But keep a good heart, Humphrey, for the bold seeker finds in the end.Oh! foolish man, do you not understand that all is yours if you have but the soul to conceive and the will to grasp? All, all, below, between, above! Even I know that, I who have so much to learn."So she spoke and became suddenly magnificent.Her face which had been but that of a super-lovely woman, took on grandeur.Her bosom swelled; her presence radiated some subtle power, much as her hair radiated light.
In a moment it was gone and she was smiling and jesting.
"Will you come, Strangers, where Tommy was not afraid to go, down to the Under-world? Or will you stay here in the sun?
Perhaps you will do better to stay here in the sun, for the Under-world has terrors for weak hearts that were born but yesterday, and feeble feet may stumble in the dark.""I shall take my electric torch," said Bastin with decision, "and I advise you fellows to do the same.I always hated cellars, and the catacombs at Rome are worse, though full of sacred interest."Then we started, Tommy frisking on ahead in a most provoking way as though he were bored by a visit to a strange house and going home, and Yva gliding forward with a smile upon her face that was half mystic and half mischievous.We passed the remains of the machines, and Bickley asked her what they were.
"Carriages in which once we travelled through the skies, until we found a better way, and that the uninstructed used till the end," she answered carelessly, leaving me wondering what on earth she meant.
We came to the statue and the sepulchre beneath without trouble, for the glint of her hair, and I may add of Tommy's back, were quite sufficient to guide us through the gloom.The crystal coffins were still there, for Bastin flashed his torch and we saw them, but the boxes of radium had gone.
"Let that light die," she said to Bastin."Humphrey, give me your right hand and give your left to Bickley.Let Bastin cling to him and fear nothing."We passed to the end of the tomb and stood against what appeared to be a rock wall, all close together, as she directed.
"Fear nothing," she said again, but next second I was never more full of fear in my life, for we were whirling downwards at a speed that would have made an American elevator attendant turn pale.
"Don't choke me," I heard Bickley say to Bastin, and the latter's murmured reply of:
"I never could bear these moving staircases and tubelifts.They always make me feel sick."I admit that for my part I also felt rather sick and clung tightly to the hand of the Glittering Lady.She, however, placed her other hand upon my shoulder, saying in a low voice:
"Did I not tell you to have no fear?"
Then I felt comforted, for somehow I knew that it was not her desire to harm and much less to destroy me.Also Tommy was seated quite at his ease with his head resting against my leg, and his absence of alarm was reassuring.The only stoic of the party was Bickley.I have no doubt that he was quite as frightened as we were, but rather than show it he would have died.
"I presume this machinery is pneumatic," he began when suddenly and without shock, we arrived at the end of our journey.How far we had fallen I am sure I do not know, but I should judge from the awful speed at which we travelled, that it must have been several thousand feet, probably four or five.
"Everything seems steady now," remarked Bastin, "so I suppose this luggage lift has stopped.The odd thing is that I can't see anything of it.There ought to be a shaft, but we seem to be standing on a level floor.""The odd thing is," said Bickley, "that we can see at all.
Where the devil does the light come from thousands of feet underground?""I don't know," answered Bastin, "unless there is natural gas here, as I am told there is at a town called Medicine Hat in Canada.""Natural gas be blowed," said Bickley."It is more like moonlight magnified ten times."So it was.The whole place was filled with a soft radiance, equal to that of the sun at noon, but gentler and without heat.
"Where does it come from?" I whispered to Yva.
"Oh!" she replied, as I thought evasively."It is the light of the Under-world which we know how to use.The earth is full of light, which is not wonderful, is it, seeing that its heart is fire? Now look about you."I looked and leant on her harder than ever, since amazement made me weak.We were in some vast place whereof the roof seemed almost as far off as the sky at night.At least all that I could make out was a dim and distant arch which might have been one of cloud.For the rest, in every direction stretched vastness, illuminated far as the eye could reach by the soft light of which I have spoken, that is, probably for several miles.But this vastness was not empty.On the contrary it was occupied by a great city.There were streets much wider than Piccadilly, all bordered by houses, though these, I observed, were roofless, very fine houses, some of them, built of white stone or marble.There were roadways and pavements worn by the passage of feet.There, farther on, were market-places or public squares, and there, lastly, was a huge central enclosure one or two hundred acres in extent, which was filled with majestic buildings that looked like palaces, or town-halls; and, in the midst of them all, a vast temple with courts and a central dome.For here, notwithstanding the lack of necessity, its builders seemed to have adhered to the Over-world tradition, and had roofed their fane.
And now came the terror.All of this enormous city was dead.