Chapter XI: What the Analysis Showed

Just before daylight Austen completed his calculations, and stated the result. He was very tired, and his eyes were red. He had worked for a day and two nights since we had found him. He gave his conclusion in a colorless monotone.

"You know," he said, "that there are several rare gases in the air, in addition to oxygen and nitrogen. The inert gas argon comprises nearly one per cent of the atmosphere, and there are, in addition, smaller quantities of helium, neon, xenon, and krypton, not to mention the carbon dioxide and water vapor. Those gases are monatomic and do not ordinarily enter into any compounds at all.

"You know that lightning in the air causes a union of nitrogen and oxygen, to form nitrous and nitric acids, which may later release their energy in the explosion of gun powder or nitroglycerine. In much the same way the force that forms the silver fluid utilizes the photochemical effect of sunlight to build up a complex molecule containing oxygen, nitrogen, and the inert gases of the helium group. It is very unstable, and may be disrupted with the release of a great amount of energy. I was able to detect the characteristic lines of most of the gases in the luminous spectrum of the purple gas, but not until I had analyzed the light of the opalescent flame, and made my deductions from that, was I able to derive the equations and arrive at the precise structural formula, and at the exact wave length necessary to break down the molecule."

He proceeded to launch into a detailed technical discussion of the process of analysis he had used, and of the methods of inductive reasoning by which he had arrived at his conclusion. It was rather deep for me, and I am afraid some of the salient points have already slipped my mind. But I doubt that the general reader would be interested in it anyhow.

Something more important was on my mind. "Have you found out enough?" I asked. "Can you blow up the stuff? Can you wipe out the _Krimlu_?"

"I am not sure," he said, "but I think, if I could get at that machine with a little of my equipment I could manipulate it to make it go off like a thousand tons of dynamite. The silver stuff runs into the cylinder and is converted into pure vibrant energy. If I could just speed up the process a bit!

"The _Krimlu_ seem to live underground like ants. A month ago I found an opening into their world near the cliffs, south of the fall. There are the shafts where their ships come out, ventilator tubes, and funnels for the purple smoke from their engines. I will go down one of the shafts and see what can be done."

"You mean we will go," I told him. "You don't think--"

"There is no need for you to risk your life," he said in a voice purposely brusque to hide his emotion. "I can do as much by myself. Then there is Melvar. We must get her out of here if we can. I think a great deal of her. If we both should go--and not come back--. No, I want you to stay on top. I know I can trust you to treat her fairly. If I can blast down the earth on their underground world, we might be able to make it back around the Silver Sea, and eventually to the outside."

"You can trust me, sir, to care for her to the best of my ability," I told him, looking at the sandal on my right foot, and trying, without notable success, to keep my voice even and casual.

"Really," he cried, looking at me intensely, "do you love her?"

* * * * *

A Declaration

I admitted that I did, even using, as I remember the occasion, rather an enthusiastic, if hackneyed phrase to describe my feeling.

"I had hoped so," Austen said. "She and you are the dearest ones to me in the world. If you were out and safe, I could--go--in peace."

The rude hammock in which Melvar had been lying sprang into violent motion and erupted her slender, beautiful figure. She came running toward me. "I am sorry," she gasped. "No, I mean I am glad. I was awake, Winfield. I heard you--" Her further statements were not particularly coherent, since she was kissing me, and I was holding her in my arms and returning the gesture. I gathered on the whole that my feelings for her were well reciprocated. Some minutes later, when I came back to earth, I observed that Austen was taking the equipment down, and that Naro was standing and looking at us with an expression of extreme and comical disgust on his frank and boyish face.

By that time it was light, and soon, by the brightening of the purple haze above, we knew that the sun was rising. I saw that Austen was looking into the pit. Melvar and I walked to the edge. The great metal tube, which the purple beings had been all night in loading with the green bars, was being swung slowly about upon its mounting, until presently it was pointing at the sky above the Silver Sea.

For a moment nothing happened; then a low, deep, humming drone reached our ears, coming apparently from the complex machinery at the base of the tube. Steadily the sound rose in pitch, until it was an intolerably high and painful scream. Suddenly, when the high rhythm of it had become unsupportable, we ceased to hear it; but I knew that it had merely passed up the scale beyond the range of our ears, and was sounding still.

Abruptly the colossal tube seemed to flash into green incandescence and a broad beam of yellow light, blindingly brilliant, and pulsing with strange energy, poured up into the dusky purple sky. Then I knew that it was this machine that made the amazing thing above the Silver Sea, from which the white liquid fell.

As we watched, bright patches of red and green shot up the beam. Slowly the bright yellow faded from the ray, but still the green luminosity clung about the tube, and still I felt that the flood of radiant, purposeful energy was flowing up into the sky. It was not long before I heard, far above us, in the distant west beyond the red-clad hill, the splash of the first great drop of silver into the argent lake. Below us the white torrent was still pouring into the vast green cylinder, the white fire was still arching between the crystal globes, and the purple slaves were still rushing about the pit with feverish and machine-like energy.

We turned away from the place and walked back into the terrible and weird semi-darkness of the scarlet jungle, still beneath the shadow of the evil intelligence that ruled the crater. I had the knowledge of Melvar's love, and the bright charm of her nearness, but I felt the unholy power of the jungle already closing about to crush us.

We reached the camp long before night, and Austen and I went to sleep. The old scientist was up again at daylight. I was amazed at his energy and vitality. He got ready the equipment he intended to take, as we were soon ready to set out for the entrance of the underworld. Austen insisted that we leave Melvar and Naro behind. There was no use, he said, to expose them to the hardships and dangers of the journey, and it seemed that no harm would be likely to come to them at the cabin. Then, without them, we could travel faster and with less danger of detection. I did not like to leave Melvar, but she was very courageous about it, smiling through her tears. It always takes more courage in those who stay behind and wait than for those who have the lure of mystery and adventure to beckon them on.

Melvar walked with me to the edge of the clearing, and there we left her, taking a dim trail that led through the dense jungle to the south. Austen was saying nothing. He was lost in meditation. But I knew that when the time came for action, he would lose no time in thought. But how could I guess the noble thoughts that were passing in his mind? How could I realize that he was marching willingly to his doom? For my part, I was thinking of the wonderful girl I had left at the cabin. I thought, too, of the horror of the lights that haunted _Astran_, and of the horror that would be if the lights ever went beyond the rim--into the outer world.

After several hours Austen stopped. "It is not a half mile to the shafts," he said. "We shall have to make a rope. I have made cords from the tough bark of the red trees. That does very well. I want to reach the bottom of the pit before night. But I have reason to think that the things are active in their underworld at all hours of the day, emerging only at night because the magnetic vibration of sunlight interferes with the operation of the delicate machinery of their bodies." Of that, I came to a better understanding later.

We began to weave a rope of strips of leather-like like bark torn from the mighty red trees. We kept at it until we had many hundred feet of the tough strands. As we worked Austen began to talk a little, in a voice that was very low, and a little husky, of his boyhood on a Western farm, and of the bright spots of his life. He told a few stories of his school and college days, and of the girl he had loved and lost. But when the rope was finished and coiled, he fell silent again, and grimly examined his automatic. He adjusted his pack, got out his pipe and filled it with my tobacco, and grinned. Then he said soberly, "We are here. We are ready to play our hand, to win or to lose. And if we lose--"

He thrust out his hand. I shook it and we walked on silently. We had now gone more than a hundred yards when the scarlet forest thinned, and we walked out on a level stretch of bare white sand. The clear space was perhaps a mile long and half as wide. Along the western side rose a dark precipitous cliff, like that over which the silver fall plunged, with a line of red brush along the top. At the foot was a great sloping bank of talus, scattered with gigantic boulders. The cliff and the lofty crimson forest that rimmed the open space on the other three sides, seemed to reach into the dusky purple of obscurity of the low-hanging sky.

Spaced irregularly about the center of the flat were perhaps a dozen low circular metal structures--evidently the mouths of great white metal tubes projecting from the earth. From five of them dense clouds of purple vapor were pouring.

* * * * *

The Sacrifice

We left the shelter of the jungle and quickly approached the nearest of the wells. The metal curbing was about four feet high, around a circular pit some 20 feet in diameter. We leaned over and looked into it. The tube was lit faintly for a few feet down the walls, but we saw no light toward the bottom of the tube. A faint humming sound came up out of the darkness, and I felt a strong current of air flowing down the tube. It was altogether stranger and more terrible than I had anticipated. I doubt that I could have found the courage to descend.

"Is the rope long enough?" I whispered.

"Yes," he replied in a cautious undertone. "On the day I discovered the place I dropped a pebble in the well and timed its fall with my watch. The depth is just over five hundred feet."

I put the end of the cord over the metal rim and paid it out until only enough was left to hitch around my body. With a smile of forced cheerfulness, Austen looked to his pack, knocked out the pipe, and put it in his pocket.

"Winfield, my boy, I hope to see you soon again," he said. "It may take only an hour or two to lay my mine and return to the shaft. But of course I know nothing of what I am to encounter. You wait and hold the rope, and if I need to send you any message I will jerk it three times, and you can pull it up. The note will tell when to put it down again for me to climb out. Good-by, my boy. You--"

He started to say something more, but his voice broke, and he turned abruptly to the well. I braced myself against the curbing, and he climbed over and started down. I looked over and watched him. In a few moments his head and shoulders had shrunk to a little blot against the darkness of the well. Soon he was out of my sight, although for a long time I felt the tugging of the rope. Suddenly the tension relaxed. He had reached the bottom, or--fearful thought!--he had lost his grip on the rope and was hurtling downward through the darkness. I listened in an agony of suspense. It was several minutes before I was reassured to feel three twitches of the cord. I pulled it up. On the end was tied a piece of paper, with these words penciled upon it:

"Dear Winfield, I hate to leave us thus, without telling you, as I
intend to do. But I could not tell you. Go back, get Melvar, and
travel as far as you can from this accursed place. May you and she
survive and lead a happy life together, in here if you cannot reach
the world beyond.

"I will give you twenty hours. In that time you can go far north of
the silver fall. I am sure, with the equipment I have with me, I
can explode one of the engines and send all this part of the valley
skyward--if I live to carry out my plan. Good-by,

Austen."

Then I saw that he had been planning all along to give up his life. The note had been written some time before he left. I cursed the stupidity that had kept me from perceiving his intention. If I had but thought, I would have known it was impossible for the aged scientist to climb the rope from the bottom of the pit. Dear old Austen! The truest friend I ever had! His wrinkled, smiling face, his kind blue eyes, his low familiar voice, are gone forever!