"I MUST GO BACK"
The tremendous plan for the salvation of their own suffering world
through the Chemist's discovery occupied the five friends for some time.
Then laying aside this subject, that now had become of the most vital
importance to them all, the Chemist resumed his narrative.
"My last evening in the world of the ring, I spent with Lylda,
discussing our future, and making plans for the journey. I must tell you
now, gentlemen, that never for a moment during my stay in Arite was I
once free from an awful dread of this return trip. I tried to conceive
what it would be like, and the more I thought about it, the more
hazardous it seemed.
"You must realize, when I was growing smaller, coming in, I was able to
climb down, or fall or slide down, into the spaces as they opened up.
Going back, I could only imagine the world as closing in upon me,
crushing me to death unless I could find a larger space immediately
above into which I could climb.
"And as I talked with Lylda about this and tried to make her understand
what I hardly understood myself, I gradually was brought to realize the
full gravity of the danger confronting us. If only I had made the trip
out once before, I could have ventured it with her. But as I looked at
her fragile little body, to expose it to the terrible possibilities of
such a journey was unthinkable.
"There was another question, too, that troubled me. I had been gone from
you nearly a week, and you were only to wait for me two days. I believed
firmly that I was living at a faster rate, and that probably my time
with you had not expired. But I did not know. And suppose, when I had
come out on to the surface of the ring, one of you had had it on his
finger walking along the street? No, I did not want Lylda with me in
that event.
"And so I told her--made her understand--that she must stay behind, and
that I would come back for her. She did not protest. She said
nothing--just looked up into my face with wide, staring eyes and a
little quiver of her lips. Then she clutched my hand and fell into a
low, sobbing cry.
"I held her in my arms for a few moments, so little, so delicate, so
human in her sorrow, and yet almost superhuman in her radiant beauty.
Soon she stopped crying and smiled up at me bravely.
"Next morning I left. Lylda took me through the tunnels and back into
the forest by the river's edge where I had first met her. There we
parted. I can see, now, her pathetic, drooping little figure as she
trudged back to the tunnel.
"When she had disappeared, I sat down to plan out my journey. I resolved
now to reverse as nearly as possible the steps I had taken coming in.
Acting on this decision, I started back to that portion of the forest
where I had trampled it down.
"I found the place without difficulty, stopping once on the way to eat a
few berries, and some of the food I carried with me. Then I took a small
amount of one of the drugs, and in a few moments the forest trees had
dwindled into tiny twigs beneath my feet.
"I started now to find the huge incline down which I had fallen, and
when I reached it, after some hours of wandering, I followed its bottom
edge to where a pile of rocks and dirt marked my former landing-place.
The rocks were much larger than I remembered them, and so I knew I was
not so large, now, as when I was here before.
"Remembering the amount of the drug I had taken coming down, I took now
twelve of the pills. Then, in a sudden panic, I hastily took two of the
others. The result made my head swim most horribly. I sat or lay down, I
forget which. When I looked up I saw the hills beyond the river and
forest coming towards me, yet dwindling away beneath my feet as they
approached. The incline seemed folding up upon itself, like a telescope.
As I watched, its upper edge came into view, a curved, luminous line
against the blackness above. Every instant it crawled down closer, more
sharply curved, and its inclined surface grew steeper.
"All this time, as I stood still, the ground beneath my feet seemed to
be moving. It was crawling towards me, and folding up underneath where I
was standing. Frequently I had to move to avoid rocks that came at me
and passed under my feet into nothingness.
"Then, all at once, I realized that I had been stepping constantly
backward, to avoid the inclined wall as it shoved itself towards me. I
turned to see what was behind, and horror made my flesh creep at what I
saw. A black, forbidding wall, much like the incline in front, entirely
encircled me. It was hardly more than half a mile away, and towered four
or five thousand feet overhead.
"And as I stared in terror, I could see it closing in, the line of its
upper edge coming steadily closer and lower. I looked wildly around with
an overpowering impulse to run. In every direction towered this rocky
wall, inexorably swaying in to crush me.
"I think I fainted. When I came to myself the scene had not greatly
changed. I was lying at the bottom and against one wall of a circular
pit, now about a thousand feet in diameter and nearly twice as deep. The
wall all around I could see was almost perpendicular, and it seemed
impossible to ascend its smooth, shining sides. The action of the drug
had evidently worn off, for everything was quite still.
"My fear had now left me, for I remembered this circular pit quite well.
I walked over to its center, and looking around and up to its top I
estimated distances carefully. Then I took two more of the pills.
"Immediately the familiar, sickening, crawling sensation began again. As
the walls closed in upon me, I kept carefully in the center of the pit.
Steadily they crept in. Now only a few hundred feet away! Now only a few
paces--and then I reached out and touched both sides at once with my
hands.
"I tell you, gentlemen, it was a terrifying sensation to stand in that
well (as it now seemed), and feel its walls closing up with irresistible
force. But now the upper edge was within reach of my fingers. I leaped
upward and hung for a moment, then pulled myself up and scrabbled out,
tumbling in a heap on the ground above. As I recovered myself, I looked
again at the hole out of which I had escaped; it was hardly big enough
to contain my fist.
"I knew, now, I was at the bottom of the scratch. But how different it
looked than before. It seemed this time a long, narrow canon, hardly
more than sixty feet across. I glanced up and saw the blue sky overhead,
flooded with light, that I knew was the space of this room above the
ring.
"The problem now was quite a different one than getting out of the pit,
for I saw that the scratch was so deep in proportion to its width that
if I let myself get too big, I would be crushed by its walls before I
could jump out. It would be necessary, therefore, to stay comparatively
small and climb up its side.
"I selected what appeared to be an especially rough section, and took a
portion of another of the pills. Then I started to climb. After an hour
the buskins on my feet were torn to fragments, and I was bruised and
battered as you saw me. I see, now, how I could have made both the
descent into the ring, and my journey back with comparatively little
effort, but I did the best I knew at the time.
"When the canon was about ten feet in width, and I had been climbing
arduously for several hours, I found myself hardly more than fifteen or
twenty feet above its bottom. And I was still almost that far from the
top. With the stature I had then attained, I could have climbed the
remaining distance easily, but for the fact that the wall above had
grown too smooth to afford a foothold. The effects of the drug had again
worn off, and I sat down and prepared to take another dose. I did
so--the smallest amount I could--and held ready in my hand a pill of the
other kind in case of emergency. Steadily the walls closed in.
"A terrible feeling of dizziness now came over me. I clutched the rock
beside which I was sitting, and it seemed to melt like ice beneath my
grasp. Then I remembered seeing the edge of the canon within reach above
my head, and with my last remaining strength, I pulled myself up, and
fell upon the surface of the ring. You know the rest. I took another
dose of the powder, and in a few minutes was back among you."
The Chemist stopped speaking, and looked at his friends. "Well," he
said, "you've heard it all. What do you think of it?"
"It is a terrible thing to me," sighed the Very Young Man, "that you did
not bring Llyda with you."
"It would have been a terrible thing if I had brought her. But I am
going back for her."
"When do you plan to go back?" asked the Doctor after a moment.
"As soon as I can--in a day or two," answered the Chemist.
"Before you do your work here? You must not," remonstrated the Big
Business Man. "Our war here needs you, our nation, the whole cause of
liberty and freedom needs you. You cannot go."
"Lylda needs me, too," returned the Chemist. "I have an obligation
towards her now, you know, quite apart from my own feelings. Understand
me, gentlemen," he continued earnestly, "I do not place myself and mine
before the great fight for democracy and justice being waged in this
world. That would be absurd. But it is not quite that way, actually; I
can go back for Lylda and return here in a week. That week will make
little difference to the war. On the other hand, if I go to France
first, it may take me a good many months to complete my task, and during
that time Lylda will be using up her life several times faster than I.
No, gentlemen, I am going to her first."
"That week you propose to take," said the Banker slowly, "will cost this
world thousands of lives that you could save. Have you thought of that?"
The Chemist flushed. "I can recognize the salvation of a nation or a
cause," he returned hotly, "but if I must choose between the lives of a
thousand men who are not dependent on me, and the life or welfare of one
woman who is, I shall choose the woman."
"He's right, you know," said the Doctor, and the Very Young Man agreed
with him fervently.
Two days later the company met again in the privacy of the clubroom.
When they had finished dinner, the Chemist began in his usual quiet way:
"I am going to ask you this time, gentlemen, to give me a full week.
There are four of you--six hours a day of watching for each. It need not
be too great a hardship. You see," he continued, as they nodded in
agreement, "I want to spend a longer period in the ring world this time.
I may never go back, and I want to learn, in the interest of science, as
much about it as I can. I was there such a short time before, and it was
all so strange and remarkable, I confess I learned practically nothing.
"I told you all I could of its history. But of its arts, its science,
and all its sociological and economic questions, I got hardly more than
a glimpse. It is a world and a people far less advanced than ours, yet
with something we have not, and probably never will have--the
universally distributed milk of human kindness. Yes, gentlemen, it is a
world well worth studying."
The Banker came out of a brown study. "How about your formulas for these
drugs?" he asked abruptly; "where are they?" The Chemist tapped his
forehead smilingly. "Well, hadn't you better leave them with us?" the
Banker pursued. "The hazards of your trip--you can't tell----"
"Don't misunderstand me, gentlemen," broke in the Chemist. "I wouldn't
give you those formulas if my life and even Lylda's depended on it.
There again you do not differentiate between the individual and the
race. I know you four very well. You are my friends, with all the bond
that friendship implies. I believe in your integrity--each of you I
trust implicitly. With these formulas you could crush Germany, or you
could, any one of you, rule the world, with all its treasures for your
own. These drugs are the most powerful thing for good in the world
to-day. But they are equally as powerful for evil. I would stake my life
on what you would do, but I will not stake the life of a nation."
"I know what I'd do if I had the formulas," began the Very Young Man.
"Yes, but I don't know what you'd do," laughed the Chemist. "Don't you
see I'm right?" They admitted they did, though the Banker acquiesced
very grudgingly.
"The time of my departure is at hand. Is there anything else, gentlemen,
before I leave you?" asked the Chemist, beginning to disrobe.
"Please tell Lylda I want very much to meet her," said the Very Young
Man earnestly, and they all laughed.
When the room was cleared, and the handkerchief and ring in place once
more, the Chemist turned to them again. "Good-by, my friends," he said,
holding out his hands. "One week from to-night, at most." Then he took
the pills.
No unusual incident marked his departure. The last they saw of him he
was calmly sitting on the ring near the scratch.
Then passed the slow days of watching, each taking his turn for the
allotted six hours.
By the fifth day, they began to hourly expect the Chemist, but it passed
through its weary length, and he did not come. The sixth day dragged by,
and then came the last--the day he had promised would end their
watching. Still he did not come, and in the evening they gathered, and
all four watched together, each unwilling to miss the return of the
adventurer and his woman from another world.
But the minutes lengthened into hours, and midnight found the
white-faced little group, hopeful yet hopeless, with fear tugging at
their hearts. A second week passed, and still they watched, explaining
with an optimism they could none of them feel, the non-appearance of
their friend. At the end of the second week they met again to talk the
situation over, a dull feeling of fear and horror possessing them. The
Doctor was the first to voice what now each of them was forced to
believe. "I guess it's all useless," he said. "He's not coming back."
"I don't hardly dare give him up," said the Big Business Man.
"Me, too," agreed the Very Young Man sadly.
The Doctor sat for some time in silence, thoughtfully regarding the
ring. "My friends," he began finally, "this is too big a thing to deal
with in any but the most careful way. I can't imagine what is going on
inside that ring, but I do know what is happening in our world, and what
our friend's return means to civilization here. Under the circumstances,
therefore, I cannot, I will not give him up.
"I am going to put that ring in a museum and pay for having it watched
indefinitely. Will you join me?" He turned to the Big Business Man as he
spoke.
"Make it a threesome," said the Banker gruffly. "What do you take me
for?" and the Very Young Man sighed with the tragedy of youth.