The world below
as a cook stones raisins?
While I thought thus, my companion’s mind gave no sign, nor had I heard
any movement from her. With a sudden start of terror I imagined that she
were no longer beside me. It was in that panic fear that I realised how
greatly I had come to depend upon her: alike upon her body for its
vigour, and upon her mind for its counsel. And beyond this I knew that
there was a spiritual quality in our intimacy, through which I was able
to face the shadows of the unknown with something of her own serenity.
It was a simple action to reach out to feel where she lay beside me, and
yet my hand delayed it.
Partly I may have been deterred by the atmosphere of aloof virginity
which always made me diffident of any physical contact, partly it was
that I dreaded to test my fear, as a man with a coward’s mind may leave
a letter unopened, knowing that it may hold the news of his ruin.
At last, I felt across the narrow space which had divided us as we lay
and watched the concluding drama of our adventure, and with a sense of
measureless relief my hand touched lightly for a moment on the
smoothness of the soft warm fur.
Her mind opened instantly, realised the mood I showed her, and crossed
it with the dancing gaiety with which she ever faced the thought of
peril. Then,--with the subtle distinction which she always drew between
myself and the body in which I lived,--she asked me, “Is it more trouble
than usual? Has it no gratitude for the rest you have given it?”
I answered, “It is rested by sleep, but has gone without food long
beyond its accustomed time. It can do this while it shares your
vitality, but afterwards the need re-asserts itself with increased
urgency. It is cold also, and, as you know, it has suffered recent
damage, which it needs rest to repair.”
She replied, “I can give you strength, if you need it, and if you think
it wise; but consider.
“We have resolved on an adventure of which we do not know the length or
the end. Of myself, I should continue in the ordinary course without
food for about four months, after which I should require a time of rest
and nourishment, before I should be fit for another year. If necessary,
I could continue living, and in some measure of activity, for a much
longer period. But I have been giving you of my own energy so freely
that, if we continue in this way, I shall be exhausted in a much shorter
time. Then I must return to my own place and people, as the food on
which you rely--and the Dwellers also--is of no use to me. I ask
this,--is it better that we should continue to share the strength I
have, or should we find food for your body, and so regulate our
movements in future that we can make it self-supporting?”
I answered, though my body ached for the vitality on which it had learnt
to rely, “I think that it will be wiser for us to conserve the strength
you have, which we may need in days to come, when there may be no means
of renewal. But it will make important differences, for which there must
be allowance in the plans we form. I am used to sleeping at short
intervals, because my accustomed day is only about a quarter the length
of that which you now have; and even though I obtain regular and
suitable food, I shall still be incapable of the rapid and prolonged
exertions which I have endured with the stimulus of your hand to help
me.
“It appears to me that we must commence our enterprise by penetrating
one of the tunnels that open on to the opal pavement. It is true that
there must be other means of access inland, by which the Dwellers emerge
in the daytime, but there are two reasons against attempting to use
them. One is that we do not know their location, and though they may be
nearer, it is equally possible that they may be more distant. The other
is more serious. We are told that the Dwellers come up through the
inland passages, and descend by those which are on the lower level. By
choosing the latter, and following behind them when the night has
fallen, we may reasonably hope that we shall be able to enter their
abodes without encountering any who are coming in the opposite
direction. In addition to these reasons, it occurs to me that the
country inland is of an extremely forbidding and mountainous formation,
and though the Dwellers are able to traverse it, it might be absolutely
impossible for us to do so.”
My companion answered with her usual equanimity, “It is a choice which
must be made, and your decision contents me. But I notice a quality in
your reasoning which must, I suppose, introduce the adventure of your
life to many avoidable difficulties. I think the arguments which you
gave me were good, but they did not cover all the considerations which
might influence such a decision, and of which I feel sure you could have
thought, had you wished to do so.
“It appears to me that you first elect your own preference, and then
call upon your mind to furnish arguments to support it. It is not bound
to do this, and it knows that you rely upon it to suggest any serious
danger or difficulty which might impel you to alter your decision, but,
no less, it understands your wish, and that if there be any sufficient
arguments to justify your choice it is expected to find them. Like your
body, it is separate from yourself, and may even work without your own
awareness, but it is of a readier loyalty.
“I think, had you for any reason desired to adventure into the
mountains, that your mind would have been quick to suggest that you
could travel in greater security on the surface if you should avoid the
paths which you have traversed already, where the Dwellers would be most
likely to seek you. It would have used the argument of the unknown
distance in an exactly contrary way, and it would not have failed to
remind you that the tunnel which you have already explored contained no
possible hiding-place, so that an alternative passage could not be
worse, and might be better. It would have recalled that the whole length
of the opal pavement is without any possible cover: that the bridge
would be difficult for you to traverse in the darkness, while the
Frog-mouths would be dangerous in the day: and that you have already
been discovered once in the tunnel, so that it is at least possible that
a watch has been set to take you there, should you again invade it.
“I could give you many more arguments of the same kind, but I am not
resisting your plan. I am only interested in a method of decision which
has, at least, the merit that it can operate more speedily than mine is
easily able to do.”
I had not thought her to be slow of decision when the need was urgent,
but I felt that she had more to tell me, and I kept my mind open and
receptive.
“You slept very long,” her thought continued, “and I considered these
things, after my own method. I first collected in my mind all that I
have known of the Dwellers from the beginning, and of the things you
have told me. I added that which I know of your own character and
capacities. From these facts I endeavoured to deduce a method by which
we could succeed in our objects, if we be not already too late. I made
little progress, for the facts are few and insufficient. But I made
progress to this extent, that I realised that we are supposing some
things which we do not know.
“In particular, you have shown me your mind, and I have seen that you
visualise an end to these tunnels which opens into a hall, a chamber, or
a large passage, or at least some public space, populated by the
Dwellers, and where concealment for ourselves would be difficult, if not
impossible. Your imagination may be correct, and it is a possibility for
which we must be prepared. But in your mind it is less a possibility
than an expectation, for which there is no sufficient ground whatever.
Yet you had imagined it so confidently that I had difficulty in
separating it from the facts you had shown me.
“I thought of this very long, and I see that your life is so brief, and
so confusingly occupied, that you are obliged to proceed through a
labyrinth of assumptions by which you hope to reach the thing you wish
more rapidly than would otherwise be possible. But in this case, I
cannot see that the assumption has any basis of probability.
“I know, from what you have shown me already, that you come of a race
which has lived only on the earth’s surface, and any cave or tunnel by
which you enter it implies the approach to a confined and narrow space,
so that when you attempt to visualise the condition of a race which
lives under the surface, your imagination is of a cave, and not of a
country.
“Now if the interior of the earth be completely solid, or nearly so,
this imagination may be quite accurate. But is it? Neither of us knows.
We do know from your own experience that the tunnels go down for many
miles, though we do not know their ultimate depth. That suggests that
there must be some reason for so deep a penetration. To make such
tunnels must have been a great labour. To descend and ascend them
continually must be an unceasing toil. There must be some compensating
advantage in the depth which is reached. The hollowness of the interior
would supply it. But there might be quite different reasons. We know
that there are areas of great heat that lie closely under the surface.
There are parts of the ocean floor where this heat causes eruptions.
Such areas may be of great extent. They may render it difficult or
impossible to live under the surface till a greater depth is reached.
True, the tunnels must penetrate this region, on this supposition, and
it must therefore have been found possible to render them heat-proof.
“We have one other fact. The Dwellers reach the surface at very distant
points. But this has no certain significance.”
I answered, “I see the point you make, and I agree that I was inclined
to a too-hasty assumption. Also, it enters my mind that if the earth be
indeed hollow at a depth of a few hundred miles, and an inner surface be
land only, it must be of far greater extent, not merely than this
continent, but than the whole of the solid land of the earth’s surface
as I knew it, and as it appears to be to-day. It is also possible to
imagine tiers of hollowed space in which such areas might be many times
repeated, but the artificial creation of such tiers would require an
amount of labour which appears stupendous and the dumping on the earth’s
surface of excavated material to an incredible volume.”
She responded, “All that you think appears reasonable, and part is new
to my mind. It would help us greatly if we knew whether the Dwellers are
a numerous race, but of this I am able to tell you little.
“Before the time of the Great War, we believe that they dwelt on the
surface only, or, at least, until a comparatively short period before
it. Up to that time, for reasons into which I must not now enter, being
irrelevant, we knew little of them, or they of us. That was about eleven
thousand years ago.
“We know that they are bi-sexual, like the race from which you come. We
suspect that their bodies age and decay, and are replaced by others, but
of this we have no certain knowledge.
“In all the time I mention I cannot recall having seen more than two
hundred of their men and three of their women. We do not suppose that
they exist in these proportions. Our observation of the sea-creatures is
that they cannot dwell in peace together unless their females are at
least equally numerous, but we have seen those only who first negotiated
the treaty with our Leaders, of which you have been told, and such as
have been in attendance at the fish-tanks. Of these I mention, I cannot
recall that more than thirty have been seen at any one period. As the
centuries have passed, there has been a gradual change. But this might