Toward the Light
It was only three "wakes" later when catastrophe struck.
During the interval, I had been sheltering Clay the best I could,
trying to keep him disguised and hidden, laying out a future course of
action. Many were our hurried little talks in which we decided that
the only safety for either of us lay in the Overworld; however, since
premature flight would be worse than none at all, we were making our
plans coolly and deliberately. Already I had withdrawn the military
guard from the tubes; I had secreted a quantity of hooks, ropes, and
other climbing tackle at the base of one of the flues, which, I knew,
led upward to the Overworld; I had taken steps to secure quantities
of concentrated food, medical supplies, and other necessities, to be
strapped in knapsacks about our backs.
But before these projects were complete, the tempest broke. Each day
I had seen it brewing more threateningly, and all my efforts against
it were fruitless. The report of the overthrow of the dictator of Zu
and the statement that he and I had been suspected of collusion had
taken dangerous fire in the public mind; demagogues, too numerous to
suppress, had risen to warn the people that I was "conspiring against
their interests"; and these charges, added to complaints about my
conclusion of an "inglorious peace," could not but have an effect upon
a public so far advanced in thoughtlessness as the people of Wu.
Worst of all my visitor from Zu, on the third "wake" after his arrival,
had unwittingly betrayed me. It would be impossible, I knew, for
him to stay hidden forever; but I had hardly expected him to reveal
himself just when he did--not that I blame him. The whole affair was
an unfortunate accident; for when he came out of the rooms where I had
told him to remain, he had expected to find me alone. But alas! I was
just being interviewed by a reporter for the _Screamer_! Too late I saw
Clay, on whose face a stubbly red beard was again beginning to sprout.
Too late I motioned him to retreat. The knowing gleam in the eyes of
the reporter showed that he had seen all!
To threaten the journalist, to offer him a bribe, would only have been
to make him more suspicious, and hence more dangerous; my only hope was
that he would misinterpret what he had seen. But in this hope I was
to be cheated. Only a few hours later, the _Screamer_ appeared with
a special edition, describing the "mysterious stranger" seen in the
home of Luma the Illustrious--a stranger whose "foreign origin" was
evident from his queer appearance. It was stated that his eyes were of
an outlandish blue, and that his stubbly hair was faintly red--a color
attributed to only one man in all history. Could it be that the outcast
Dictator of Zu had found shelter beneath Luma's roof? Was Luma plotting
with Rah the Righteous against his own people?
I have always held that the citizens of Wu cared little about Rah the
Righteous; but so perilously inflamed were they that it required no
more than a spark to set off the conflagration.
The storm burst over me with cataclysmic suddenness, I had been
having one of my many little discussions with Clay, talking over old
times and planning for the future, when I heard a tremendous thumping
at the door. I opened it to admit one of the guards who entered in
such excitement that he forgot the customary formality of bowing
till his palm scraped the floor. His face, normally white, had grown
red with agitation; his hands fluttered; his salmon eyes gaped wide
with bewilderment and alarm. "Excellency!" he gasped. "Your Abysmal
Excellency! Quick! The mob! The mob! Come! Look! See! Quick!"
"What's that?" I demanded, startled. "What about the mob?"
"Come! Look! See!" he repeated, starting away down the long
greenish-yellow gallery.
Exchanging frightened glances, Clay and I followed in silence until
we had reached the further end of the palace, where the guard lifted
a little slit of stone in one of the walls--a fragment barely an inch
across, just enough to permit us a peep through the thick partition,
while keeping us safe from observation.
* * * * *
Instantly a confusion of savage cries came to our ears--cries fierce,
shrill, blood-curdling as the war-shouts of embattled Apaches. "Down
with Luma! Down with Luma! Down with Luma! Lynch him! Stab him!
Massacre him!" I heard, mingled with yells of, "Back with Thuno Flâtum!
Back with Thuno Flâtum! Long live Thuno Flâtum!" And, peering through
the little slit in the wall, I witnessed a sight that made my heart
give a ferocious leap and my hair prickle as if ready to stand on end.
Back and forth, through the gallery outside, an excited throng was
parading. Hundreds deep, they moved with a swarming fury; their eyes
showed fierce and bloodshot in the greenish-yellow light; their arms
swung through the air with vehement gesticulations. Some brandished
sticks and poles frenziedly; some held ropes coiled into nooses; some
waved faggots ready for lighting, while all, as if possessed by demons,
howled over and over again that bloodthirsty refrain, "Down with Luma!
Down with Luma! Down with Luma! Kill the traitor! Murder him! Turn him
over!"
At the same time, there came a tremendous battering sound from one
corner of the wall--a sound as of a sledgehammer striking.
"They're pounding down the gates!" whispered the guard as he hastily
shoved the slit of stone into place again. "Can't hold them back much
longer!"
"Can't hold them back!" I moaned agreement, knowing that no wild beast
was more to be feared than that mad rabble. And then, frantically
turning to Clay, who stood watching with eyes half popping out of his
head in horror, I screamed, "Come! There's no time to lose!"
At sprinting speed, we ran back through the gallery, then down a
side-passage beneath the palace, where we paused long enough to
secure provisions and disguise ourselves--Clay by assuming again the
garb in which he had escaped from Zu, and I by smearing my face with
white powder, exchanging my royal clothes for a plain black robe, and
covering my eyes with dark glasses.
Already, from the palace above us, we could hear the screaming of the
mob.
"They've broken in!" I muttered. "In a minute they'll be down here!"
"Let's be off!" he nodded; and while the howling of the multitude grew
louder, we started off down a dark and winding tunnel sloping deep
underground.
Neither of us spoke as we hastened along, scarcely daring to turn on a
flashlight to guide us. But well enough we knew our destination--the
base of the ventilating flue, where we had concealed the climbing
tackle by which we hoped to reach the Overworld.
In a straight line, this point was not far; but, in order to avoid
detection, we had to circle miles out of our way, through obscure and
little-used corridors. Hence hours passed before we had approached the
safety point. And then, for a few minutes, we had to face a greater
peril. Separating us from the ventilation flue was a stretch of a more
frequented avenue, from which neither of us might easily escape.
Yet, there being no choice, we faced the danger resolutely, and,
trusting to our disguise, stepped boldly out of hiding.
Emerging into the wider thoroughfare, we found the people crowding back
and forth excitedly; but, fortunately, none seemed to take notice of
us. The "scootscoots" rushed hither and thither as crazily as ever,
several of them missing us by inches; while a newsgirl raced here
and there squeaking furiously, "Latest _Screamer_! Buy the latest
_Screamer_! Super-super-super-extra-extra-extra! Great revolution!
Luma the Illustrious abdicates! Thuno Flâtum restored to power!
Super-super-super-extra-extra-extra!"
"Super-extra-extra! Buy the latest _Blare_!" I heard from another side.
"War with Zu breaks out again! Thuno Flâtum sends troops to the depths!
Huge turnover! Subterrain attacks renewed! Buy the latest _Blare_!
Super-extra-extra!"
As if to emphasize the truth of these words, we caught a glimpse of
marching helmeted forms, hundreds upon hundreds, tramping with a
prancing military motion along a side-gallery, while over them the
green and vermilion banners demonstratively waved.
At the same time, a turn in the gallery enabled us to glance into
the mile-deep vastness of a prodigious chasm, such as we had seen
on arriving in the Underworld. Far beneath us, in the eerie depths,
we observed multitudes of tiny forms, drawn up in military columns
and regiments; while from the walls of the abyss, great shafts of
lightning, white and violet and orange and green, began to dart to the
accompaniment of portentous thunders.
But all these sounds and sights were swept from our consciousness by
demonstrations of a still more alarming nature. Straight toward us,
from down the gallery, a swarm of Third Class citizens came flocking,
thousands deep, wielding spears and ropes and clubs, while they
hoarsely shouted.
"Down with Luma the Illustrious! Down with Luma! Grab the traitor! Tear
him to bits! Gouge out his heart! Turn him over! Down with him! Down
with him! Down with him!"
"Quick!" I whispered to Clay, and we slid across the avenue and into
a smaller gallery which, a few yards farther on, gave access to the
ventilating flue.
"Down with Luma! Down with Luma! Lynch the coward! Tear him to
bits! Down with him! Down with him! Turn him over!" I heard the mob
repeating, with rising fury, as the ventilating lid slammed to a close
above our heads--and the multitude, not observing us, went shouting on
its way down the avenue.
The next moment Clay and I had seized the ropes and hooks and had begun
the climb back to the Overworld.
* * * * *
There is no need to dwell upon our adventures when, tied together with
ropes like mountain climbers, we accomplished the ascent through the
air-tubes. Several hours later, thanks to my expert knowledge of the
ventilation system, we had wearily reached the outlet, and, for the
first time in years, stood beneath the open sky, blinking in the bright
sunlight and exposing our skin to the luxury of the breeze....
It was days later when we reached civilization. For scores of miles
we made our way, scarcely knowing where, across the sagebrush barrens
of the Nevada desert; and had we not found water by melting the snow
from the sunless shelves of the peaks, while nourishing our bodies by
concentrated food capsules from Wu, we would not have survived to tell
the story. Even as it was, we had reached the last stages of exhaustion
when, tattered and torn, with our food exhausted and our faces covered
with a ragged growth of beard, we stumbled into a mining camp near
the California border. The startled miners had the surprise of their
lives when two strangers, still dressed fantastically in the pointed
hats and black skirts of Wu, suddenly made their appearance; and it is
not surprising that we were mistaken for madmen and that our story was
greeted with derisive laughter.
But now that we have been restored to our homes and friends and
are once more full of life and activity, I do not hesitate to make
the facts public, so that the world may know of the unsuspected
civilization inhabiting the chasms beneath the Nevada desert. It is
the purpose of Clay and myself to lead an expedition back to Wu and
Zu, so that we may fathom their miraculous scientific secrets, many
of which we have been unable to penetrate; and it is our hope that we
may set forth at an early date, for we do not know how soon, in their
renewed strife over Nullnull, the people of the Underworld may blow
themselves out of existence, leaving no more than their blackened
labyrinths and crumbling galleries to prove that they ever have lived.