In Caverns Below — Context and Discussion

Where had we fallen?--to what hidden cavern deep in the earth's maw? This was the question we asked ourselves many times, as we groped our way down the sloping floor, we could not guess whither. Yet each moment we were making discoveries. After a few minutes, as we shuffled cautiously forward, we had passed the débris-littered area and found a smooth stone floor slanting beneath our feet. And we discovered that, a yard or two to each side of us, was a polished stone wall!

"Holy Jerusalem!" whistled my companion. "Who'd have thought the mine reached down this far?"

"Mine?" I returned, derisively. "Your misfortunes must have gone to your head, Phil! When did you ever see a mine with polished walls?"

"Well, what is it if not a mine?" he flung back in gruff challenge. "What is it? Just tell me that!"

Not being able to answer, I remained silent. But a strange suspicion, which had been forming in my mind, was gradually deepening; and involuntarily I shuddered once more and pressed closer to my friend--nor was I reassured by the renewed trembling of the earth which from time to time interrupted our ruminations.

I am afraid that grim conjectures came into the mind of Clay also, for he remained tense and silent for many minutes as we continued to fumble, like blind men, down those uncanny subterranean corridors.

"The devil take us both!" he at last muttered, with an attempted levity that did not serve to conceal his alarm. "You'd think we were going straight down to Dante's Inferno! Why, I can almost feel the little imps dancing in the darkness all about us!"

"The imps be damned!" I snapped in unseemly irritation.

"Most likely, that's what _we'll_ be," he returned, wryly. And then, in soberer tones, he spoke again.

"But seriously, old man, where do you suppose we are?--in the pit of some extinct volcano?"

"Possibly--but that doesn't explain why the walls are so smooth and even."

"No, it doesn't. However, mightn't it be the channel of a dried-up subterranean river? In the course of ages, the water might have washed the walls smooth."

"It might have," I conceded, briefly. Yet deep within me, there was the feeling, the persistent feeling, that it was not water that had hollowed out the passageway.

For ten or fifteen minutes we plodded on without a word, moving at a snail's pace in our anxiety, and not aware of any change in our environment. The walls were still as polished and regular as ever; the blackness was as absolute and as unbroken; the occasional jarring of the earth continued at uneven intervals, growing a little more pronounced than before, but disturbing us less, since we were now becoming used to it.

Then, unexpectedly, the gallery curved, turning almost at right angles; and, as we felt our way around the bend, it curved again at an even sharper angle; then it curved once more, while, as if to add to our bewilderment, we discovered several side-galleries branching off in various directions.

At the same time, the thuddings of the earth grew more severe than ever and they were accompanied by rumblings, roars, and reverberations of terrifying force and insistency. Crash after crash burst upon our ears as if from some remote storm-center--crash after crash that echoed and re-echoed eerily in that narrow corridor, until our ear-drums ached from the strain and our agitated hearts pumped with a thumping rapidity.

What could it be?--some volcanic disturbance in the heart of the earth? So we were inclined to believe as, sweating with fear, we halted for a consultation. In another moment, might we not feel the reek of sulphur in our nostrils and gasp our last beneath the suffocating fumes?

For several minutes we conferred, but could reach no conclusion. Standing there against the invisible cavern wall, with the earth almost constantly quivering and with low, gruff, distant detonations dinning upon our ears, we found it difficult, almost impossible to exchange ideas. That terror which is close to madness was upon us both; and since the most difficult thing to do was to do nothing at all, it was not long before we were on our way again.

A moment later we were to receive a sharp surprise. Groping around another bend in the gallery, we were startled to see, far ahead of us, an indistinct patch of light. Vaguely rectangular in shape, and of an unearthly greenish hue, it wavered and flickered strangely, at times almost disappearing, at times flaring to a hectic, momentary brilliance, shot through with flashes of red, orange, and violet. And, simultaneously, the far-off thunders grew more deep-throated, with occasional snarls and reports as of siege-artillery.