Part 24

Down, down he went. He looked at his watch; he had been in that car only an hour and a half. Was that possible? He had supposed he was almost at the bottom. Suddenly his mind reverted to the people above and the telephone. Why had not some of them spoken to him? It was shameful! He instantly called Bryce, and his heart leaped with joy when he heard the familiar voice in his ear. Now he talked steadily on for more than an hour. He had his gardener summoned, and told the man all that he wanted done in the flower-beds. He gave many directions in regard to the various operations at the works. There were two or three inventions in which he took particular interest, and of these he talked at great length with Bryce. Suddenly, in the midst of some talk about hollow steel rods, he told Bryce to let the engines run faster; there was no reason why the car should go so slowly.

The windlasses moved with a little more rapidity, and Clewe now turned and looked at an indicator which was placed on the side of the car, a little over his head. This instrument showed the depth to which he had descended, but he had not looked at it before, for if anything would make him nervous, it would be the continual consideration of the depth to which he had descended.

The indicator showed that he had gone down fourteen and one-eighth miles. Clewe turned and sat stiffly in his seat. He glanced down and saw beneath him only an illuminated hole, fading away at the bottom. Then he turned to speak to Bryce, but to his surprise, he could think of nothing to say. After that he lighted another cigar and sat quietly.

Some minutes passed--he did not know how many--and he looked down through the gratings in the floor of the car. The electric light streamed downward through a deep [v]crevice, which did not now fade away into nothingness, but ended in something dark and glittering. Then, as he came nearer and nearer to this glittering thing, Clewe saw that it was his automatic shell, lying on its side; only a part of it was visible through the opening of the shaft which he was descending. In an instant, as it seemed to him, the car emerged from the shaft, and he seemed to be hanging in the air--at least there was nothing he could see except that great shell, lying some forty feet below him. But it was impossible that the shell should be lying on the air! He rang to stop the car.

"Anything the matter?" cried Bryce.

"Nothing at all," Clewe replied. "It's all right; I am near the bottom."

In a state of the highest nervous excitement, Clewe gazed about him. He was no longer in a shaft; but where was he? Look around on what side he would, he saw nothing but the light going out from his lamps, light which seemed to extend indefinitely all about him. There appeared to be no limit to his vision in any direction. Then he leaned over the side of his car and looked downward. There lay the great shell directly under him, although under it and around it, extending as far beneath it as it extended in every other direction, shone the light from his own lamp. Nevertheless, that great shell, weighing many tons, lay as if it rested upon the solid ground!

After a few moments, Clewe shut his eyes; they pained him. Something seemed to be coming into them like a fine frost in a winter wind. Then he called to Bryce to let the car descend very slowly. It went down, down, gradually approaching the great shell. When the bottom of the car was within two feet of it, Clewe rang to stop. He looked down at the complicated machine he had worked upon so long, with something like a feeling of affection. This he knew; it was his own. Gazing upon its familiar form, he felt that he had a companion in this region of unreality.

Pushing back the sliding door of the car, Clewe sat upon the bottom and cautiously put out his feet and legs, lowering them until they touched the shell. It was firm and solid. Although he knew it must be so, the immovability of the great mass of iron gave him a sudden shock of mysterious fear. How could it be immovable when there was nothing under it--when it rested on air?

But he must get out of that car, he must explore, he must find out. There certainly could be no danger so long as he clung to the shell.

He cautiously got out of the car and let himself down upon the shell. It was not a pleasant surface to stand on, being uneven, with great spiral ribs, and Clewe sat down upon it, clinging to it with his hands. Presently he leaned over to one side and looked beneath him. The shadows of that shell went down, down, down into space, until it made him sick to look at them. He drew back quickly, clutched the shell with his arms, and shut his eyes. He felt as if he were about to drop with it into a measureless depth of atmosphere.

[Illustration: He Put Out One Foot]

But he soon raised himself. He had not come down there to be frightened, to let his nerves run away with him. He had come to find out things. What was it that this shell rested upon? Seizing two of the ribs with a strong clutch, he let himself hang over the sides of the shell until his feet were level with its lower side. They touched something hard. He pressed them downward; it was very hard. He raised himself and stood upon the substance which supported the shell. It was as solid as any rock. He looked down and saw his shadow stretching far beneath him. It seemed as if he were standing upon [v]petrified air. He put out one foot and moved a little, still holding on to the shell. He walked, as if upon solid air, to the foremost end of the long [v]projectile. It relieved him to turn his thoughts from what was around him to this familiar object. He found its conical end shattered.

After a little he slowly made his way back to the other end of the shell, and now his eyes became somewhat accustomed to the great radiance about him. He thought he could perceive here and there faint signs of long, nearly horizontal lines--lines of different shades of light. Above him, as if it hung in the air, was the round, dark hole through which he had descended.

He rose, took his hands from the shell, and made a few steps. He trod upon a horizontal surface, but in putting one foot forward, he felt a slight incline. It seemed to him, that he was about to slip downward! Instantly he retreated to the shell and clutched it in a sudden frenzy of fear.

Standing thus, with his eyes still wandering, he heard the bell of the telephone ring. Without hesitation he mounted the shell and got into the car. Bryce was calling him.

"Come up," he said. "You have been down there long enough. No matter what you have found, it is time for you to come up."

"All right," said Roland. "You can haul me up, but go very slowly at first."

The car rose. When it reached the orifice in the top of the cave of light, Clewe heard the conical steel top grate slightly as it touched the edge, for the car was still swinging a little from the motion given to it by his entrance; but it soon hung perfectly vertical and went silently up the shaft.

Seated in the car, which was steadily ascending the great shaft, Roland Clewe took no notice of anything about him. He did not look at the brilliantly lighted interior of the shaft; he paid no attention to his instruments; he did not consult his watch, or glance at the dial which indicated the distance he had traveled. Several times the telephone bell rang, and Bryce inquired how he was getting along; but these questions he answered as briefly as possible, and sat looking down at his knees and seeing nothing.

When he was half-way up, he suddenly became conscious that he was very hungry. He hurriedly ate some sandwiches and drank some water, and again gave himself up entirely to mental labor. When, at last, the noise of machinery above him and the sound of voices aroused him from his abstraction, and the car emerged upon the surface of the earth, Clewe hastily slid back the door and stepped out. At that instant he felt himself encircled by a pair of arms. Bryce was near by, and there were other men by the engines, but the owner of those arms thought nothing of this.

"Margaret!" cried Clewe, "how came you here?"

"I have been here all the time," she exclaimed; "or, at least, nearly all the time." And as she spoke she drew back and looked at him, her eyes full of happy tears. "Mr. Bryce telegraphed to me the instant he knew you were going down, and I was here before you had descended half-way."

"What!" he cried. "And all those messages came from you?"

"Nearly all," she answered. "But tell me, Roland--tell me; have you been successful?"

"I am successful," he answered. "I have discovered everything!"

Bryce came forward.

"I will speak to you all very soon," said Clewe. "I can't tell you anything now. Margaret, let us go. I wish to talk to you, but not until I have been to my office. I will meet you at your house in a very few minutes." And with that he left the building and fairly ran to his office.

A quarter of an hour later Roland entered Margaret's library, where she sat awaiting him. He carefully closed the doors and windows. They sat side by side upon the sofa.

"Now, Roland," she said, "I cannot wait one second longer. What is it that you have discovered?"

"When I arrived at the bottom of the shaft," he began, "I found myself in a cleft, I know not how large, made in a vast mass of transparent substance, hard as the hardest rock and as transparent as air in the light of my electric lamps. My shell rested securely upon this substance. I walked upon it. It seemed as if I could see miles below me. In my opinion, Margaret, that substance was once the head of a comet."

"What is the substance?" she asked, hastily.

"It is a mass of solid diamond!"

Margaret screamed. She could not say one word.

"Yes," said he, "I believe the whole central portion of the earth is one great diamond. When it was moving about in its orbit as a comet, the light of the sun streamed through this diamond and spread an enormous tail out into space; after a time this [v]nucleus began to burn."

"Burn!" exclaimed Margaret.

"Yes, the diamond is almost pure [v]carbon; why should it not burn? It burned and burned and burned. Ashes formed upon it and encircled it; it still burned, and when it was entirely covered with ashes it ceased to be transparent and ceased to be a comet; it became a planet, and revolved in a different orbit. It still burned within its covering of ashes, and these gradually changed to rock, to metal, to everything that forms the crust of the earth."

She gazed upon him, entranced.

"Some parts of this great central mass of carbon burn more fiercely than other parts. Some parts do not burn at all. In volcanic regions the fires rage; where my great shell went down it no longer burns. Now you have my theory. It is crude and rough, for I have tried to give it to you in as few words as possible."

"Oh, Roland," she cried, "it is absurd! Diamond! Why, people will think you are crazy. You must not say such a thing as that to anybody. It is simply impossible that the greater part of this earth should be an enormous diamond."

"Margaret," he answered, "nothing is impossible. The central portion of this earth is composed of something; it might just as well be diamond as anything else. In fact, if you consider the matter, it is more likely to be, because diamond is a very original substance. As I have said, it is almost pure carbon. I do not intend to repeat a word of what I have told you to any one--at least until the matter has been well considered--but I am not afraid of being thought crazy. Margaret, will you look at these?"

He took from his pocket some shining substances resembling glass. Some of them were flat, some round; the largest was as big as a lemon; others were smaller fragments of various sizes.

"These are pieces of the great diamond which were broken when the shell struck the bottom of the cave in which I found it. I picked them up as I felt my way around this shell, when walking upon what seemed to me solid air. I thrust them into my pocket, and I would not come to you, Margaret, with this story, until I had visited my office to find out what these fragments are. I tested them; their substance is diamond!"

Half-dazed, she took the largest piece in her hand.

"Roland," she whispered, "if this is really a diamond, there is nothing like it known to man!"

"Nothing, indeed," said he.

She sat staring at the great piece of glowing mineral which lay in her hand. Its surface was irregular; it had many faces; the subdued light from the window gave it the appearance of animated water. He felt it necessary to speak.

"Even these little pieces," he said, "are most valuable jewels."

"Roland," she suddenly cried, excitedly, "these are riches beyond imagination! What is common wealth to what you have discovered? Every living being on earth could--"

"Ah, Margaret," he interrupted, "do not let your thoughts run that way. If my discovery should be put to the use of which you are thinking, it would bring poverty to the world, not wealth, and every diamond on earth would be worthless."

She trembled. "And these--are they to be valued as common pebbles?"

"Oh no," said he; "these broken fragments I have found are to us riches far beyond our wildest imagination."

"Roland," she cried, "are you going down into that shaft for more of them?"

"Never, never, never again," he answered. "What we have here is enough for us, and if I were offered all the good that there is in this world, which money cannot buy, I would never go down into that cleft again. There was one moment, as I stood in that cave, when an awful terror shot into my soul that I shall never be able to forget. In the light of my electric lamps, sent through a vast transparent mass, I could see nothing, but I could feel. I put out my foot, and I found it was upon a sloping surface. In another instant I might have slid--where? I cannot bear to think of it!" FRANK E. STOCKTON.

=HELPS TO STUDY=

What happened to Clewe's automatic shell? What did he decide to do? Tell of the preparations he made for his descent. What occurred when he reached the end of the shaft? Of what was Clewe thinking so intently while making his ascent? Why did he go at once to his office? What conclusion did he reach as to the central part of the earth? What did he have to prove the correctness of his theory? Why was he unwilling ever to make the descent again? This story was written about the end of the nineteenth century: what great scientific discoveries have been made since then?

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

A Journey to the Center of the Earth--Jules Verne. The Adventures of Captain Horn--Frank R. Stockton.

FOOTNOTE:

[391-*] Copyright by Harper & Brothers.

A STOP AT SUZANNE'S

The author of this sketch, a young American aviator, a resident of Richmond, Virginia, was killed in battle in August, 1918.

Suzanne is a very pretty girl, I was told, but the charm of "Suzanne's" wasn't with her alone, for, always, one spoke of the deliciously-tasting meal, how nice the old madame is, and how fine a chap is her _mari_, the father of Suzanne. Then of the garden in the back--and before you had finished listening you didn't know which was the most important thing about "Suzanne's." All you knew was that it was the place to go when on an aeroplane voyage.

At the pilotage office I found five others ahead of me; all of us were bound in the same direction. We were given [v]barographs, altimeters and maps and full directions as to forced landings and what to do when lost. We hung around the voyage hangar until about eight in the morning, but there was a low mist and cloudy sky, so we could not start out until afternoon; and I didn't have luncheon at "Suzanne's."

After noon several of the others started out, but I wanted to plan my supper stop for the second point, so I waited until about four o'clock before starting.

Almost before I knew it a village, which on the map was twelve kilometers away, was slipping by beneath me and then off to one side was a forest, green and cool-looking and very regular around the edges. Pretty soon I came to a deep blue streak bordered by trees, and was so interested in it--it wound around under a railroad track, came up and brushed by lots of back gates and, finally, fell in a wide splash of silver over a little fall by a mill--that I forgot all about flying and suddenly woke up to the fact that one wing was about as low as it could get and that the nose of the machine was doing its best to follow the wing.

Long before I came to the stopping point, I could see the little white hangar. The field is not large, but it is strange, so you come down rather anxiously, for if you can't make that field the first time, you never will be able to fly, they tell you before leaving. I glided down easily enough, for, after all, it is just that--either you can or you can't--and made a good-enough landing. The sergeant signed my paper, and a few minutes later away I went for "Suzanne's." The next stop is near a little village--Suzanne's village--so when I came to the field and landed I was sure to be too tired to go up again immediately. Instead, off I went to town after making things right with the man in charge. That wasn't a bit difficult, either, for all I did was to wink as hard as I could, and he understood perfectly.

I knew where "Suzanne's" was, so I made directly for it. It was a little early, but you should never miss the [v]_apertif_. With that first, success is assured; without it, it is like getting out of bed on the wrong foot.

Up I marched to the unimposing door and walked in to the main room--a big room, with long, wooden tables and benches and a zinc bar at one end, where all kinds of bottles rested. It isn't called "Suzanne's," of course; it only has that name among us.

As I closed the door behind me and looked about, a _bonne_ was serving several men at a corner table, and behind the bar a big, red-faced, stout man was pouring stuff into bottles. He looked at me a moment and then with a tremendous "_Tiens!_" he came out from behind the tables and advanced toward me.

"_Bon jour_," he said; "do you come from far?"

"Oh, no," I answered, "only from ----."

"_Tiens!_" he repeated; then, "Ah, you are from the school." _L'ecole_, he called it.

From _l'ecole_, I admitted, and, taking me by the arm, he led me to a door at the rear. Through this he propelled me, and then in his huge voice he called "_Suzanne, un [v]pilote!_" and I was introduced.

As he shut the door, I could just see the corner table with the three old men staring open-mouthed, the wine before them forgotten, the bread and cheese in their hands untasted; then, down the stairs came light steps and a rustle of skirts, and Suzanne was before me with smiling face and outstretched hand.

Her instant welcome, the genuine smile! Almost immediately, I understood the fame of this little station, so far from everything but the air route.

Her charm is indescribable. She is pretty, she is well dressed, but it isn't that. It is a sincerity of manner, complete hospitality; at once you are accepted as a bosom friend of the family--that is the charm of Suzanne's.

After a few questions as to where I came from, how long I had been there, and where I was going, Suzanne led me upstairs to be presented to [v]"_Ma belle mere_," a white-haired old lady sitting in a big, straight-backed chair. Then, after more courtesies had been extended to me, Suzanne preceded me down to the garden and left me alone while she went in to see that the supper was exceptionally good.

A soft footstep on the gravel walk sounded behind me, and I turned to see one of the most beautiful women I ever beheld. She was tall and slender, and as she came gracefully across the lawn she swung a little work bag from one arm. All in black she was, with a lace shawl over her bare head. Like every one in that most charming and hospitable house, there was no formality or show about her. She came, smiling, and sat on the bench beside me, drawing open her work bag. I could not help noticing, particularly, her beautiful eyes, for they told the story, a story too common here, except that her eyes had changed now to an expression of resigned peace. Then she told me about Suzanne.

Long before, ages and ages ago it seemed, but really only four years, a huge, ungainly bird fell crashing to earth and from the wreck a man was taken, unconscious. He was carried to "Suzanne's," and she nursed him and cared for him until he was well again. "Suzanne was very happy then," madame told me. And no wonder, for the daring aviator and Suzanne were in love. She nursed him back to health, but when he went away he left his heart forever with her.

They were engaged, and every little while he would fly over from his station to see Suzanne. Those were in the early days and aviation--well, even at that, it hasn't changed so much.

One day a letter came for Suzanne, and with a catch at her throbbing heart she read that her _fiancé_ had been killed. [v]"_Mort pour la patrie_," it said, and Suzanne was never the same afterward.

For many months the poor girl grieved, but, finally, she began to realize that what had happened to her had happened to thousands of other girls, too, and, gradually, she took up the attitude that you find throughout this glorious country. Only her eyes now tell the sad story.