Led by the Very Young Man, the three crawled a few yards to where a cluster of bowlders promised better shelter. Huddled behind this mass of rock, they found themselves protected in a measure from the violence of the storm. Lying there, they could see yellowish-gray clouds of sand go sweeping by, with occasionally a hail of tiny pebbles, blowing almost horizontal. Overhead, the sky was unchanged. Not a vestige of cloud was visible, only the gray-blue of an immense distance, with the huge gleaming light, like an enormous sun, hung in its center.
The Very Young Man put his hand on the Doctor's arm. "It's going down," he said. Hardly were the words out of his mouth before, with even less warning than it began, the gale abruptly ceased. There remained only the pleasantly gentle breeze of a summer afternoon blowing against their faces. And this came from almost an opposite direction to the storm.
The three men looked at one another in amazement.
"Well, I'll be——" ejaculated the Very Young Man. "What next?"
They waited for some time, afraid to venture out from the rocks among which they had taken refuge. Then, deciding that the storm, however unexplainable, was over for the time at least, they climbed to their feet and resumed their journey with bruised knees, but otherwise none the worse for the danger through which they had passed.
After walking a short distance, they came up a little incline, and before them, hardly more than a quarter of a mile away, they could see a range of hills.
"The scratch must be behind those hills," said the Very Young Man, pointing.
"It's a long distance," said the Big Business Man thoughtfully. "We're still growing smaller—look."
Their minds had been so occupied that for some time they had forgotten the effect of the drug upon their stature. As they looked about them now they could see the rocks around them still increasing steadily in size, and could feel the ground shifting under their feet when they stood still.
"You're right; we're getting smaller," observed the Very Young Man. "How long before we'll stop, do you suppose?"
The Doctor drew the Chemist's memoranda from the pouch of his belt. "It says about five or six hours for the first four pellets," he read.
The Very Young Man looked at his watch. "Quarter to nine. We've been less than an hour yet. Come on, let's keep going," and he started walking rapidly forward.
They walked for a time in silence. The line of hills before them grew visibly in size, and they seemed slowly to be nearing it.
"I've been thinking," began the Doctor thoughtfully as he glanced up at the hills. "There's one theory of Rogers's that was a fallacy. You remember he was quite positive that this change of stature became steadily more rapid, until it reached its maximum rate and then remained constant. If that were so we should probably be diminishing in size more rapidly now than when we first climbed on to the ring. If we had so much trouble getting to the ring then"—he smiled at the remembrance of their difficulty—"I don't see how we could ever get to those hills now."
"Gee, that's so," said the Very Young Man. "We'd never be able to get anywhere, would we?"
"How do you figure it works?" asked the Big Business Man.
The Doctor folded up the paper and replaced it in his belt. "I don't know," he answered. "I think probably it proceeds in cycles, like the normal rate of growth—times of rapid progress succeeded by periods of comparative inactivity."
"I never knew people grew that way," observed the Very Young Man.
"They do," said the Doctor. "And if these drugs produce the same effect we——" He got no further, for suddenly the earth seemed to rise swiftly under them, and they were thrown violently to the ground.
The Very Young Man, as he lay prone, looked upward, and saw the sunlike light above fall swiftly down across the sky and disappear below the horizon, plunging the world about them into the gloom of a semi-twilight. A wind, fiercer than before, swept over them with a roar.
"The end of the world," murmured the Very Young Man to himself. And he wondered why he was not frightened.
Then came the feeling of an extraordinary lightness of body, as though the ground were dropping away from under him. The wind abruptly ceased blowing. He saw the ball of light rise swiftly from the horizon and mount upward in a great, gleaming arc to the zenith, where again it hung motionless.
The three men lay quiet, their heads reeling. Then the Very Young Man sat up dizzily and began feeling himself all over. "There's nothing wrong with me," he said lugubriously, meeting the eyes of his friends who apparently were also more surprised than hurt. "But—oh, my gosh, the whole universe went nutty!" he added to himself in awe.
"What did that?" asked the Big Business Man. He climbed unsteadily to his feet and sat upon a rock, holding his head in his hands.
The Doctor was up in a moment beside him. "We're not hurt," he said, looking at his companions. "Don't let's waste any more time—let's get into that valley." The Very Young Man could see by his manner that he knew or guessed what had happened.
"But say; what——" began the Very Young Man.
"Come on," interrupted the Doctor, and started walking ahead swiftly.
There was nothing for his two friends to do but to follow. They walked in silence, in single file, picking their way among the rocks. For a quarter of an hour or more they kept going, until finally they came to the ridge of hills, finding them enormous rocks, several hundred feet high, strewn closely together.
"The valley must be right beyond," said the Doctor. "Come on."
The spaces between these huge rocks were, some of them, fifty feet or more in width. Inside the hills the travelers found the ground even rougher than before, and it was nearly half an hour before they emerged on the other side.
Instead of the shallow valley they expected to find, they came upon a precipice—a sheer drop into a tremendous cañon, half as wide possibly as it was deep. They could see down to its bottom from where they stood—the same rocky, barren waste as that through which they had been traveling. Across the cañon, on the farther side, lay another line of hills.
"It's the scratch all right," said the Very Young Man, as they stopped near the brink of the precipice, "but, holy smoke! Isn't it big?"
"That's two thousand feet down there," said the Big Business Man, stepping cautiously nearer to the edge. "Rogers didn't say it was so deep."
"That's because we've been so much longer getting here," explained the Doctor.
"How are we going to get down?" asked the Very Young Man as he stood beside the Big Business Man within a few feet of the brink. "It's getting deeper every minute, don't forget that."
The Big Business Man knelt down and carefully approached to the very edge of the precipice. Then, as he looked over, he got upon his feet with a laugh of relief. "Come here," he said.
They joined him at the edge and, looking over, could see that the jagged roughness of the wall made the descent, though difficult, not exceptionally hazardous. Below them, not more than twenty feet, a wide ledge jutted out, and beyond that they could see other similar ledges and crevices that would afford a foothold.
"We can get down that," said the Very Young Man. "There's an easy place," and he pointed farther along the brink, to where a break in the edge seemed to offer a means of descent to the ledge just below.
"It's going to be a mighty long climb down," said the Big Business Man. "Especially as we're getting smaller all the time. I wonder," he added thoughtfully, "how would it be if we made ourselves larger before we started. We could get big enough, you know, so that it would only be a few hundred feet down there. Then, after we got down, we could get small again."
"That's a thought," said the Very Young Man.
The Doctor sat down somewhat wearily, and again took the papers from his belt. "The idea is a good one," he said. "But there's one thing you overlook. The larger we get, the smoother the wall is going to be. Look, can't you see it changing every moment?"
It was true. Even in the short time since they had first looked down, new crevices had opened up. The descent, though longer, was momentarily becoming less dangerous.
"You see," continued the Doctor, "if the valley were only a few hundred feet deep, the precipice might then be so sheer we could not trust ourselves to it at all."
"You're right," observed the Big Business Man.
"Well, it's not very hard to get down now," said the Very Young Man. "Let's get going before it gets any deeper. Say," he added, "how about stopping our size where it is? How would that work?"
The Doctor was reading the papers he held in his hand. "I think," he said, "it would be our wisest course to follow as closely as possible what Rogers tells us to do. It may be harder, but I think we will avoid trouble in the end."
"We could get lost in size just as easily as in space, couldn't we?" the Big Business Man put in. "That's a curious idea, isn't it?"
"It's true," agreed the Doctor. "It is something we must guard against very carefully."
"Well, come on then, let's get going," said the Very Young Man, pulling the Doctor to his feet.
The Big Business Man glanced at his watch. "Twenty to ten," he said. Then he looked up into the sky. "One hour and a half ago," he added sentimentally, "we were up there. What will another hour bring—I wonder?"
"Nothing at all," said the Very Young Man, "if we don't ever get started. Come on."
He walked towards the place he had selected, followed by his companions. And thus the three adventurers began their descent into the ring.
For the first half-hour of their climb down into the valley of the scratch, the three friends were too preoccupied with their own safety to talk more than an occasional sentence. They came upon many places that at first glance appeared impassable, or at least sufficiently hazardous to cause them to hesitate, but in each instance the changing contour of the precipice offered some other means of descent.
After thirty minutes of arduous effort, the Big Business Man sat down suddenly upon a rock and began to unlace his shoes.
"I've got to rest a while," he groaned. "My feet are in terrible shape."
His two companions were glad of the opportunity to sit with him for a moment.
"Gosh, I'm all in, too!" said the Very Young Man with a sigh.
They were sitting upon a ledge about twenty feet wide, with the wall down which they had come at their back.
"I'll swear that's as far down there as it ever was," said the Big Business Man, with a wave of his hand towards the valley below them.
"Further," remarked the Very Young Man. "I've known that right along."
"That's to be expected," said the Doctor. "But we're a third the way down, just the same; that's the main thing." He glanced up the rocky, precipitous wall behind them. "We've come down a thousand feet, at least. The valley must be three thousand feet deep or more now."
"Say, how deep does it get before it stops?" inquired the Very Young Man.
The Doctor smiled at him quietly. "Rogers's note put it about twelve thousand," he answered. "It should reach that depth and stop about"—he hesitated a moment, calculating—"about two o'clock," he finished.
"Some climb," commented the Very Young Man. "We could do this a lot better than we're doing it, I think."
For some time they sat in silence. From where they sat the valley had all the appearance of a rocky, barren cañon of their own world above, as it might have looked on the late afternoon of a cloudless summer day. A gentle breeze was blowing, and in the sky overhead they could still see the huge light that for them was the sun.
"The weather is certainly great down here anyway," observed the Very Young Man, "that's one consolation."
The Big Business Man had replaced his shoes, taken a swallow of water, and risen to his feet, preparing to start downward again, when suddenly they all noticed a curious swaying motion, as though the earth were moving under them.
"Now what?" ejaculated the Very Young Man, standing up abruptly, with his feet spread wide apart.
The ground seemed pressing against his feet as if he were weighted down with a heavy load. And he felt a little also as though in a moving train with a side thrust to guard against. The sun was no longer visible, and the valley was plunged in the semidarkness of twilight. A strong wind sprang up, sweeping down upon them from above.
The Very Young Man and the Big Business Man looked puzzled; the Doctor alone of the three seemed to understand what was happening.
"He's moving the ring," he explained, with a note of apprehension in his voice.
"Oh," ejaculated the Big Business Man, comprehending at last, "so that's the——"
The Very Young Man standing with his back to the wall and his legs spread wide looked hastily at his watch. "Moving the ring? Why, damn it——" he began impetuously.
The Big Business Man interrupted him. "Look there, look!" he almost whispered, awestruck.
The sky above the valley suddenly had become suffused with red. As they watched it seemed to take form, appearing no longer space, but filled with some enormous body of reddish color. In one place they could see it broken into a line of gray, and underneath the gray, two circular holes of light gleamed down at them.
The Doctor shuddered and closed his eyes; his two friends stared upward, fascinated into immobility.
"What—is—that?" the Very Young Man whispered.
Before he could be answered, the earth swayed under them more violently than before. The red faded back out of the sky, and the sun appeared sweeping up into the zenith, where it hung swaying a moment and then poised motionless. The valley was flooded again with light; the ground steadied under them and became quiet. The wind died rapidly away, and in another moment it was as though nothing unusual had occurred.
For a time the three friends stood silent, too astonished for words at this extraordinary experience. The Doctor was the first to recover himself. "He moved the ring," he said hurriedly. "That's twice. We must hurry."
"It's only quarter past ten. We told him not till eleven," protested the Very Young Man.
"Even that is too soon for safety," said the Doctor back over his shoulder, for already he had started downward.
It was nearly twelve o'clock when they stopped again for rest. At this time the valley appeared about seven or eight thousand feet deep: they estimated themselves to be slightly more than half-way down. From eleven until twelve they had momentarily expected some disturbing phenomena attendant upon the removal of the ring by the Banker from the clubroom to its place in the Museum. But nothing unusual had occurred.
"He probably decided to leave it alone for a while," commented the Big Business Man, as they were discussing the matter. "Glad he showed that much sense."
"It would not bother us much now," the Doctor replied. "We're too far down. See how the light is changing."
The sky showed now only as a narrow ribbon of blue between the edges of the cañon's walls. The sun was behind the wall down which they were climbing, out of sight, and throwing their side of the valley into shadow. And already they could begin to see a dim phosphorescence glowing from the rocks near at hand.
The Very Young Man, sitting beside the Doctor, suddenly gripped his friend by the arm. "A bird," he said, pointing down the valley. "See it there?"
From far off they could see a bird coming up the center of the valley at a height apparently almost level with their own position, and flying towards them. They watched it in silence as it rapidly approached.
"Great Scott, it's big!" muttered the Big Business Man in an undertone.
As the bird came closer they saw it was fully fifty feet across the wings. It was flying straight down the valley at tremendous speed. When it was nearly opposite them they heard a familiar "cheep, cheep," come echoing across the valley.
"The sparrow," whispered the Very Young Man. "Oh, my gosh, look how big it is!"
In another moment it had passed them; they watched in silence until it disappeared in the distance.
"Well," said the Very Young Man, "if that had ever seen us——" He drew a long breath, leaving the rest to the imagination of his hearers.
"What a wonderful thing!" said the Big Business Man, with a note of awe in his voice. "Just think—that sparrow when we last saw it was infinitesimally small."
The Doctor laughed. "It's far smaller now than it was then," he said. "Only since we last saw it we have changed size to a much greater extent than it has."
"Foolish of us to have sent it in here," remarked the Big Business Man casually. "Suppose that——" He stopped abruptly.
The Very Young Man started hastily to his feet.
"Oh, golly!" he exclaimed as the same thought occurred to him. "That lizard——" He looked about him wildly.
"It was foolish perhaps." The Doctor spoke quietly. "But we can't help it now. The sparrow has gone. That lizard may be right here at our feet"—The Very Young Man jumped involuntarily—"and so small we can't see it," the Doctor finished with a smile. "Or it may be a hundred miles away and big as a dinosaur." The Very Young Man shuddered.
"It was senseless of us to let them get in here anyway," said the Big Business Man. "That sparrow evidently has stopped getting smaller. Do you realize how big it will be to us, after we've diminished a few hundred more times?"
"We needn't worry over it," said the Doctor. "Even if we knew the lizard got into the valley the chances of our seeing it here are one in a million. But we don't even know that. If you'll remember it was still some distance away from the scratch when it became invisible; I doubt very much if it even got there. No, I think probably we'll never see it again."
"I hope not," declared the Very Young Man emphatically.
For another hour they climbed steadily downward, making more rapid progress than before, for the descent became constantly less difficult. During this time they spoke little, but it was evident that the Very Young Man, from the frequent glances he threw around, never for a moment forgot the possibility of encountering the lizard. The sparrow did not return, although for that, too, they were constantly on the look-out.
It was nearly half-past one when the Big Business Man threw himself upon the ground exhausted. The valley at this time had reached a depth of over ten thousand feet. It was still growing deeper, but the travelers had made good progress and were not more than fifteen hundred feet above its bottom.
They had been under tremendous physical exertion for over five hours, too absorbed in their strange experiences to think of eating, and now all three agreed it was foolish to attempt to travel farther without food and rest.
"We had better wait here an hour or two," the Doctor decided. "Our size will soon remain constant and it won't take us long to get down after we've rested."
"I'm hungry," suggested the Very Young Man, "how about you?"
They ate and drank sparingly of the little store they had brought with them. The Doctor would not let them have much, both because he wanted to conserve their supply, and because he knew in their exhausted condition it would be bad for them to eat heartily.
It was about two o'clock when they noticed that objects around them no longer were increasing in size. They had finished their meal and felt greatly refreshed.
"Things have stopped growing," observed the Very Young Man. "We've done four pills' worth of the journey anyway," he added facetiously. He rose to his feet, stretching. He felt sore and bruised all over, but with the meal and a little rest, not particularly tired.
"I move we go on down now," he suggested, walking to the edge of the huge crevice in which they were sitting. "It's only a couple of thousand feet."
"Perhaps we might as well," agreed the Doctor, rising also. "When we get to the floor of the valley, we can find a good spot and turn in for the night."
The incongruity of his last words with the scene around made the Doctor smile. Overhead the sky still showed a narrow ribbon of blue. Across the valley the sunlight sparkled on the yellowish crags of the rocky wall. In the shadow, on the side down which they were climbing, the rocks now shone distinctly phosphorescent, with a peculiar waviness of outline.
"Not much like either night or day, is it?" added the Doctor. "We'll have to get used to that."
They started off again, and in another two hours found themselves going down a gentle rocky slope and out upon the floor of the valley.
"We're here at last," said the Big Business Man wearily.
The Very Young Man looked up the great, jagged precipice down which they had come, to where, far above, its edge against the strip of blue marked the surface of the ring.
"Some trip," he remarked. "I wouldn't want to tackle that every day."
"Four o'clock," said the Doctor, "the light up there looks just the same. I wonder what's happened to George."
Neither of his companions answered him. The Big Business Man lay stretched full length upon the ground near by, and the Very Young Man still stood looking up the precipice, lost in thought.
"What a nice climb going back," he suddenly remarked.
The Doctor laughed. "Don't let's worry about that, Jack. If you remember how Rogers described it, getting back is easier than getting in. But the main point now," he added seriously, "is for us to make sure of getting down to Arite as speedily as possible."
The Very Young Man surveyed the barren waste around them in dismay. The floor of the valley was strewn with even larger rocks and bowlders than those on the surface above, and looked utterly pathless and desolate. "What do we do first?" he asked dubiously.
"First," said the Doctor, smiling at the Big Business Man, who lay upon his back staring up into the sky and paying no attention to them whatever, "I think first we had better settle ourselves for a good long rest here."
"If we stop at all, let's sleep a while," said the Very Young Man. "A little rest only gets you stiff. It's a pretty exposed place out here though, isn't it, to sleep?" he added, thinking of the sparrow and the lizard.
"One of us will stay awake and watch," answered the Doctor.
At the suggestion of the Very Young Man they located without much difficulty a sort of cave amid the rocks, which offered shelter for their rest. Taking turns watching, they passed eight hours in fair comfort, and by noon next day, after another frugal meal they felt thoroughly refreshed and eager to continue the journey.
"We sure are doing this classy," observed the Very Young Man. "Think of Rogers—all he could do was fall asleep when he couldn't stay awake any more. Gosh, what chances he took!"
"We're playing it safe," agreed the Big Business Man.
"But we mustn't take it too easy," added the Doctor.
The Very Young Man stretched himself luxuriously and buckled his belt on tighter. "Well, I'm ready for anything," he announced. "What's next?"
The Doctor consulted his papers. "We find the circular pit Rogers made in the scratch and we descend into it. We take twelve more pills at the edge of the pit," he said.
The Very Young Man leaped to the top of a rock and looked out over the desolate waste helplessly. "How are we going to find the pit?" he asked dubiously. "It's not in sight, that's sure."
"It's down there—about five miles," said the Doctor. "I saw it yesterday as we came down."
"That's easy," said the Very Young Man, and he started off enthusiastically, followed by the others.
In less than two hours they found themselves at the edge of the pit. It appeared almost circular in form, apparently about five miles across, and its smooth, shining walls extended almost perpendicularly down into blackness. Somewhat awed by the task confronting them in getting down into this abyss, the three friends sat down near its brink to discuss their plan of action.
"We take twelve pills here," said the Doctor. "That ought to make us small enough to climb down into that."
"Do you think we need so many?" asked the Big Business Man thoughtfully. "You know, Frank, we're making an awful lot of work for ourselves, playing this thing so absolutely safe. Think of what a distance down that will be after we have got as small as twelve pills will make us. It might take us days to get to the bottom."
"How did Rogers get down?" the Very Young Man wanted to know.
"He took the twelve pills here," the Doctor answered.
"But as I understand it, he fell most of the way down while he was still big, and then got small afterwards at the bottom." This from the Big Business Man.
"I don't know how about you," said the Very Young Man drily, "but I'd much rather take three days to walk down than fall down in one day."
The Doctor smiled. "I still think," he said, "that we had better stick to the directions Rogers left us. Then at least there is no danger of our getting lost in size. But I agree with you, Jack. I'd rather not fall down, even if it takes longer to walk."
"I wonder——" began the Big Business Man. "You know I've been thinking—it does seem an awful waste of energy for us to let ourselves get smaller than absolutely necessary in climbing down these places. Maybe you don't realize it."
"I do," said the Very Young Man, looking sorrowfully at the ragged shoes on his feet and the cuts and bruises on his legs.
"What I mean is——" persisted the Big Business Man.
"How far do you suppose we have actually traveled since we started last night?"
"That's pretty hard to estimate," said the doctor. "We have walked perhaps fifteen miles altogether, besides the climb down. I suppose we actually came down five or six thousand feet."
"And at the size we are now it would have been twelve thousand feet down, wouldn't it?"
"Yes," answered the Doctor, "it would."
"And just think," went on the Big Business Man, "right now, based on the size we were when we began, we've only gone some six feet altogether from the place we started."
"And a sixteenth of an inch or less since we left the surface of the ring," said the Doctor smiling.
"Gee, that's a weird thought," the Very Young Man said, as he gazed in awe at the lofty heights about them.
"I've been thinking," continued the Big Business Man. "You say we must be careful not to get lost in size. Well, suppose instead of taking twelve pills here, we only take six. That should be enough to get us started—possibly enough to get us all the way down. Then before we moved at all we could take the other six. That would keep it straight, wouldn't it?"
"Great idea," said the Very Young Man. "I'm in favor of that."
"It sounds feasible—certainly if we can get all the way down with six pills we will save a lot of climbing."
"If six aren't enough, we can easily take more," added the Big Business Man.
And so they decided to take only six pills of the drug and to get down to the bottom of the pit, if possible, without taking more. The pit, as they stood looking down into it now, seemed quite impossible of descent, for its almost perpendicular wall was smooth and shining as polished brass.
They took the drug, standing close together at the edge of the pit. Immediately began again the same crawling sensation underfoot, much more rapid this time, while all around them the rocks began very rapidly increasing in size.
The pit now seemed widening out at an astounding rate. In a few minutes it had broadened so that its opposite side could not be seen. The wall at the brink of which they stood had before curved in a great sweeping arc to enclose the circular hole; now it stretched in a nearly straight, unbroken line to the right and left as far as they could see. Beneath them lay only blackness; it was as though they were at the edge of the world.
"Good God, what a place to go down into," gasped the Big Business Man, after they had been standing nearly half an hour in silence, appalled at the tremendous changes taking place around them.
For some time past the wall before them had become sufficiently indented and broken to make possible their descent. It was the Doctor who first realized the time—or perhaps it should be said, the size—they were losing by their inactivity; and when with a few crisp words he brought them to themselves, they immediately started downward.
For another six hours they traveled downward steadily, stopping only once to eat. The descent during this time was not unlike that down the side of the valley, although towards the last it began rapidly to grow less precipitous.
They now found themselves confronted frequently with gentle slopes downward, half a mile or more in extent, and sometimes by almost level places, succeeded by another sharp descent.
During this part of the trip they made more rapid progress than at any time since starting, the Very Young Man in his enthusiasm at times running forward and then sitting down to wait for the others to overtake him.
The light overhead gradually faded into the characteristic luminous blackness the Chemist had described. As it did so, the phosphorescent quality of the rocks greatly increased, or at least became more noticeable, so that the light illuminating the landscape became hardly less in volume, although totally different in quality.
The ground underfoot and the rocks themselves had been steadily changing. They had lost now almost entirely the yellowishness, metal look, and seemed to have more the quality of a gray opaque glass, or marble. They appeared rather smoother, too, than before, although the huge bowlders and loosely strewn rocks and pebbles still remained the characteristic feature of the landscape.
The three men were still diminishing in size; in fact, at this time the last dose of the drug seemed to have attained its maximum power, for objects around them appeared to be growing larger at a dizzying rate. They were getting used to this effect, however, to a great extent, and were no longer confused by the change as they had been before.
It was the Big Business Man who first showed signs of weakening, and at the end of six hours or more of steady—and, towards the end, extremely rapid—traveling he finally threw himself down and declared he could go no farther. At this point they rested again several hours, taking turns at watch, and each of them getting some measure of sleep. Of the three, the Very Young Man appeared in the best condition, although possibly it was his enthusiasm that kept him from admitting even to himself any serious physical distress.
It was perhaps ten or twelve hours after they had taken the six pills that they were again ready to start downward. Before starting the three adventurers discussed earnestly the advisability of taking the other six pills. The action of the drug had ceased some time before. They decided not to, since apparently there was no difficulty facing them at this part of the journey, and decreasing their stature would only immeasurably lengthen the distance they had to go.
They had been traveling downward, through a barren land that now showed little change of aspect, for hardly more than another hour, when suddenly, without warning, they came upon the tremendous glossy incline that they had been expecting to reach for some time. The rocks and bowlders stopped abruptly, and they found at their feet, sloping downward at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, a great, smooth plane. It extended as far as they could see both to the right and left and downward, at a slightly lessening angle, into the luminous darkness that now bounded their entire range of vision in every direction.
This plane seemed distinctly of a different substance than anything they had hitherto encountered. It was, as the Chemist had described it, apparently like a smooth black marble. Yet it was not so smooth to them now as he had pictured it, for its surface was sufficiently indented and ridged to afford foothold.
They started down this plane gingerly, yet with an assumed boldness they were all of them far from feeling. It was slow work at first, and occasionally one or the other of them would slide headlong a score of feet, until a break in the smoothness brought him to a stop. Their rubber-soled shoes stood them in good stead here, for without the aid given by them this part of the journey would have been impossible.
For several hours they continued this form of descent. The incline grew constantly less steep, until finally they were able to walk down it quite comfortably. They stopped again to eat, and after traveling what seemed to them some fifteen miles from the top of the incline they finally reached its bottom.
They seemed now to be upon a level floor—a ground of somewhat metallic quality such as they had become familiar with above. Only now there were no rocks or bowlders, and the ground was smoother and with a peculiar corrugation. On one side lay the incline down which they had come. There was nothing but darkness to be seen in any other direction. Here they stopped again to rest and recuperate, and then they discussed earnestly their next movements.
The Doctor, seated wearily upon the ground, consulted his memoranda earnestly. The Very Young Man sat close beside him. As usual the Big Business Man lay prone upon his back nearby, waiting for their decision.
"Rogers wasn't far from a forest when he got here," said the Very Young Man, looking sidewise at the papers in the Doctor's hand. "And he speaks of a tiny range of hills; but we can't see anything from here."
"We may not be within many miles of where Rogers landed," answered the Doctor.
"No reason why we should be, at that, is there? Do you think we'll ever find Arite?"
"Don't overlook the fact we've got six more pills to take here," called the Big Business Man.
"That's just what I was considering," said the Doctor thoughtfully. "There's no use our doing anything until we have attained the right size. Those hills and the forest and river we are looking for might be here right at our feet and we couldn't see them while we are as big as this."
"We'd better take the pills and stay right here until their action wears off. I'm going to take a sleep," said the Big Business Man.
"I think we might as well all sleep," said the Doctor. "There could not possibly be anything here to harm us."
They each took the six additional pills without further words. Physically exhausted as they were, and with the artificial drowsiness produced by the drug, they were all three in a few moments fast asleep.
It was nearly twelve hours later, as their watches showed them, that the first of the weary adventurers awoke. The Very Young Man it was who first opened his eyes with a confused sense of feeling that he was in bed at home, and that this was the momentous day he was to start his journey into the ring. He sat up and rubbed his eyes vigorously to see more clearly his surroundings.
Beside him lay his two friends, fast asleep. With returning consciousness came the memory of the events of the day and night before. The Very Young Man sprang to his feet and vigorously awoke his companions.
The action of the drug again had ceased, and at first glance the scene seemed to have changed very little. The incline now was some distance away, although still visible, stretching up in a great arc and fading away into the blackness above. The ground beneath their feet still of its metallic quality, appeared far rougher than before. The Very Young Man bent down and put his hand upon it. There was some form of vegetation there, and, leaning closer, he could see what appeared to be the ruins of a tiny forest, bent and trampled, the tree-trunks no larger than slender twigs that he could have snapped asunder easily between his fingers.
"Look at this," he exclaimed. "The woods—we're here."
The others knelt down with him.
"Be careful," cautioned the Doctor. "Don't move around. We must get smaller." He drew the papers from his pocket.
"Rogers was in doubt about this quantity to take," he added. "We should be now somewhere at the edge or in the forest he mentions. Yet we may be very far from the point at which he reached the bottom of that incline. I think, too, that we are somewhat larger than he was. Probably the strength of our drug differs from his to some extent."
"How much should we take next, I wonder?" said the Big Business Man as he looked at his companions.
The Doctor took a pill and crushed it in his hand. "Let us take so much," he said, indicating a small portion of the powder. The others each crushed one of the pills and endeavored to take as nearly as possible an equal amount.
"I'm hungry," said the Very Young Man. "Can we eat right after the powder?"
"I don't think that should make any difference," the Doctor answered, and so accustomed to the drug were they now that, quite nonchalantly, they sat down and ate.
After a few moments it became evident that in spite of their care the amounts of the drug they had taken were far from equal.
Before they had half finished eating, the Very Young Man was hardly more than a third the size of the Doctor, with the Big Business Man about half-way between. This predicament suddenly struck them as funny, and all three laughed heartily at the effect of the drug.
"Hey, you, hurry up, or you'll never catch me," shouted the Very Young Man gleefully. "Gosh, but you're big!" He reached up and tried to touch the Doctor's shoulder. Then, seeing the huge piece of chocolate in his friend's hand and comparing it with the little one in his own, he added: "Trade you chocolate. That's a regular meal you got there."
"That's a real idea," said the Big Business Man, ceasing his laughter abruptly. "Do you know, if we ever get really low on food, all we have to do is one of us stay big and his food would last the other two a month."
"Fine; but how about the big one?" asked the Very Young Man, grinning. "He'd starve to death on that plan, wouldn't he?"
"Well, then he could get much smaller than the other two, and they could feed him. It's rather involved, I'll admit, but you know what I mean," the Big Business Man finished somewhat lamely.
"I've got a much better scheme than that," said the Very Young Man. "You let the food stay large and you get small. How about that?" he added triumphantly. Then he laid carefully on the ground beside him a bit of chocolate and a few of the hard crackers they were eating. "Stay there, little friends, when you grow up, I'll take you back," he added in a gleeful tone of voice.
"Strange that should never have occurred to us," said the Doctor. "It's a perfect way of replenishing our food supply," and quite seriously both he and the Big Business Man laid aside some of their food.
"Thank me for that brilliant idea," said the Very Young Man. Then, as another thought occurred to him, he scratched his head lugubriously. "Wouldn't work very well if we were getting bigger, would it? Don't let's ever get separated from any food coming out."
The Doctor was gigantic now in proportion to the other two, and both he and the Big Business Man took a very small quantity more of the drug in an effort to equalize their rate of bodily reduction. They evidently hit it about right, for no further change in their relative size occurred.
All this time the vegetation underneath them had been growing steadily larger. From tiny broken twigs it grew to sticks bigger than their fingers, then to the thickness of their arms. They moved slightly from time to time, letting it spread out from under them, or brushing it aside and clearing a space in which they could sit more comfortably. Still larger it grew until the tree-trunks, thick now almost as their bodies, were lying broken and twisted, all about them. Over to one side they could see, half a mile away, a place where the trees were still standing—slender saplings, they seemed, growing densely together.
In half an hour more the Very Young Man announced he had stopped getting smaller. The action of the drug ceased in the others a few minutes later. They were still not quite in their relative sizes, but a few grains of the powder quickly adjusted that.
They now found themselves near the edge of what once was a great forest. Huge trees, whose trunks measured six feet or more in diameter, lay scattered about upon the ground; not a single one was left standing. In the distance they could see, some miles away, where the untrodden forest began.
They had replaced the food in their belts some time before, and now again they were ready to start. Suddenly the Very Young Man spied a huge, round, whitish-brown object lying beside a tree-trunk near by. He went over and stood beside it. Then he called his friends excitedly. It was irregularly spherical in shape and stood higher than his knees—a great jagged ball. The Very Young Man bent down, broke off a piece of the ball, and, stuffing it into his mouth, began chewing with enthusiasm.
"Now, what do you think of that?" he remarked with a grin. "A cracker crumb I must have dropped when we first began lunch!"
They decided now to make for the nearest part of the unbroken forest. It was two hours before they reached it, for among the tangled mass of broken, fallen trees their progress was extremely difficult and slow. Once inside, among the standing trees, they felt more lost than ever. They had followed implicitly the Chemist's directions, and in general had encountered the sort of country they expected. Nevertheless, they all three realized that it was probable the route they had followed coming in was quite different from that taken by the Chemist; and in what direction lay their destination, and how far, they had not even the vaguest idea, but they were determined to go on.
"If ever we find this city of Arite, it'll be a miracle sure," the Very Young Man remarked as they were walking along in silence.
They had gone only a short distance farther when the Big Business Man, who was walking in front, stopped abruptly.
"What's that?" he asked in a startled undertone.
They followed the direction of his hand, and saw, standing rigid against a tree-trunk ahead, the figure of a man little more than half as tall as themselves, his grayish body very nearly the color of the blue-gray tree behind him.
The three adventurers stood motionless, staring in amazement.
As the Big Business Man spoke, the little figure, which had evidently been watching them for some time, turned irresolutely as though about to run. Then with gathering courage it began walking slowly towards them, holding out its arms with the palm up.
"He's friendly," whispered the Very Young Man; and they waited, silent, as the man approached.
As he came closer, they could see he was hardly more than a boy, perhaps twenty years of age. His lean, gray body was nearly naked. Around his waist he wore a drab-colored tunic, of a substance they could not identify. His feet and legs were bare. On his chest were strapped a thin stone plate, slightly convex. His thick, wavy, black hair, cut at the base of his neck, hung close about his ears. His head was uncovered. His features were regular and pleasing; his smile showed an even row of very white teeth.
The three men did not speak or move until, in a moment, more, he stood directly before them, still holding out his hands palm up. Then abruptly he spoke.
"The Master welcomes his friends," he said in a soft musical voice. He gave the words a most curious accent and inflexion, yet they were quite understandable to his listeners.
"The Master welcomes his friends," he repeated, dropping his arms to his sides and smiling in a most friendly manner.
The Very Young Man caught his breath. "He's been sent to meet us; he's from Rogers. What do you think of that? We're all right now!" he exclaimed excitedly.
The Doctor held out his hand, and the Oroid, hesitating a moment in doubt, finally reached up and grasped it.
"Are you from Rogers?" asked the Doctor.
The Oroid looked puzzled. Then he turned and flung out his arm in a sweeping gesture towards the deeper woods before them. "Rogers—Master," he said.
"You were waiting for us?" persisted the Doctor; but the other only shook his head and smiled his lack of comprehension.
"He only knows the first words he said," the Big Business Man suggested.
"He must be from Rogers," the Very Young Man put in. "See, he wants us to go with him."
The Oroid was motioning them forward, holding out his hand as though to lead them.
The Very Young Man started forward, but the Big Business Man held him back.
"Wait a moment," he said. "I don't think we ought to go among these people as large as we are. Rogers is evidently alive and waiting for us. Why wouldn't it be better to be about his size, instead of ten-foot giants as we would look now?"
"How do you know how big Rogers is?" asked the Very Young Man.
"I think that a good idea," agreed the Doctor. "Rogers described these Oroid men as being some six inches shorter than himself, on the average."
"This one might be a pygmy, for all we know," said the Very Young Man.
"We might chance it that he's of normal size," said the Doctor, smiling. "I think we should make ourselves smaller."
The Oroid stood patiently by and watched them with interested eyes as each took a tiny pellet from a vial under his arm and touched it to his tongue. When they began to decrease in size his eyes widened with fright and his legs shook under him. But he stood his ground, evidently assured by their smiles and friendly gestures.
In a few minutes the action of the drug was over, and they found themselves not more than a head taller than the Oroid. In this size he seemed to like them better, or at least he stood in far less awe of them, for now he seized them by the arms and pulled them forward vigorously.
They laughingly yielded, and, led by this strange being of another world, they turned from the open places they had been following and plunged into the depths of the forest.
For an hour or more the three adventurers followed their strange guide in silence through the dense, trackless woods. He walked very rapidly, looking neither to the right nor to the left, finding his way apparently by an intuitive sense of direction. Occasionally he glanced back over his shoulder and smiled.
Walking through the woods here was not difficult, and the party made rapid progress. The huge, upstanding tree-trunks were devoid of limbs for a hundred feet or more above the ground. On some of them a luxuriant vine was growing—a vine that bore a profusion of little gray berries. In the branches high overhead a few birds flew to and fro, calling out at times with a soft, cooing note. The ground—a gray, finely powdered sandy loam—was carpeted with bluish fallen leaves, sometimes with a species of blue moss, and occasional ferns of a like color.
The forest was dense, deep, and silent; the tree branches overhead locked together in a solid canopy, shutting out the black sky above. Yet even in this seclusion the scene remained as light as it had been outside the woods in the open. Darkness indeed was impossible in this land; under all circumstances the light seemed the same—neither too bright nor too dim—a comfortable, steady glow, restful, almost hypnotic in its sameness.
They had traveled perhaps six miles from the point where they met their Oroid guide when suddenly the Very Young Man became aware that other Oroids were with them. Looking to one side, he saw two more of these strange gray men, silently stalking along, keeping pace with them. Turning, he made out still another, following a short distance behind. The Very Young Man was startled, and hurriedly pointed them out to his companions.
"Wait," called the Doctor to their youthful guide, and abruptly the party came to a halt.
By these signs they made their guide understand that they wanted these other men to come closer. The Oroid shouted to them in his own quaint tongue, words of a soft, liquid quality with a wistful sound—words wholly unintelligible to the adventurers.
The men came forward diffidently, six of them, for three others appeared out of the shadows of the forest, and stood in a group, talking among themselves a little and smiling at their visitors. They were all dressed similarly to Lao—for such was the young Oroid's name—and all of them older than he, and of nearly the same height.
"Do any of you speak English?" asked the Doctor, addressing them directly.
Evidently they did not, for they answered only by shaking their heads and by more smiles.
Then one of them spoke. "The Master welcomes his friends," he said. And all the others repeated it after him, like children in school repeating proudly a lesson newly learned.
The Doctor and his two friends laughed heartily, and, completely reassured by this exhibition of their friendliness, they signified to Lao that they were ready again to go forward.
As they walked onward through the apparently endless and unchanging forest, surrounded by what the Very Young Man called their "guard of honor," they were joined from time to time by other Oroid men, all of whom seemed to know who they were and where they were going, and who fell silently into line with them. Within an hour their party numbered twenty or more.
Seeing one of the natives stop a moment and snatch some berries from one of the vines with which many of the trees were encumbered, the Very Young Man did the same. He found the berries sweet and palatable, and he ate a quantity. Then discovering he was hungry, he took some crackers from his belt and ate them walking along. The Doctor and the Big Business Man ate also, for although they had not realized it, all three were actually famished.
Shortly after this the party came to a broad, smooth-flowing river, its banks lined with rushes, with here and there a little spot of gray, sandy beach. It was apparent from Lao's signs that they must wait at this point for a boat to take them across. This they were glad enough to do, for all three had gone nearly to the limit of their strength. They drank deep of the pure river water, laved their aching limbs in it gratefully, and lay down, caring not a bit how long they were forced to wait.
In perhaps another hour the boat appeared. It came from down the river, propelled close inshore by two members of their own party who had gone to fetch it. At first the travelers thought it a long, oblong raft. Then as it came closer they could see it was constructed of three canoes, each about thirty feet long, hollowed out of tree-trunks. Over these was laid a platform of small trees hewn roughly into boards. The boat was propelled by long, slender poles in the hands of the two men, who, one on each side, dug them into the bed of the river and walked with them the length of the platform.
On to this boat the entire party crowded and they were soon well out on the shallow river, headed for its opposite bank. The Very Young Man, seated at the front end of the platform with his legs dangling over and his feet only a few inches above the silver phosphorescence of the rippling water underneath, sighed luxuriously.
"This beats anything we've done yet," he murmured. "Gee, it's nice here!"
When they landed on the farther bank another group of natives was waiting for them. The party, thus strengthened to nearly forty, started off immediately into the forest, which on this side of the river appeared equally dense and trackless.
They appeared now to be paralleling the course of the river a few hundred yards back from its bank. After half an hour of this traveling they came abruptly to what at first appeared to be the mouth of a large cave, but which afterwards proved to be a tunnel-like passageway. Into this opening the party unhesitatingly plunged.
Within this tunnel, which sloped downward at a considerable angle, they made even more rapid progress than in the forest above. The tunnel walls here were perhaps twenty feet apart—walls of a glistening, radiant, crystalline rock. The roof of the passageway was fully twice as high as its width; its rocky floor was smooth and even.
After a time this tunnel was crossed by another somewhat broader and higher, but in general of similar aspect. It, too, sloped downward, more abruptly from the intersection. Into this latter passageway the party turned, still taking the downward course.
As they progressed, many other passageways were crossed, the intersections of which were wide at the open spaces. Occasionally the travelers encountered other natives, all of them men, most of whom turned and followed them.
The Big Business Man, after over an hour of this rapid walking downward, was again near the limit of his endurance, when the party, after crossing a broad, open square, came upon a sort of sleigh, with two animals harnessed to it. It was standing at the intersection of a still broader, evidently more traveled passageway, and in it was an attendant, apparently fast asleep.
Into this sleigh climbed the three travelers with their guide Lao; and, driven by the attendant, they started down the broader tunnel at a rapid pace. The sleigh was balanced upon a broad single runner of polished stone, with a narrow, slightly shorter outrider on each side; it slid smoothly and easily on this runner over the equally smooth, metallic rock of the ground.
The reindeer-like animals were harnessed by their heads to a single shaft. They were guided by a short, pointed pole in the hands of the driver, who, as occasion demanded, dug it vigorously into their flanks.
In this manner the travelers rode perhaps half an hour more. The passageway sloped steeply downward, and they made good speed. Finally without warning, except by a sudden freshening of the air, they emerged into the open, and found themselves facing a broad, rolling stretch of country, dotted here and there with trees—the country of the Oroids at last.
For the first time since leaving their own world the adventurers found themselves amid surroundings that at least held some semblance of an aspect of familiarity. The scene they faced now might have been one of their own land viewed on an abnormally bright though moonless evening.
For some miles they could see a rolling, open country, curving slightly upward into the dimness of the distance. At their right, close by, lay a broad lake, its surface wrinkled under a gentle breeze and gleaming bright as a great sheet of polished silver.
Overhead hung a gray-blue, cloudless sky, studded with a myriad of faint, twinkling, golden-silver stars. On the lake shore lay a collection of houses, close together, at the water's edge and spreading back thinly into the hills behind. This they knew to be Arite—the city of their destination.
At the end of the tunnel they left the sleigh, and, turning down the gentle sloping hillside, leisurely approached the city. They were part way across an open field separating them from the nearest houses, when they saw a group of figures coming across the field towards them. This group stopped when still a few hundred yards away, only two of the figures continuing to come forward. They came onward steadily, the tall figure of a man clothed in white, and by his side a slender, graceful boy.
In a moment more Lao, walking in front of the Doctor and his two companions, stopped suddenly and, turning to face them, said quietly, "The Master."
The three travelers, with their hearts pounding, paused an instant. Then with a shout the Very Young Man dashed forward, followed by his two companions.
"It's Rogers—it's Rogers!" he called; and in a moment more the three men were beside the Chemist, shaking his hand and pouring at him excitedly their words of greeting.
The Chemist welcomed them heartily, but with a quiet, curious air of dignity that they did not remember he possessed before. He seemed to have aged considerably since they had last seen him. The lines in his face had deepened; the hair on his temples was white. He seemed also to be rather taller than they remembered him, and certainly he was stouter.
He was dressed in a long, flowing robe of white cloth, gathered in at the waist by a girdle, from which hung a short sword, apparently of gold or of beaten brass. His legs were bare; on his feet he wore a form of sandal with leather thongs crossing his insteps. His hair grew long over his ears and was cut off at the shoulder line in the fashion of the natives.
When the first words of greeting were over, the Chemist turned to the boy, who was standing apart, watching them with big, interested eyes.
"My friends," he said quietly, yet with a little underlying note of pride in his voice, "this is my son."
The boy approached deferentially. He was apparently about ten or eleven years of age, tall as his father's shoulder nearly, extremely slight of build, yet with a body perfectly proportioned. He was dressed in a white robe similar to his father's, only shorter, ending at his knees. His skin was of a curious, smooth, milky whiteness, lacking the gray, harder look of that of the native men, and with just a touch of the iridescent quality possessed by the women. His features were cast in a delicate mold, pretty enough almost to be called girlish, yet with a firm squareness of chin distinctly masculine.
His eyes were blue; his thick, wavy hair, falling to his shoulders, was a chestnut brown. His demeanor was graceful and dignified, yet with a touch of ingenuousness that marked him for the care-free child he really was. He held out his hands palms up as he approached.
"My name is Loto," he said in a sweet, soft voice, with perfect self-possession. "I'm glad to meet my father's friends." He spoke English with just a trace of the liquid quality that characterized his mother's tongue.
"You are late getting here," remarked the Chemist with a smile, as the three travelers, completely surprised by this sudden introduction, gravely shook hands with the boy.
During this time the young Oroid who had guided them down from the forest above the tunnels, had been standing respectfully behind them, a few feet away. A short distance farther on several small groups of natives were gathered, watching the strangers. With a few swift words Loto now dismissed their guide, who bowed low with his hands to his forehead and left them.
Led by the Chemist, they continued on down into the city, talking earnestly, telling him the details of their trip. The natives followed them as they moved forward, and as they entered the city others looked at them curiously and, the Very Young Man thought, with a little hostility, yet always from a respectful distance. Evidently it was night, or at least the time of sleep at this hour, for the streets they passed through were nearly deserted.