Down, down he went until he came to the eternal rocks, where the
inside of the shaft was polished as if it had been made of glass.
It became warmer and warmer, but he knew that the heat would soon
decrease.  The character of the rocks changed, and he studied
them as he went down, and continually made notes.

After a time the polished rocky sides of the shaft grew to be of
a solemn sameness.  Clewe ceased to take notes; he lighted a
cigar and smoked.  He tried to quietly imagine what he would come
to when he got to the bottom; it would be some sort of a cave
into which his shell had made an opening.  He wondered what sort
of a cave it would be, and how high the roof of it was from the
bottom.  He wondered if his gardener had remembered what he had
told him about the flower-beds in front of his house; he wanted
certain changes made which Margaret had suggested.  He tried to
keep his mind on the flower-beds, but it drifted away to the cave
below.  He began to wonder if he would come to some underground
body of water where he would be drowned; but he knew that was a
silly thought.  If the shaft had gone through subterranean
reservoirs, the water of these would have run out, and before
they reached the bottom of the shaft would have dissipated into
mist.

Down, down he went.  He looked at his watch; he had been in that
car only an hour and a half.  Was that possible?  He had supposed
he was almost at the bottom.  Suddenly he thought of the people
above, and of the telephone.  Why had not some of them spoken to
him?  It was shameful!  He instantly called Bryce, and his heart
leaped with joy when he heard the familiar voice in his ear.  Now
he talked steadily on for more than an hour.  He had his gardener
called, and he told him all that he wanted done in the flower-beds.
He gave many directions in regard to the various operations of
the Works.  Things had been put back a great deal of late.  He
hoped soon to have everything going on in the ordinary way.
There were two or three inventions in which he took particular
interest, and of these he talked at great length with Mr. Bryce.
Suddenly, in the midst of some talk about hollow steel rods, he
told Bryce to let the engines move faster; there was no reason
why the car should go so slowly.

The windlasses moved with a little more rapidity, and Clewe now
turned and looked at an indicator which was placed on the side of
the car, a little over his head.  This instrument showed the
depth to which he had descended, but he had not looked at it
before, for if there should be anything which would make him
nervous it would be the continual consideration of the depth to
which he had descended.

The indicator showed that he had gone down fourteen and one
eighth miles.  Clewe turned and sat stiffly in his seat.  He
glanced down and saw beneath him only an illuminated hole, fading
away at the bottom.  Then he turned to speak to Bryce, but to his
surprise he could think of nothing to say.  After that he lighted
another cigar and sat quietly.

Some minutes passed--he did not know how many--and he looked down
through the gratings at the floor of the car.  The electric light
streamed downward through a deep orifice, which did not fade away
and end in nothing; it ended in something dark and glittering.
Then, as he came nearer and nearer to this glittering thing, he
saw that it was his automatic shell, lying on its side, but he
could see only a part of it through the opening of the bottom of
the shaft which he was descending.  In an instant, as it seemed
to him, the car emerged from the narrow shaft, and he seemed to
be hanging in the air-at least there was nothing he could see
except that great shell, lying some forty feet below him.  But it
was impossible that the shell should be lying on the air!  He
rang to stop the car.

"Anything the matter?" cried Bryce, almost at the same instant.

"Nothing at all," Clewe replied.  "It's all right, I am near the
bottom."

In a state of the highest nervous excitement, Clewe gazed about
him.  He was no longer in a shaft; but where was he?  Look out on
what side he would, he saw nothing but the light going out from
his lamps, but which seemed to extend indefinitely all about him.
There seemed to be no limit to his vision in any direction.  Then
he leaned over the side of his car and looked downward.  There
was the great shell directly under him, but under it and around
it, extending as far beneath it as it extended in every other
direction, was the light from his own lamps, and yet that great
shell, weighing many tons, lay as if it rested upon the solid
ground!

After a few moments Clewe shut his eyes; they pained him.
Something seemed to be coming into them like a fine frost in a
winter wind.  Then he called to Bryce to let the car descend very
slowly.  It went down, down, gradually approaching the great
shell.  When the bottom of the car was within two feet of it,
Clewe rang to stop.  He looked down at the complicated machine he
had worked upon so long, with something like a feeling of
affection.  This he knew, it was his own.  Looking upon its
familiar form, he felt that he had a companion in this region of
unreality.

Pushing back the sliding door of the car, Clewe sat upon the
bottom and cautiously put out his feet and legs, lowering them
until they touched the shell.  It was firm and solid.  Although
he knew it must be so, the immovability of the great mass of iron
gave him a sudden shock of mysterious fear.  How could it be
immovable when there was nothing under it?

But he must get out of that car, he must explore, he must find
out.  There certainly could be no danger so long as he could
cling to his shell.

He now cautiously got out of the car and let himself down upon
the shell.  It was not a pleasant surface to stand upon, being
uneven, with great spiral ribs, and Clewe sat down upon it,
clinging to it with his hands.  Then he leaned over to one side
and looked beneath him.  The shadows of that shell went down,
down, down, until it made him sick to look at it.  He drew back
quickly, clutched the shell with his arms, and shut his eyes.  He
felt as if he were about to drop with it into a measureless depth
of atmosphere.

But he soon raised himself.  He had not come down here to be
frightened, to let his nerves run away with him.  He had come to
find out things.  What was it that this shell rested upon?
Seizing two of the ribs with a strong clutch, he let himself hang
over the sides of the shell until his feet were level with its
lower side.  They touched something hard.  He pressed them
downward; it was very hard.  He raised himself and stood upon the
substance which supported the shell.  It was as solid as any
rock.  He looked down and saw his shadow stretching far beneath
him.  It seemed as if he were standing upon petrified air.  He
put out one foot and he moved a little, still holding on to the
shell.  He walked, as if upon solid air, to the foremost end of
the long projectile.  It relieved him to turn his thoughts from
what was around him to this familiar object.  He found its
conical end shattered and broken.

After a little he slowly made his way back to the other end of
the shell, and now his eyes became somewhat accustomed to the
great radiance about him.  He thought he could perceive here and
there faint indications of long, nearly horizontal lines--lines
of different shades of light.  Above him, as if it hung in the
air, was the round, dark hole through which he had descended.

He rose, took his hands from the shell, and made a few steps.  He
trod upon a horizontal surface, but in putting one foot forward,
he felt a slight incline.  It seemed to him that he was about to
slip downward!  Instantly he retreated to the shell and clutched
it in a sudden frenzy of fear.

Standing thus, with his eyes still wandering, he heard the bell
of the telephone ring.  Without hesitation he mounted the shell
and got into the car.  Bryce was calling him.

"Come up," he said.  "You have been down there long enough.  No
matter what you have found, it is time for you to come up."

Roland Clewe was not accustomed to receive commands, but he
instantly closed the sliding door of the car, seated himself, and
put his mouth to the telephone.

"All right," he said.  "You can haul me up, but go very slowly at
first."

The car rose.  When it reached the orifice in the top of the cave
of light, Clewe heard the conical steel top grate slightly as it
touched its edge, for it was still swinging a little from the
motion given to it by his entrance; but it soon hung perfectly
vertical and went silently up the shaft.




CHAPTER XXII

CLEWE'S THEORY


Seated in the car, which was steadily ascending the great shaft,
Roland Clewe took no notice of anything about him.  He did not
look at the brilliantly lighted interior of the shaft, he paid no
attention to his instruments, he did not consult his watch, nor
glance at the dial which indicated the distance he had travelled.
Several times the telephone bell rang, and Bryce inquired how he
was getting along; but these questions he answered as briefly as
possible, and sat looking down at his knees and seeing nothing.

When he was half-way up, he suddenly became conscious that he was
very hungry.  He hurriedly ate some sandwiches and drank some
water, and then, again, he gave himself up entirely to mental
labor.  When, at last, the noise of machinery above him and the
sound of voices aroused him from his abstraction, the car emerged
upon the surface of the earth, Clewe hastily slid back the door
and stepped out.  At that instant he felt himself encircled by a
pair of arms.  Bryce was near by, and there were other men by the
engines, but the owner of those arms thought nothing of this.

"Margaret!" cried Clewe, "how came you here?"

"I have been here all the time," she exclaimed; "or, at least,
nearly all the time."  And as she spoke she drew back and looked
at him, her eyes full of happy tears.  "Mr. Bryce telegraphed to
me the instant he knew you were going down, and I was here before
you had descended half-way."

"What!" he cried.  "And all those messages came from you?"

"Nearly all," she answered.  "But tell me, Roland--tell me; have
you been successful?  What have you discovered?"

"I am successful," he answered.  "I have discovered everything!"

Mr. Bryce came forward.

"I will speak to you all very soon," said Clewe.  "I can't tell
you anything now.  Margaret, let us go.  I shall want to talk to
you directly, but not until I have been to my office.  I will
meet you at your house in a very few minutes."  And with that he
left the building and fairly ran to his office.

A quarter of an hour later Roland entered Margaret's library,
where she sat awaiting him.  He carefully closed the doors and
windows.  They sat side by side upon the sofa.

"Now, Roland," she said, "I cannot wait one second longer.  What
is it that you have discovered?"

"Margaret," said he, "I am afraid you will have to wait a good
many seconds.  If I were to tell you directly what I have
discovered, you would not understand it.  I am the possessor of
wonderful facts, but I believe also that I am the master of a
theory more wonderful.  The facts I found out when I got to the
bottom of the shaft, but the theory I worked out coming up."

"But give them to me quickly!" she cried.  "The facts first--I
can wait for the theory."

"No," he said, "I cannot do it; I must tell you the whole thing
as I have it, arranged in my mind.  Now, in the first place, you
must understand that this earth was once a comet."

"Oh, bother your astronomy, I really can't understand it!  What
did you find in the bottom of that hole?"

"You must listen to me," he said.  "You cannot comprehend a thing
I say if I do not give it to you in the proper order.  There have
been a great many theories about comets, but there is only one of
them in which I have placed any belief.  You know that as a comet
passes around the sun, its tail is always pointed away from the
sun, so that no matter how rapidly the head shall be moving in
its orbit, the end of the tail--in order to keep its position--must
move with a rapidity impossible to conceive.  If this tail were
composed of nebulous mist, or anything of that sort, it could
not keep its position.  There is only one theory which could
account for this position, and that is that the head of a comet
is a lens and the tail is light.  The light of the sun passes
through the lens and streams out into space, forming the tail,
which does not follow the comet in the inconceivable manner
generally supposed, but is constantly renewed, always, of course;
stretching away from the sun!"

"Oh, dear!" ejaculated Margaret.  "I have read that."

"A little patience," he said.  "When I arrived at the bottom of
the shaft, I found myself in a cleft, I know not how large, made
in a vast mass of transparent substance, hard as the hardest rock
and transparent as air in the light of my electric lamps.  My
shell rested securely upon this substance.  I walked upon it.  It
seemed as if I could see miles below me.  In my opinion,
Margaret, that substance was once the head of a comet."

"What is the substance?" she asked, hastily.

"It is a mass of solid diamond!"

Margaret screamed.  She could not say one word.

"Yes," said he, "I believe the whole central portion of the earth
is one great diamond.  When it was moving about in its orbit as a
comet, the light of the sun streamed through this diamond and
spread an enormous tail out into space; after a time this nucleus
began to burn."

"Burn!" exclaimed Margaret.

"Yes, the diamond is almost pure carbon; why should it not burn?
It burned and burned and burned.  Ashes formed upon it and
encircled it; still it burned, and when it was entirely covered
with its ashes it ceased to be transparent, it ceased to be a
comet; it became a planet, and revolved in a different orbit.
Still it burned within its covering of ashes, and these gradually
changed to rock, to metal, to everything that forms the crust of
the earth."

She gazed upon him, entranced.

"Some parts of this great central mass of carbon burn more
fiercely than other parts.  Some parts do not burn at all.  In
volcanic regions the fires rage; where my great shell went down
it does not burn at all.  Now you have my theory.  It is crude
and rough, for I have tried to give it to you in as few words as
possible."

"Oh, Roland," she cried, "it is absurd!  Diamond!  Why, people
will think you are crazy.  You must not say such a thing as that
to anybody.  It is simply impossible that the greater part of
this earth should be an enormous diamond."

"Margaret," he answered, "nothing is impossible.  The central
portion of this earth is composed of something; it might just as
well be diamond as anything else.  In fact, if you consider the
matter, it is more likely to be, because diamond is a very
original substance.  As I have said, it is almost pure carbon.  I
do not intend to say one word of what I have told you to any one
--at least, until the matter has been well considered--but I am
not afraid of being thought crazy.  Margaret, will you look at
these?"

He took from his pocket some shining substances resembling glass.
Some of them were flat, some round; the largest was as big as a
lemon, others were smaller fragments of various sizes.

"These are pieces of the great diamond which were broken when the
shell struck the bottom of the cave in which I found it.  I
picked them up as I felt my way around this shell, when walking
upon what seemed to me like solid air.  I thrust them into my
pocket, and I would not come to you, Margaret, with this story,
until I had gone to my office to find out if these fragments were
really diamond.  I tested them; their substance is diamond!"

Half dazed, she took the largest piece in her hand.

"Roland," she whispered, "if this is really a diamond, there is
nothing like it known to man!"

"Nothing, indeed," said he.

She sat staring at the great piece of glowing mineral which lay
in her hand.  Its surface was irregular; it had many faces; the
subdued light from the window gave it the appearance of animated
water.  He felt it necessary to speak.

"Even these little pieces," he said, "are most valuable jewels."

She still sat silent, looking at the glowing object she held.

"You see, these are not like the stones which are found in our
diamond-fields," he said.  "Those, most likely, were little,
unconsumed bits of the original mass, afterwards gradually forced
up from the interior in the same way that many metals and
minerals are forced up, and then rounded and dulled by countless
ages of grinding and abrasion, due to the action of rocks or
water."

"Roland," she cried, excitedly, "this is riches beyond
imagination!  What is common wealth to what you have discovered?
Every living being on earth could--"

"Ah, Margaret," he interrupted, "do not let your thoughts run
that way.  If my discovery should be put to the use of which you
are thinking, it would bring poverty, not wealth, to the world,
and not a diamond on earth would be worth more than a common
pebble.  Everywhere, in civilized countries and in barbaric
palaces, people would see their riches vanish before them as if
it had been blighted by the touch of an evil magician."

She trembled.  "And these--are they to be valued as common
pebbles?"

"Oh no," said he; "so long as that great shaft is mine, these
broken fragments are to us riches far ahead of our wildest
imaginations."

"Roland," she cried, "are you going down into that shaft for more
of them?"

"Never, never, never again," he said.  "What we have here is
enough for us, and if I were offered all the good that there is
in this world, which money cannot buy, I would never go down into
that cleft again.  There was one moment when I stood in that cave
in which an awful terror shot into my soul which I shall never be
able to forget.  In the light of my electric lamps, sent through
a vast transparent mass, I could see nothing, but I could feel.
I put out my foot and I found it was upon a sloping surface.  In
another instant I might have slid--where?  I cannot bear to think
of it!"

She threw her arms around him and held him tightly.




CHAPTER XXIII

THE LAST DIVE OF THE DIPSEY


When the engines of the Dipsey had stopped, and she was quietly
floating upon the smooth surface of Lake Shiver, Mr. Gibbs
greatly desired to make a connection with the telegraphic cable
which was stretched at the bottom of the ocean, beneath him, and
to thus communicate with Sardis, But when this matter was
discussed in council, several objections were brought against it,
the principal one being that the cable could not be connected
with the Dipsey without destroying its connection with the little
station near the pole; and although this means of telegraphic
communication with regions which might never be visited again
might well be considered as possessing no particular value, still
it was such a wonderful thing to lay a telegraph line to the pole
that it seemed the greatest pity in the world to afterwards
destroy it.

The friends of this exploring party had not heard from it since
it left the polar sea, but there could be no harm in making them
wait a little longer.  If the return voyage under the ice should
be as successfully accomplished as the first submarine cruise, it
would not be very many days before the Dipsey should arrive at
Cape Tariff.  She would not proceed so slowly as she did when
coming north, for now her officers would feel that in a measure
they knew the course, and moreover they would not be delayed by
the work of laying a cable as they progressed.

So it was agreed that it would be a waste of time and labor to
stop here and make connection with the cable, and preparations
were made for a descent to a safe depth beneath the surface, when
they would start southward on their homeward voyage.  Mrs. Sarah
Block, wrapped from head to foot in furs, remained on deck as
long as her husband would allow her to do so.  For some time
before her eyes had been slowly wandering around the edge of that
lonely piece of water, and it was with an unsatisfied air that
she now stood gazing from side to side.  At last Sammy took her
by the arm and told her she must go below, for they were going to
close up the hatchways.

"Well," said Sarah, with a sigh, "I suppose I must give 'em up;
they were the warmest and most comfortable ones I had, and I
could have thawed 'em out and dried 'em so that they would have
been as good as ever.  I would not mind leavin' 'em if there was
a human bein' in this neighborhood that would wear 'em; but there
ain't, and it ain't likely there ever will be, and if they are
frozen stiff in the ice somewhere, they may stay here, as good as
new, for countless ages!"

Of course everybody was very happy, now that they were returning
homeward from a voyage successful beyond parallel in history, and
even Rovinski was beginning to assume an air of gratified
anticipation.  He had been released from his confinement and
allowed to attend to his duties, but the trust which had been
placed in him when this kindness had been extended to him on a
previous occasion was wanting now.  Everybody knew that he was an
unprincipled man, and that if he could gain access to the
telegraph instrument at Cape Tariff he would make trouble for the
real discoverer of the north pole; so it was agreed among the
officers of the vessel that the strictest watch must be kept on
him and no shore privileges be allowed him.

The southward voyage of the Dipsey was an easy one and without
notable incident; and at last a lookout who had been posted at
the upper skylight reported light from above.  This meant that
they had reached open water southward of the frozen regions they
had been exploring, and the great submarine voyage, the most
peculiar ever made by man, was ended.  Captain Jim Hubbell
immediately put on a heavy pea-jacket with silver buttons, for as
soon as the vessel should sail upon the surface of the sea he
would be in command.

When the dripping Dipsey rose from the waters of the arctic
regions, it might have been supposed that the people on board
of her were emerging into a part of the world where they felt
perfectly at home. Cape Tariff, to which they were bound, was
a hundred miles away, and was itself a lonely spot, often
inaccessible in severe weather, and they must make a long and
hazardous voyage from it before they could reach their homes; but
by comparison with the absolutely desolate and mysterious region
they had left, any part of the world where there was a possibility
of meeting with other human beings seemed familiar and homelike.

But when the Dipsey was again upon the surface of the ocean, when
the light of day was shining unobstructed upon the bold form of
Captain Hubbell as he strode upon the upper deck--being careful
not to stand still lest his shoes should freeze fast to the
planks beneath him--the party on board were not so-well satisfied
as they expected to be.  There was a great wind blowing, and the
waves were rolling high.  Not far away, on their starboard bow, a
small iceberg, tossing like a disabled ship, was surging towards
them, impelled by a biting blast from the east, and the sea was
so high that sometimes the spray swept over the deck of the
vessel, making it impossible for Captain Hubbell and the others
with him to keep dry.

Still the captain kept his post and roared out his orders, still
the Dipsey pressed forward against wind and wave.  Her engines
were strong, her electric gills were folded close to her sides,
and she seemed to feel herself able to contend against the storm,
and in this point she was heartily seconded by her captain.

But the other people on board soon began to have ideas of a
different kind.  It seemed to all of them, including the
officers, that this vessel, not built to encounter very heavy
weather, was in danger, and even if she should be able to
successfully ride out the storm, their situation must continue to
be a very unpleasant one.  The Dipsey pitched and tossed and
rolled and shook herself, and it was the general opinion, below
decks, that the best thing for her to do would be to sink into
the quiet depths below the surface, where she was perfectly at
home, and proceed on her voyage to Cape Tariff in the submarine
fashion to which she was accustomed.

It was some time before Captain Hubbell would consent to listen
to such a proposition as this, but when a wave, carrying on its
crest a lump of ice about the size of a flour barrel, threw its
burden on the deck of the vessel, raking it from stem to stern,
the captain, who had barely been missed by the grating missile,
agreed that in a vessel with such a low rail and of such
defective naval principles, it would be better perhaps to sail
under the water than on top of it, and so he went below, took off
his pea-jacket with the silver buttons, and retired into private
life.  The Dipsey then sank to a quiet depth and continued her
course under water, to the great satisfaction of everybody on
board.

On a fine, frosty morning, with a strong wind blowing, although
the storm had subsided, the few inhabitants of the little
settlement at Cape Tariff saw in the distance a flag floating
over the water.  The Dipsey had risen to the surface some twenty
miles from the Cape and now came bravely on, Captain Hubbell on
deck, his silver buttons shining in the sun.  The sea was rough,
but everybody was willing to bear with a little discomfort in
order to be able to see the point of land which was the end of
the voyage on the Dipsey, to let their eyes rest as early as
possible upon a wreath of smoke arising from the habitation of
human beings, and to catch sight of those human beings themselves.

As soon as the Dipscy arrived in the harbor, Sammy and most of
the officers went on shore to open communication with Sardis.
Sarah Block stayed on the vessel.  She had been on shore when she
had arrived at Cape Tariff in the Go Lightly, and her disgust
with the methods of living in that part of the world had been
freely expressed.  So long as she had perfectly comfortable
quarters on board the good ship she did not wish to visit the low
huts and extremely close quarters in which dwelt the people of
the little colony.  Rovinski also remained on board, but not
because he wanted to do so.  A watch was kept upon him; but as
the Dipsey was anchored some distance from the landing-place, Mr.
Marcy was of the opinion that if he attempted to swim ashore it
might be well to let him do so, for if he should not be benumbed
in the water into which he would plunge he would certainly be
frozen to death as soon as he reached the shore.

The messages which came from Sardis as soon as news had been
received of the safe return of the explorers were full of hearty
congratulations and friendly welcome, but they were not very
long, and Sammy said to Mr. Gibbs that he thought it likely that
this was one of Mr. Clewe's busy times.  The latter telegraphed
that he would send a vessel for them immediately, and as she was
now lying at St. John's they would not have to wait very long.

The fact was that the news of the arrival of the Dipsey at Cape
Tariff had come to Sardis a week after Clewe's descent into the
shaft, and he was absorbed, body and soul, in his underground
discoveries.  He was not wanting in sympathy, or even affection,
for the people who had been doing his work, and his interest in
their welfare and their achievements was as great as it ever had
been, but the ideas and thoughts which now occupied his mind were
of a character which lessened and overshadowed every other object
of consideration.  Most of the messages sent to Cape Tariff had
come from Margaret Raleigh.




CHAPTER XXIV

ROVINSKI COMES TO THE SURFACE


When Sammy Block and his companion explorers had journeyed from
Cape Tariff to Sardis, they found Roland Clewe ready to tender a
most grateful welcome, and to give full and most interested
attention to the stories of their adventures and to their
scientific reports.  For a time he was willing to allow his own
great discovery to lie fallow in his mind, and to give his whole
attention to the wonderful achievement which had been made under
his direction.

He had worked out his theory of the formation and present
constitution of the earth; had written a full and complete report
of what he had seen and done, and was ready, when he thought the
proper time had arrived, to announce to the world his theories
and his facts.  Moreover, he had sent to several jewelers and
mineralogists some of the smaller fragments which he had picked
up in the cave of light, and these specialists, while reporting
the material of the specimens purest diamond, expressed the
greatest surprise at their shape and brilliancy.  They had
evidently not been ground or cut, and yet their sharp points and
glittering surfaces reflected light as if they had been in the
hands of a diamond-cutter.  One of these experts wrote to Clewe
asking him if he had been digging diamonds with a machine which
broke the gems to pieces.

So the soul of Roland Clewe was satisfied; it seemed to walk the
air as he himself once had trod what seemed to him a solid
atmosphere.  There was now nothing that his ambition might point
out which would induce him to endeavor to climb higher in the
field of human achievement than the spot on which he stood.  From
this great elevation he was perfectly willing to look down and
kindly consider the heroic performances of those who had reached
the pole, and who had anchored a buoy on the extreme northern
point of the earth's axis.

Mr. Gibbs's reports, and those of his assistants, were well
worked out, and of the greatest value to the scientific world,
and every one who had made that memorable voyage on the Dipscy
had stories to tell for which editors in every civilized land
would have paid gold beyond all former precedent.

But Roland Clewe did not care to say anything to the world until
he could say everything that he wished to say.  It had been known
that he had sent an expedition into Northern waters, but exactly
what he intended to do had not been known, and what he had done
had not been communicated even to the telegraph-operators at Cape
Tariff.  These had received despatches in cipher from points far
away to the north, but while they transmitted them to Sardis they
had no idea of their signification.  When everything should be
ready to satisfy the learned world, as well as the popular mind,
the great discovery of the pole would be announced.

In the meantime there was a suspicion in the journalistic world
that the man of inventions who lived at Sardis, New Jersey, had
done something out of the common in the North.  A party of
people, one of them a woman, had been taken up there and left
there, and they had recently been brought back.  The general
opinion was that Clewe had endeavored to found a settlement at
some point north of Cape Tariff, probably for purposes of
scientific observation, and that he had failed.  The stories of
these people, however, would be interesting, and several
reporters made visits to Sardis.  But they all saw Sammy, and not
one of them considered his communications worth more than a brief
paragraph.

In a week Mr. Gibbs would have finished his charts, his
meteorological, his geological, and geographical reports, and a
clear, succinct account of the expedition, written by Clewe
himself from the statements of the party, would be ready for
publication; and in the brilliantly lighted sky of discovery
which now rested, one edge upon Sardis and the other upon the
pole, there was but one single cloud, and this was Rovinski.

The ambitious and unscrupulous Pole had been the source of the
greatest trouble and uneasiness since he had left Cape Tariff.
While there he had found that he could not possibly get ashore,
and so had kept quiet; but when on board the vessel which had
been sent to them from St. John's, he had soon begun to talk to
the crew, and there seemed to be but one way of preventing him
from making known what had been done by the expedition before its
promoters were ready for the disclosure, and this was to declare
him a maniac, whose utterances were of no value whatever.  He was
put into close confinement, and it was freely reported that he
had gone crazy while in the arctic regions, and that his mind had
been filled with all sorts of insane notions regarding that part
of the world.

It had been intended to put him in jail on a criminal charge, but
this would not prevent him from talking; and so, when he arrived
in New Jersey, he was sent to an insane asylum, the officers of
which were not surprised to receive him, for, in their opinion, a
wilder-looking maniac was not, to be found within the walls of
the institution.

Early on the morning of the day before the world was to be
electrified by the announcement of the discovery of the pole, a
man named William Cunningham, employed in the Sardis Works,
entered the large building which had been devoted to the
manufacture of the automatic shell, but which had not been used
of late and had been kept locked.  Cunningham was the watchman,
and had entered to make his usual morning rounds.  He had
scarcely closed the door behind him when, looking over towards
the engines which still stood by the mouth of the shaft made by
the automatic shell, he was amazed to see that the car which had
been used by Roland Clewe in his descent was not hanging above
them.

Utterly unable to understand this state of affairs, he ran to the
mouth of the shaft.  He found the great trap-door which had
closed it thrown back, and the grating which had been made to
cover the orifice after the car had descended in its place.  The
engines were not moving, and the chain on the windlass of one of
them appeared not to have been disturbed, but on the other
windlass one of the chains had been unwound.  Cunningham was so
astonished that he could not believe what he saw.  He had been
there the night before; everything had been in order, the shaft
closed, and the trap-door locked.  He leaned over the grating and
looked down; he could see nothing but a black hole without any
bottom.  The man did not look long, for it made him dizzy.  He
turned and ran out of the house to call Mr. Bryce.

Ivan Rovinski was not perhaps a lunatic, but his unprincipled
ambition had made him so disregard the principles of ordinary
prudence when such principles stood in his way that it could not
be said that he was at all times entirely sane.  He understood
thoroughly why he had been put in an asylum, and it enraged him
to think that by this course his enemies had obtained a great
advantage over him.  No matter what he might say, it was only
necessary to point to the fact that he was in a lunatic asylum,
or that he had just come out of one, to make his utterances of no
value.

But to remain in confinement did not suit him at all, and, after
three days' residence in the institution in which he had been
placed, he escaped and made his way to a piece of woods about two
miles from Sardis, where, early that year, he had built himself a
rude shelter, from which he might go forth at night and study, so
far as he should be able, the operations in the Works of Roland
Clewe.  Having safely reached his retreat, he lost no time in
sallying forth to spy out what was going on at Sardis.

He was cunning and wary, and a man of infinite resource.  It
was not long before he found out that the polar discovery had
not been announced, but he also discovered from listening to the
conversations of some of the workmen in the village, which he
frequently visited in a guise very unlike his ordinary appearance,
that something extraordinary had taken place in the Sardis Works,
of which he had never heard.  A great shaft had been sunk, the
people said, by accident; Mr. Clewe had gone down it in a car, and
it had taken him nearly three hours to get to the bottom. Nobody
yet knew what he had discovered, but it was supposed to be
something very wonderful.

The night after Rovinski heard this surprising news he was in the
building which had contained the automatic shell.  As active as a
cat, he had entered by an upper window.

Rovinski spent the night in that building.  He had with him a
dark lantern, and he made the most thorough examination of the
machinery at the mouth of the shaft.  He was a man of great
mechanical ability and an expert in applied electricity.  He
understood that machinery, with all its complicated arrangements
and appliances, as well as if he had built it himself.  In fact,
while examining it, he thought of some very valuable improvements
which might have been made in it.  He knew that it was an
apparatus for lowering the car to a great depth, and, climbing
into the car, he examined everything it contained.  Coming down,
he noticed the grating, and he knew what it was for.  He looked
over the engines and calculated the strength of the chains on the
windlasses.  He took an impression of the lock of the trap-door,
and when he went away in the very early hours of the morning he
understood the apparatus which was intended to lower the car as
well as any person who had managed it.  He knew nothing about the
shaft under the great door, but this he intended to investigate
as thoroughly as he had investigated the machinery.

The next night he entered the building very soon after Cunningham
had gone his rounds, and he immediately set to work to prepare
for his descent into the shaft.  He disconnected one of the
engines, for he sneeringly said to himself that the other one was
more than sufficient to lower and raise the car.  He charged and
arranged all the batteries and put in perfect working order the
mechanism by which Clewe had established a connection between the
car and the engines, using one of the chains as a conductor, so
that he could himself check or start the engines if an emergency
should render it necessary.

Then Rovinski, bounding around like a wild animal in a cage, took
out a key he had brought with him, opened the trap-door, lifted
it back, and gazed down.  He could see a beautifully cut well,
but that was all.  But no matter how deep it was, he intended to
go down to the bottom of it.

He started the engine and lowered the car to the ground.  Then he
looked up at a grating which hung above it and determined to make
use of this protection.  He could not lower it in the ordinary
way after he had entered the car, but in fifteen minutes he had
arranged a pulley and rope by which, after the car had gone below
the surface, he could lower the grating to its place.  He got in,
started down into the dark hole, stopped the engine, lowered the
grating, went down a little farther, and turned on the electric
lights.

The descent of Rovinski was a succession of the wildest
sensations of amazed delight.  Stratum after stratum passed
before his astonished eyes, and, when he had gone down low
enough, he allowed himself the most extravagant expressions of
ecstasy.  His progress was not so regular and steady as that of
Roland Clewe had been.  He found that he had perfect control of
the engine and car, and sometimes he went down rapidly, sometimes
slowly, and frequently he stopped.  As he continued to descend,
his amazement at the wonderful depth of the shaft became greater
and greater and his mind was totally unable to appreciate the
situation.  Still he was not frightened, and went on down.

At last Rovinski emerged into the cave of light.  There he
stopped, the car hanging some twenty or thirty feet above the
bottom.  He looked out, he saw the shell, he saw the vast expanse
of lighted nothingness, he tried to imagine what it was that that
mass of iron rested upon.  If he had not seen it, he would have
thought he had come out into the upper air of some bottomless
cavern.  But a great iron machine nearly twenty feet long could
not rest upon air!  He thought he might be dreaming; he sat up
and shut his eyes; in a few minutes he would open them and see if
he still saw the same incomprehensible things.

The downward passage of Rovinski had occupied a great deal more
time than he had calculated for.  He had stopped so much, and had
been so careful to examine the walls of the shaft, that morning
had now arrived in the upper world, and it was at this moment, as
he sat with his eyes closed, that William Cunningham looked down
into the mouth of the shaft.

Cunningham was an observing man, and that morning he had picked
up a pin and stuck it in the lapel of his rough coat, but he had
done this hastily and carelessly.  The pin was of a recently
invented kind, being of a light, elastic metal, with its head of
steel.  As Cunningham leaned forward the pin slipped out of his
coat; it fell through one of the openings in the grating, and
descended the shaft head downward.

For the first quarter of a mile the pin went swiftly in an
absolutely perpendicular line, nearly at the middle of the
shaft.  For the next three-quarters of a mile it went down like
a rifle-ball.  For the next five miles it sped on as if it had been
a planet revolving in space.  Then, for eight miles, this pin,
falling perpendicularly through a greater distance than any
object on this earth had ever fallen perpendicularly, went
downward with a velocity like that of light.  Its head struck the
top of the car, which was hanging motionless in the cave of
light; it did not glance off, for its momentum was so great that
it would glance from nothing.  It passed through that steel roof;
it passed through Rovinski's head, through his heart, down
through the car, and into the great shell which lay below.

When Mr. Bryce and several workmen came running back with William
Cunningham, they were as much surprised as he had been, and could
form no theory to account for the disappearance of the car.  It
could not have slipped down accidentally and descended by its own
weight, for the trap-door was open and the grating was in place.
They sent in great haste for Mr. Clewe, and when he arrived he
wasted no time in conjectures, but instantly ordered that the
engine which was attached to the car should be started and its
chain wound up.

So great was the anxiety to get the car to the surface of the
earth that the engine which raised it was run at as high a speed
as was deemed safe, and in a little more than an hour the car
came out of the mouth of the shaft, and in it sat Ivan Rovinski,
motionless and dead.

No one who knew Rovinski wondered that he had had the courage to
make the descent of the shaft, and those who were acquainted with
his great mechanical ability were not surprised that he had been
able to manage, by himself, the complicated machinery which would
ordinarily require the service of several men; but every one who
saw him in the car, or after he had been taken out of it, was
amazed that he should be dead.  There was no sign of accident, no
perceptible wound, no appearance, in fact, of any cause why he
should be a tranquil corpse and not an alert and agile devil.
Even when a post-mortem examination was made, the doctors were
puzzled.  A threadlike solution of continuity was discovered in
certain parts of his body, but it was lost in others, and the
coroner's verdict was that he came to his death from unknown
causes while descending a shaft.  The general opinion was that in
some way or other he had been frightened to death.

This accident, much to Roland Clewe's chagrin, discovered to the
public the existence of the great shaft.  Whether or not he would
announce its existence himself, or whether he would close it up,
had not been determined by Clewe; but when he and Margaret had
talked over the matter soon after the terrible incident, his mind
was made up beyond all possibility of change, and, by means of
great bombs, the shaft was shattered and choked up for a depth of
half a mile from its mouth.  When this work was accomplished,
nothing remained but a shallow well, and, when this had been
filled up with solid masonry, the place where the shaft had been
was as substantial as any solid ground.

Now the great discovery was probably shut out forever from the
world, but Clewe was well satisfied.  He would never make another
shaft, and it was not to be expected that men would plan and
successfully construct one which would reach down to the
transparent nucleus of the earth.  The terrible fate, whatever it
was, which had overtaken Rovinski, should not, if Clewe could
help it, overtake any other human being.

"But my great discovery," said he to Margaret, "that remains as
wonderful as the sun, and as safe to look upon; for with my
Artesian ray I can bore down to the solid centre of the earth,
and into it, and any man can study it with no more danger than if
he sat in his armchair at home; and if they doubt what I say
about the material of which that solid centre is composed, we can
show them the fragments of it which I brought up with me."




CHAPTER XXV

LAURELS


Nothing but a perusal of the newspapers, magazines, and
scientific journals of the day could give any idea of the
enthusiastic interest which was shown all over the civilized
world in Roland Clewe's account of the discovery of the north
pole.  His paper on the subject, which was the first intimation
the public had of the great news, was telegraphed to every part
of the world and translated into nearly every written language.
Sardis became a Mecca for explorers and scientific people at home
and abroad, and honors of every kind were showered by geographical
and other learned societies upon Clewe and the brave company who
had voyaged under the ice.

Each member of the party who had sailed on the Dipsey became a
hero and spent most of those days in according receptions to
reporters, scholars, travellers, sportsmen, and as many of the
general public as could be accommodated.

Sarah Block received her numerous visitors in the parlor of the
house which had been occupied by Mr. Clewe (and which he had
vacated in her favor the moment he had heard an intimation that
she would like to have it), in a beautiful gown made of the silky
fibre from the pods of the American milk-weed, then generally
used in the manufacture of the finest fabrics.

Sarah fully appreciated her position as the woman who had visited
the pole, a position not only unique at the time, but which she
believed would always remain so.  In every way she endeavored to
make her appearance suitable to her new position.  She wore the
best clothes that her money could buy, and furnished her new
house very handsomely.  She discarded her old silver andirons and
fender, which required continual cleaning, and which would not
have been tolerated by her except that they were made of a metal
which was now so cheap as to be used for household utensils, and
she put in their place a beautiful set of polished brass, such as
people used in her mother's time.  Whenever Sarah found any one
whom she considered worthy to listen, she gave a very full
account of her adventures, never omitting the loss of her warm
and comfortable shoes, which misfortune, together with the
performances of Rovinski, and all the dangers consequent, and the
acquaintance of the tame and lonely whale, she attributed to the
fact that there were thirteen people on board.

Sammy's accounts were in a more cheerful key, and his principles
were not affected by his success.  He never had believed that
there was any good in finding the pole, and he did not believe it
now.  When they got there, it was just like any other part of the
ocean, and it required a great deal of arithmetic and navigation
to find out where it was, even when they were looking at it;
besides, as he had found out to his disgust, even when they had
discovered it, it was not the real pole to which the needle of
the compass points.

Moreover, if there had been any distinctive mark about it, except
the buoy which they had anchored there, and even if it really
were the pole to which needles should point, there was no
particular good in finding it, unless other people could get
there.  But in regard to any other expedition reaching the open
polar sea under the ice, Sammy had grave doubts.  If a whale
could not get out of that sea there was every reason why nobody
else should try to get into it; the Dipsey's entrance was the
barest scratch, and he would not try it again if the north pole
were marked out by a solid mountain of gold.

Roland Clewe refused in all personal interviews to receive the
laudations offered him as the discoverer of the pole.  It was
true that the expedition had been planned by him, and all the
arrangements and mechanisms which had insured its success were of
his invention, but he steadily insisted that Mr. Gibbs and Sammy,
as representatives of the party, should be awarded the glory of
the great discovery.

The remarkable success of this most remarkable expedition aroused
a widespread spirit of arctic exploration.  Not only were voyages
under the ice discussed and planned, but there was a strong feeling
in favor of overland travel by means of the electric-motor sledges;
and in England and Norway expeditions were organized for the
purpose of reaching the polar sea in this way.  It was noticed in
most that was written and said upon this subject that one of the
strongest inducements for arctic expeditions was the fact that
there would be found on the shores of the polar sea a telegraph
station, by means of which instantaneous news of success could
be transmitted.

The interest of sportsmen, especially of the hunters of big game,
was greatly excited by the statement that there was a whale in
the polar sea.  These great creatures being extinct everywhere
else, it would be a unique and crowning glory to capture this
last survivor of his race; and there were many museums of natural
history which were already discussing contracts with intending
polar whalers for the purchase of the skeleton of the last whale.