help thinking about them, Mr. Rhodes. I wish I could accompany you, at least as far as the scene of the tragedies; but I am far from strong. Even to drive a car sometimes taxes my strength. I doubt if I could now make the climb even from the Inn as far as Sluiskin Falls."
A silence fell, to be suddenly broken by Milton.
"Let us regard that as a happy augury," said he, pointing toward the southern windows, through which the sunlight, bright and sparkling, came streaming in: "the gloom and the storm have passed away, and all is bright once more."
"I pray heaven that it prove so!" the other exclaimed.
"For my part, I shall always be glad that you came to me, Mr. Scranton; glad always, even—even," said Milton Rhodes, "if I never come back."