The world below
decided to reduce the number of the tame and trusting doves in their
capital city, had they sufficient care or intelligence to select the
weaker or diseased for destruction?
Did they not kill and torture countless thousands of other creatures,
even including those that they had bred and trained to friendship, to
gratify curiosity or to gain some possible advantage to themselves in
combating the diseases that their vices earned?
Could that which I had seen be properly described as vivisection of any
kind? Such things might be; and I had little confidence that the
Dwellers would hesitate to practise such infamies, but, in fact, I had
not seen them.
I answered simply, “I was unreasonable, and you have taught me wisdom,
as you do so often.”
“I am less sure of that,” she answered doubtfully, “for there is
something in your mind by which my own is confused and baffled. I can
neither understand it, nor be sure that you are entirely in error. We
stand aloof from violence, as you do not, nor do the Dwellers. But you
have two standards of judgment. You regard your own violence to others
as more tolerable than is theirs to you. This to me appears as though
you make assertion of your own inferiority. But I do not know.... Shall
we inquire further as to the fate of your second friend?”
“Will you do it for me,” I answered, “I do not wish to see it.”
She assented mutely, and after a short interval she reported the success
of her investigation.
“Your second friend is alive and happy. His body has been cleaned and
improved. I cannot discover more, as there is no record of the
intentions of those who are dealing with him, but only of the facts
which are past already. But I think you would do well to leave him, and
inquire no further. Shall we not return to the surface together, where
you may find some place of hiding, and perhaps of a permanent security?”
“I cannot do that,” I answered definitely. “I could not return to say
that I have learnt that he is living, and made no effort to reach him.”
My thought reacted more sharply to her suggestion because I feared the
adventure as I had not done previously, and was aware that, should I
hesitate, my cowardice might be the harder to conquer. “Did you
ascertain how far distant he has been taken?”
I suppose she recognised the finality of my decision, for she made no
further protest, but answered quietly.
“He appears to be immediately beneath us, though at a great depth. But
we shall have to inquire of the other book of which we were told, to
learn the way by which we may reach him.”
“Let us do it quickly,” I replied, for the thought of Templeton writhing
in the clutch of the giant pincers, while the Dweller gazed upon him and
decided, coolly and judicially, upon his destruction, would not leave my
mind, and I was eager to be diverted by action.
We found the Hall of the Dead Books at the farther end of that in which
we were. The dead books were a livid white, and, for the most part, the
little hands had withered and fallen. They lay round them in a dry dust,
or hung shrivelling from those that had not been long dead.
We found the book we sought without difficulty, and though it did not
react to our queries with the urgent impatience of the living, its
responses were mechanically prompt and accurate.
I do not tell all that we learnt as we searched the pages of this book,
such as the maps of the reverse surface of the interior, and stranger
things on which I am entirely silent, because we did not actually see
them, and they are too incredible to be lightly added to a narrative
which must appear fictitious, in any case, to the obtuse and
unimaginative. It is not every one who can realise that the human mind
has no real power of invention, nor that it is impossible to add to that
which is infinite.
We went down in vision for five hundred miles by one continuing spiral,
seeing glimpses of inexplicable things on many levels, until we came to
a place in which were two colonies of the older Dwellers, each
attempting to postpone the weariness of years by activities of the mind,
and who were known (by the nearest synonyms in our language) as the
Seekers of Wisdom, and the Seekers of Science. I write _science_ rather
than _knowledge_ because the impression I received was similar to that
which has degraded the use of the former word, so that its implication
is of the assertion of speculative theories with a dogmatism equal to
that of the theologians whom it despises, and with a lack of imagination
and spiritual perception which insures that scientific hand-books of one
decade become the derision of the next.
We ascertained and memorised very carefully the passages by which the
descending spiral could be reached, and the ways which must be taken
when we left it. We could not discover whether they were the channels of
crowded traffic, or lonely as the dark tunnels which we had already
penetrated, but we had gained much in having learnt the way by which we
must go, and our next task was to find an exit from the library.
We should have pursued this purpose, and might have continued the
adventure together, and completed it successfully, had we not been drawn
aside to observe a movement among the books at the farther side of the
library.
It was foolish in itself, and disastrous in its consequence, but the
sight which drew us was sufficiently curious to be some excuse for our
error.
CHAPTER XIII
SEPARATION
In a large room, or recess, at the side of the library, there was a tank
completely covering its floor, and filled, to a depth of about three
feet, with a watery liquid, slightly tinged with carmine.
An arrangement of gently-sloping boards had enabled the books of several
tiers of shelves to make their way to this tank, into which they
plunged, and floated with an appearance of satisfaction, working their
hands in such a way that they turned over continually, in a very comical
manner.
It required no very great penetration to see that this was a place of
refreshment, or nourishment, which was needed to maintain their
vitality, but it was one which they could not reach without an
intervening danger.
As they crossed the final plank, which was horizontal, they passed over
a trap which was so adjusted that it would give way if a sufficient
weight were upon it, and resume its position afterwards, and the weight
required to spring it was that of a book which was mature and completed.
There was a square vat beneath this trap, filled with an indigo-coloured
liquid, into which, as we watched about fifty of these books hurry over
the plank, two fell, their little hands struggling frantically as they
slowly sank to the bottom, having found a place of death instead of the
enjoyment to which they had hurried.
It was reasonable to assume that these activities indicated some
directing attendant, and I had little cause for surprise when my
companion’s thought reached me quietly, “Do not attempt escape. We are
discovered. I think you had better leave this to me. Can you be serene
and confident?” Her mind closed from me, as we turned to observe the
dreaded form of one of the Dwellers advancing upon us.
He stopped as we faced him, and I knew that my companion had already
engaged him in the mental combat on which our lives depended. I could
not follow their thoughts, which were not intended for me. I never did
take the thoughts of the Dwellers with quite the same ease with which I
received those of the Amphibians. Now I was conscious only of a tension
of conflict, as when the swords of two duellists meet and hold, and
either knows that his life is staked upon the strength of wrist that
presses his opponent’s blade. There was a long minute during which their
wills fought in this posture, and then it was as though her blade
pressed sideward, inch by inch, the one that met, and inch by inch slid
down it.
Size has no absolute meaning. It is only relative, and, even so, it is
of little importance. The smallest insect might control the earth as
easily as an elephant, had either of them the brains to do so, though
the one be many million times the size of the other.
Our protagonist could have crushed us both in one hand, but I felt that
her will had triumphed against him. Not entirely; for minutes passed,
and I knew that they still warred with contending thoughts which I could
not read, but these were rather of the terms of treaty than of an
unconditioned hostility.
While they fought, I had endeavoured to maintain the poise of mind which
she had asked. I knew that I must not think of Templeton. I fixed my
attention upon the giant form which confronted us. He was similar to the
others I had seen, except in one particular. He moved with a slight
limp, and his left hip showed a long downward scar, deepening to an
actual pit at its lower end, and being black, with an aspect of charred
wood. It showed that their bodies, however perfect and enduring, were
not exempt from the danger of accident.
She turned to me at last. “Come,” her mind said only. “There is an open
way.”
I followed her down a corridor which we had not previously penetrated,
and we came to a doorway standing open, by which the attendant had
entered, and to which he had directed her. As we retreated, I saw him
bending over the vat, as though he were unaware of our existence.
In the darkness of a passage such as those with which we were already
familiar, we sat down together.
“I have made terms,” she commenced at once, “but it was not easy to do,
and you may not like them. We are in the Sacred Places, as we had
thought likely, and if we should be found here, or should it be known
that we have been here, the things we have learnt will certainly cause
our destruction. But I have given pledges which must be kept, and it
will be as though he had not seen us. I could not have done it, were he
not apart from his race, through the wound he bears, and angered by its
cause, which does not concern us. He refused my will until he thought of
the Seven Causes of Rejection, and his mind wavered.
“But the agreement is this. I must return at once to my own people, by a
way which will be unobserved, which he has shown me, telling to none
that I have seen him, nor of the things which we have seen and heard
since we forced the barrier of silence.
“That was easily agreed; but your case was more difficult. He would have
been willing that you should return with me, but we know that that would
not be possible. He would have agreed that you should escape to the
surface, and hide in the mountain caves, but I knew that you were
resolved to seek your friend, and I feared that, if I should make such
an agreement for you, you would not keep it. He showed me that it is a
way of death to go downward, and I was not willing to leave you to
perish. In the end, I have done little, but I have learnt this which may
aid you. When you have found your friend, and have learnt (as I think
you will), that you can do nothing to aid him, if you can then make your
way to the Place of the Seekers of Wisdom, you will be in a sanctuary
from which none will seek to remove you. They will question you of the
life you left, and so long as you can tell them of new things they will
be very sure to keep you in safety. Even beyond that time, there is a
possibility that they may transfer you to depths into which our minds
have not inquired, and of which I know nothing, where you might even
find that some of your own kind are existing, as do the Bat-wings, on an
inner surface of the earth.”
Her mind paused, expectant, to receive my pleasure.
Consternation replied,--confused, hopeless, and yet protesting. Why had