Drome/Chapter 43
Chapter 43
We See the Stars
When facing the dangers, mysteries, horrors (and other things) of our descent to this strange and wonderful subterranean land, how often I said to myself: "If ever I get out of this, never again!" And I truly believed it at the time, though I should have known better. I should have known—I did know that adventure and mystery have inexplicable and most dreadful charms. Indeed, the more fearful the Unknown, the more eager a man (one who has heard the Siren song which adventure and mystery sing) is to penetrate to its secret places—unless, indeed, the charms of some Lepraylya or Drorathusa entwine themselves about the heart. In my case, that can never be. There is a grave in the valley of the Snoqualmie, under the shadow of old Mount Si—but tears dim the page, and I can not write of that. Even Milton Rhodes does not know.
Here was I in the Golden City; here was everything, it would seem, that could conduce to contentment, to that peace of mind which is dearer than all. Yet I was restless and really unhappy. And the Unknown was calling, calling and calling for me to come. To what? Perhaps to wonders the like of which Science never has dreamed. Perhaps to horrors and mysteries from which the imagination of even a Dante or a Doré would shrink and flee in mad terror—things nameless, worse than a thousand deaths.
But I wanted to go. Yes, I would go. I would go into that fearful Land of Grawngrograr—discover its mysteries or perish in the attempt.
And I am going, too. That journey has not been abandoned, only delayed. It was like this.
I was drawing up, in my mind, tentative plans (my purpose was yet a secret) when one day Rhodes came in, and, after smiling in somewhat enigmatic fashion for some moments, he suddenly asked: "I say, Bill, how would you like to see the stars, the sun again?"
"The sun? Milton, what do you mean?"
"That I am going back to the surface. I thought that you would want to go along."
"What in the world arc you going back for?"
"There are many things that we ought to have here—a book of logarithms, the best in the world, is one of them. We'll get those things, or as many as we can, for it would be impossible to bring them all. We'll wind up our sublunary affairs, and, hurrah, then back to Drome! What do you say to that, old tillicum?"
"What does Lepraylya say?"
"At first she wouldn't even hear of my going. But I have at last gained her consent. With our large party, there can not be any danger."
I was not sure of that, but I kept those thoughts to myself.
"Of course, I want to go," I told him. "But there is something that I don't understand."
"Which is what?"
"We can't keep our great discovery a secret. And, as soon as the world has it, adventurers, spoilers, crooks and parasites will come swarming down that passage. We'll loose upon our poor Dromans a horde of Pizarros."
"Did I think for one single moment that what you say, or anything like it, would follow, never one step Would I take toward the sun. You say that we can not keep the discovery of Drome a secret; we can, and we will—until such time as it will not matter. We will come out onto the glacier in the night-time. Our way of egress—I suppose we'll have to tunnel our way out through the ice, that there will not be any accommodating crevasse there—will be most carefully concealed. No one will sec us come out. No one will know of our journeys to and from the Tamahnowis Rocks, for they will be made under the cover of darkness. No one will know."
"Our long absence?" I queried. "This is the month of July—thanks to your chronometer-watch and your careful record, we know the very hour. Almost a whole year has gone by since that day we went forth upon the mountain. How are we going to explain that to the curious?"
"Tut, tut!" smiled Mil ton. "If all otir difficulties could be so easily solved as that!"
"I believe, however," he went on, "that we ought to leave the world, our world, a record of the discovery. I will set down to the extent that time permits those things which, in my opinion, will interest the scientific world. As for the discovery itself, the journey and our adventures, yours, Bill, is the hand to record that."
"A record?" I exclaimed. "Then why all this secrecy, this moving under cover of darkness, if you are going to broadcast the discovery of Drome to the whole world?" "Because we will then have left that world and the way to this will have been blasted up and otherwise closed."
"That," I told him, "will never keep them out."
"I think that it will. And, if any ever does find his way down, he'll never return to the surface; he'll spend the rest of his days here in Drome, even if he lives to be as old as Methuselah. Be sure you put that into the record! The Dromans are human, and so they are not quite saints. But their land is never going to be infested with plunderers, dope-peddlers and bootleggers if I can prevent it, and I feel confident that I can.
"This closing of the way will not mean complete isolation. At any rate, I hope that it will not. For I feel confident that ere very long the two worlds will communicate with each other by radio—yes, that each will even see, by means of television, the inhabitants and the marvels of the other."
One or two weird things befell us
during our return journey, but
time presses and I can not pause to
record them here. The party was
composed of picked men, one of whom
was Narkus. We had one ape-bat.
This going up was a more difficult
business, I want to tell you, than our
going down had been. There was one
consolation: we did not get lost.
Onward and upward we toiled, and at last, on the 28th of July, we reached the Tamahnowis Rocks.
This was about 10 o'clock in the morning. The way out was completely blocked by the ice. Cool air, however, was flowing in through fissures and clefts in the walls and the roof of the tunnel. We waited until along toward midnight, for fear someone might be about—that some sound might reveal the secret of the rock.
It was about 11 o'clock when we began to dig our way out through the ice. The tunnel was not driven out into the glacier but up alongside the rock wall, through the edge of the ice-stream. Hurrah! At last our passage was through! And, as old Dante has it:
"Thence issuing we again beheld the stars."
[THE END]
