Etidorhpa or the End of Earth Part 9

CHAPTER XIV.

FAREWELL TO G.o.d'S SUNSHINE.--THE ECHO OF THE CRY.

Thus speaking, my quiet leader, who had so long been as a shepherd to my wandering feet, on the upper earth, grasped my hands tightly, and placed them in those of my new companion, whose clammy fingers closed over them as with a grip of iron. The mysterious being, now my custodian, turned towards the creek, drawing me after him, and together we silently and solemnly waded beneath the stone archway. As I pa.s.sed under the shadow of that dismal, yawning cliff, I turned my head to take one last glimpse of the world I had known--that "warm precinct of the cheerful day,"--and tears sprang to my eyes. I thought of life, family, friends,--of all for which men live--and a melancholy vision arose, that of my lost, lost home. My dear companion of the journey that had just ended stood in the sunlight on the banks of the rippling stream, gazing at us intently, and waved an affectionate farewell. My uncouth new a.s.sociate (guide or master, whichever he might be), of the journey to come, clasped me firmly by the arms, and waded slowly onward, thrusting me steadily against the cold current, and with irresistible force pressed me into the thickening darkness. The daylight disappeared, the pathway contracted, the water deepened and became more chilly. We were constrained to bow our heads in order to avoid the overhanging vault of stone; the water reached to my chin, and now the down-jutting roof touched the crown of my head; then I shuddered convulsively as the last ray of daylight disappeared.

Had it not been for my companion, I know that I should have sunk in despair, and drowned; but with a firm hand he held my head above the water, and steadily pushed me onward. I had reached the extreme of despondency: I neither feared nor cared for life nor death, and I realized that, powerless to control my own acts, my fate, the future, my existence depended on the strange being beside me. I was mysteriously sustained, however, by a sense of bodily security, such as comes over us as when in the hands of an experienced guide we journey through a wilderness, for I felt that my pilot of the underworld did not purpose to destroy me. We halted a moment, and then, as a faint light overspread us, my eyeless guide directed me to look upward.

"We now stand beneath the crevice which you were told by your former guide would admit the last ray of sunlight on your path. I also say to you, this struggling ray of sunlight is to be your last for years."

I gazed above me, feeling all the wretchedness of a dying man who, with faculties intact, might stand on the dark edge of the hillside of eternity, glancing back into the bright world; and that small opening far, far overhead, seemed as the gate to Paradise Lost. Many a person, a.s.sured of ascending at will, has stood at the bottom of a deep well or shaft to a mine, and even then felt the undescribable sensation of dread, often terror, that is produced by such a situation. Awe, mystery, uncertainty of life and future superadded, may express my sensation. I trembled, shrinking in horror from my captor and struggled violently.

"Hold, hold," I begged, as one involuntarily prays a surgeon to delay the incision of the amputating knife, "just one moment." My companion, unheeding, moved on, the light vanished instantly, and we were surrounded by total darkness. G.o.d's sunshine was blotted out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THIS STRUGGLING RAY OF SUNLIGHT IS TO BE YOUR LAST FOR YEARS."]

Then I again became unconcerned; I was not now responsible for my own existence, and the feeling that I experienced when a prisoner in the closed carriage returned. I grew careless as to my fate, and with stolid indifference struggled onward as we progressed slowly against the current of water. I began to interest myself in speculations regarding our surroundings, and the object or outcome of our journey. In places the water was shallow, scarce reaching to our ankles; again it was so deep that we could wade only with exertion, and at times the pa.s.sage up which we toiled was so narrow, that it would scarcely admit us. After a long, laborious stemming of the unseen brook, my companion directed me to close my mouth, hold my nostrils with my fingers, and stoop; almost diving with me beneath the water, he drew me through the submerged crevice, and we ascended into an open chamber, and left the creek behind us. I fancied that we were in a large room, and as I shouted aloud to test my hypothesis, echo after echo answered, until at last the cry reverberated and died away in distant murmurs. We were evidently in a great pocket or cavern, through which my guide now walked rapidly; indeed, he pa.s.sed along with unerring footsteps, as certain of his course as I might be on familiar ground in full daylight. I perceived that he systematically evaded inequalities that I could not antic.i.p.ate nor see. He would tell me to step up or down, as the surroundings required, and we ascended or descended accordingly. Our path turned to the right or the left from time to time, but my eyeless guide pa.s.sed through what were evidently the most tortuous windings without a mishap.

I wondered much at this gift of knowledge, and at last overcame my reserve sufficiently to ask how we could thus unerringly proceed in utter darkness. The reply was:

"The path is plainly visible to me; I see as clearly in pitch darkness as you can in sunshine."

"Explain yourself further," I requested.

He replied, "Not yet;" and continued, "you are weary, we will rest."

He conducted me to a seat on a ledge, and left me for a time. Returning soon, he placed in my hands food which I ate with novel relish. The pabulum seemed to be of vegetable origin, though varieties of it had a peculiar flesh-like flavor. Several separate and distinct substances were contained in the queer viands, some portions savoring of wholesome flesh, while others possessed the delicate flavors of various fruits, such as the strawberry and the pineapple. The strange edibles were of a pulpy texture, h.o.m.ogeneous in consistence, parts being juicy and acid like grateful fruits. Some portions were in slices or films that I could hold in my hand like sections of a velvet melon, and yet were in many respects unlike any other food that I had ever tasted. There was neither rind nor seed; it seemed as though I were eating the gills of a fish, and in answer to my question the guide remarked:

"Yes; it is the gill, but not the gill of a fish. You will be instructed in due time." I will add that after this, whenever necessary, we were supplied with food, but both thirst and hunger disappeared altogether before our underground journey was finished.

After a while we again began our journey, which we continued in what was to me absolute darkness. My strength seemed to endure the fatigue to a wonderful degree, notwithstanding that we must have been walking hour after hour, and I expressed a curiosity about the fact. My guide replied that the atmosphere of the cavern possessed an intrinsic vitalizing power that neutralized fatigue, "or," he said, "there is here an inherent const.i.tutional energy derived from an active gaseous substance that belongs to cavern air at this depth, and sustains the life force by contributing directly to its conservation, taking the place of food and drink."

"I do not understand," I said.

"No; and you do not comprehend how ordinary air supports mind and vitalizes muscle, and at the same time wears out both muscle and all other tissues. These are facts which are not satisfactorily explained by scientific statements concerning oxygenation of the blood. As we descend into the earth we find an increase in the life force of the cavern air."

This reference to surface earth recalled my former life, and led me to contrast my present situation with that I had forfeited. I was seized with an uncontrollable longing for home, and a painful craving for the past took possession of my heart, but with a strong effort I shook off the sensations. We traveled on and on in silence and in darkness, and I thought again of the strange remark of my former guide who had said: "You are destined to go deeper into the unknown; yes, into and beyond the Beyond."

CHAPTER XV.

A ZONE OF LIGHT DEEP WITHIN THE EARTH.

"Oh! for one glimpse of light, a ray of sunshine!"

In reply to this my mental e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, my guide said: "Can not you perceive that the darkness is becoming less intense?"

"No," I answered, "I can not; night is absolute."

"Are you sure?" he asked. "Cover your eyes with your hands, then uncover and open them." I did so and fancied that by contrast a faint gray hue was apparent.

"This must be imagination."

"No; we now approach a zone of earth light; let us hasten on."

"A zone of light deep in the earth! Incomprehensible! Incredible!" I muttered, and yet as we went onward and time pa.s.sed the darkness was less intense. The barely perceptible hue became gray and somber, and then of a pearly translucence, and although I could not distinguish the outline of objects, yet I unquestionably perceived light.

"I am amazed! What can be the cause of this phenomenon? What is the nature of this mysterious halo that surrounds us?" I held my open hand before my eyes, and perceived the darkness of my spread fingers.

"It is light, it is light," I shouted, "it is really light!" and from near and from far the echoes of that subterranean cavern answered back joyfully, "It is light, it is light!"

I wept in joy, and threw my arms about my guide, forgetting in the ecstasy his clammy cuticle, and danced in hysterical glee and alternately laughed and cried. How vividly I realized then that the imprisoned miner would give a world of gold, his former G.o.d, for a ray of light.

"Compose yourself; this emotional exhibition is an evidence of weakness; an investigator should neither become depressed over a reverse, nor unduly enthusiastic over a fortunate discovery."

"But we approach the earth's surface? Soon I will be back in the sunshine again."

"Upon the contrary, we have been continually descending into the earth, and we are now ten miles or more beneath the level of the ocean."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WE APPROACH DAYLIGHT, I CAN SEE YOUR FORM."]

I shrank back, hesitated, and in despondency gazed at his hazy outline, then, as if palsied, sank upon the stony floor; but as I saw the light before me, I leaped up and shouted:

"What you say is not true; we approach daylight, I can see your form."

"Listen to me," he said. "Can not you understand that I have led you continually down a steep descent, and that for hours there has been no step upward? With but little exertion you have walked this distance without becoming wearied, and you could not, without great fatigue, have ascended for so long a period. You are entering a zone of inner earth light; we are in the surface, the upper edge of it. Let us hasten on, for when this cavern darkness is at an end--and I will say we have nearly pa.s.sed that limit--your courage will return, and then we will rest."

"You surely do not speak the truth; science and philosophy, and I am somewhat versed in both, have never told me of such a light."

"Can philosophers more than speculate about that which they have not experienced if they have no data from which to calculate? Name the student in science who has reached this depth in earth, or has seen a man to tell him of these facts?"

"I can not."

"Then why should you have expected any of them to describe our surroundings? Misguided men will torture science by refuting facts with theories; but a fact is no less a fact when science opposes."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SEATED HIMSELF ON A NATURAL BENCH OF STONE."]

I recognized the force of his arguments, and cordially grasped his hand in indication of submission. We continued our journey, and rapidly traveled downward and onward. The light gradually increased in intensity, until at length the cavern near about us seemed to be as bright as diffused daylight could have made it. There was apparently no central point of radiation; the light was such as to pervade and exist in the surrounding s.p.a.ce, somewhat as the vapor of phosphorus spreads a self-luminous haze throughout the bubble into which it is blown. The visual agent surrounding us had a permanent, self-existing luminosity, and was a pervading, bright, unreachable essence that, without an obvious origin, diffused itself equally in all directions. It reminded me of the form of light that in previous years I had seen described as epipolic dispersion, and as I refer to the matter I am of the opinion that man will yet find that the same cause produces both phenomena. I was informed now by the sense of sight, that we were in a cavern room of considerable size. The apartment presented somewhat the appearance of the usual underground caverns that I had seen pictured in books, and yet was different. Stalact.i.tes, stalagmites, saline incrustations, occurring occasionally reminded me of travelers' stories, but these objects were not so abundant as might be supposed. Such accretions or deposits of saline substances as I noticed were also disappointing, in that, instead of having a dazzling brilliancy, like frosted snow crystals, they were of a uniform gray or brown hue. Indeed, my former imaginative mental creations regarding underground caverns were dispelled in this somber stone temple, for even the floor and the fragments of stone that, in considerable quant.i.ties, strewed the floor, were of the usual rock formations of upper earth. The glittering crystals of snowy white or rainbow tints (fairy caverns) pictured by travelers, and described as inexpressibly grand and beautiful in other cavern labyrinths, were wanting here, and I saw only occasional small cl.u.s.ters of quartz crystals that were other than of a dull gray color.

Finally, after hours or perhaps days of travel, interspersed with restings, conversations, and arguments, amid which I could form no idea of the flight of time, my companion seated himself on a natural bench of stone, and directed me to rest likewise. He broke the silence, and spoke as follows: