THE WORLD BELOW
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FICTION
THE ADVENTURE OF WYNDHAM SMITH
THE ISLAND OF CAPTAIN SPARROW
LORD’S RIGHT IN LANGUEDOC
SEVEN THOUSAND IN ISRAEL
THE SCREAMING LAKE
THE SIEGE OF MALTA
THE NEWS GODS LEAD
PRELUDE IN PRAGUE
VENGEANCE OF GWA
THE HIDDEN TRIBE
ORDEAL OF BARATA
MEGIDDO’S RIDGE
BEYOND THE RIM
FOUR DAYS’ WAR
THE WITCHFINDER
ELFWIN
DELUGE
DREAM
DAVID
POWER
DAWN
VERSE
THE SONG OF SONGS AND OTHER POEMS
SCENES FROM THE MORTE D’ARTHUR
THE RIDING OF LANCELOT
THE BALLAD OF ELAINE
RESIDUE
TRANSLATION
DANTE’S DIVINE COMEDY
POLITICAL
POLICE AND PUBLIC
SHOULD WE SURRENDER COLONIES?
BIOGRAPHY
THE LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE WORLD BELOW
by
S. FOWLER WRIGHT
Author of “Deluge,” “The Island of Captain Sparrow,” etc.
BOOKS FOR TODAY LTD
50-52 OLD BROMPTON ROAD
LONDON S.W. 7
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second Impression
Copyright, 1929
Made and Printed in Great Britain by Jarrold & Sons Ltd.,
Norwich, Mcmxlix
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
BOOK I. THE AMPHIBIANS
I. OF PLACE AND TIME
II. THE EMPTY DAWN
III. DEATH?
IV. THE OPAL WAY
V. THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE
VI. THE FROG-MOUTHS
VII. CAPTURE
VIII. THE BIRDS
IX. THE TUNNEL OF FEAR
X. THE AMPHIBIANS
XI. THE PROBLEM
XII. THE MARCH
XIII. THE KILLERS
XIV. THE HALT
XV. THE PLAN OF ATTACK
XVI. THE SENTRY
XVII. THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE
XVIII. THE ARSENAL OF THE KILLERS
XIX. THE DUEL IN THE NIGHT
XX. THE BOW
XXI. THE BAT-WINGS
XXII. NIGHT IN THE ARSENAL
XXIII. THE ESCAPE
XXIV. THE FIGHT IN THE ARSENAL
XXV. THE FORBIDDEN THING
XXVI. THE TRIAL
XXVII. THE VERDICT
XXVIII. THE FATE OF THE KILLERS
BOOK II. THE WORLD BELOW
I. COUNSEL
II. THE UNKNOWN WAY
III. THE PERIL OF THE LAKE
IV. THE SILENCE IN THE WOOD
V. THE TEMPLE
VI. THE DOWNWARD PATH
VII. THE LIVING BOOK
VIII. THE TREATY
IX. THE FLAME OF LIFE
X. VISIONS
XI. WAR
XII. THE FATE OF TEMPLETON
XIII. SEPARATION
XIV. LOVE AND WAR
XV. RELEASE
XVI. RETURN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Book I
THE AMPHIBIANS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I
OF PLACE AND TIME
“Applied science,” said the Professor, “is always incredible to the
vulgar mind.”
“You know, George, they really did go--disappeared absolutely--and
there’s only one door to the room, and we sat round it. There’s no kid
about that,” young Danby added--perhaps recognising that his father
lacked somewhat in the amenities of social intercourse.
“If I go at all, I shall take an axe,” I remarked irrelevantly.
Bryant leant forward, and knocked the ashes out of his pipe.
“Templeton went like a Pirate Chief,” he said, smiling slightly.
It was the first time he had spoken.
“Look here, Bryant,” I said, “tell me what really happened, and I’ll do
my best to believe it.”
He hesitated a moment, and then answered slowly, “It’s true enough, what
they’ve told you, as far as we _can_ tell it. As to theories of time and
space, I know no more than you do. I used to think they were obvious.
I’ve heard the Professor talk two nights a week for three years, and
I’ve realised that it isn’t all quite as simple as it seemed, though I
don’t get much further. But the next room’s a fact. We lay things down
on the central slab, and the room goes dark, and we go back in two
minutes, and it gets light again, and they’re still there. And the
Professor says he’s projected them 500,000 years ahead in the interval,
and they don’t look any the worse for the journey.”
“And it must be true, because they don’t deny it,” I said flippantly.
“It sounds rather a dull game, but not very difficult.”
“Yes, I know how it sounds,” he answered, “and we thought just the same;
but it did seem to prove one thing--that it did no harm to the objects
of the experiment.
“If they went anywhere, at least they came back safely. So at last we
tried it with Harry Brett--and he didn’t. We left him there, and we went
back, and the room was empty. It’s just a bare circular room,
metal-walled, with one exit. You can see for yourself. It wouldn’t hide
a fly.
“The next day Harry’s wife came and kicked up a row, and we got
frightened, and told Templeton, and he said he didn’t believe a word of
it, but he was going to find out, and so we tried it on him too.”
“And he disappeared in the same way?”
“No, he didn’t. He came out all right, and he said, ‘It’s true enough,
but I reckon you’ve settled Brett. But what’s the use of half-an-hour?
I’m going back now. Give me a year, and I may find him.’
“The Professor told him he couldn’t repeat the experiment twice the same
night, but he could come back the next, and so he did--and that’s the
end of it so far.”
“But if he were to be gone for a year, and he went last Tuesday?”
“He wasn’t to be _gone_ for a year; he was to be _there_ for a year, and
be back in two minutes. That’s quite simple. The Professor’ll tell you.”
“But--if the Professor will excuse the remark--it wouldn’t be any good
if he did. I’ve read _The Time Machine_, and I know that space is
curved, thanks to Einstein’s enterprising investigation. I quite
understand that, if I got at the right distance from the earth (and my
eyesight were good enough), I should see our Darwinian ancestor shinning
up the tree-trunk for the fatal apple, but I don’t profess to follow
these mysteries further. When I had to learn science, I always preferred
the demonstrations. Now, if the Professor would project a pullet six
months old backward, and it returned a chicken----”
Young Danby laughed, and I saw Bryant’s eyes twinkle, but the Professor
answered me patiently.
“It is obviously impossible to project anything into the past, which is
fixed irrevocably.
“Otherwise there would be no finality, and the confusion would be
intolerable. It requires no scientific training of intellect to
understand that the ordered experience of life would become chaotic if,
for instance, upon reading of a long-past murder, I could project myself
into the past, and intervene to save the victim.
“In such event the murder would both have occurred, and been prevented:
which is absurd.
“But the future is different. It is unformed, or, at least, its facts
are in a condition of fluidity. We are all occupied in forming them. If
I kill an insect, I do not destroy it only, but its descendants also. I
also influence the lives of other insects with which they would have
mated, and which will form other alliances. From such alliances other
insects will be born which would not have existed. The present
consequences of any action, even the most momentous, are trivial,
because the present is but a moment. Its future consequences are
incalculably greater, because the future is infinite.
“Realising this, we recognise that our present actions belong to the
future almost entirely, and it becomes a less important possibility that
we may be able to project ourselves forward into some future period, and
influence its circumstances by the physical methods with which we are
familiar here.”
I don’t suppose the Professor had finished, but he paused for breath for
a second, and I took the chance he offered.
“I’m sorry I came a cropper over the pullet plan. And, anyway, there
wasn’t much sense in it. It would be too unprofitable to become popular.
But why not get the chickens, and project them forward? Nine months
ahead, say, and they come back cackling, with the first egg on the
table?--‘Professor Danby, the Magic Poulterer.’ There’s a fortune there,
anyway.”
For the first time the Professor showed distinct signs of irritation.
“You may not be a scientist,” he said, “but as a business man you must
know that you are talking nonsense. Would you send your chickens into
the future without a hen to brood them?
“Would you expect the people of some future age to rear them for your
benefit? When they discovered that they always vanished at maturity,
would they not kill them a few days earlier?--But this is idle talk.
Something of the kind you imagine may follow in the years to be, as the
penetration of the future, which is now the subject of theory and
experiment, becomes an exact science, and when it does, such minds as
yours will take it as casually as you now do the transmission of speech
and sight over the earth’s surface, in ways which your fathers would
have considered incredible. The scientists who have conquered space have
less honour in the mouths of men than Napoleon, who conquered
Europe,--and had not the brains to hold it. It is not reasonable to
suppose that those who conquer time will be more highly regarded.
“But all this is beside the point. There are two men who have vanished,
or so we tell you. We have no proof, and you are under no obligation to
believe us. We may have murdered them, though we have no evident object,
and your knowledge of our characters should enable you to discount that
possibility. If you will take the same risk, be it much or little, I
will find the sum you need, which is somewhat large, and which you tell
me is urgent.”
I said, “I do need it; and if I don’t accept at once, it’s because the
whole tale sounds too wild for believing. I should like to ask a few
questions.
“First, you say these two men have disappeared entirely. I believe what
you have told me is genuine, or at least that you believe it to be so.
But have you told me all? Is there nothing you are holding back that
might influence my decision? No?
“But you say that Templeton returned from his first adventure, and went
again the next night. Surely he told you something of his experiences?”
“No; he didn’t seem to want to talk,” Bryant answered; “he only said it
was too strange to explain, and he must go back and find out. When we
pressed him, he said he supposed we thought that, if a stranger to our
planet stood in his back-garden for half-an-hour, he would be able to
describe the whole earth in detail, from the marriage customs of Alaska
to the flora of the Zambesi. You know Templeton’s way.
“But he was anxious enough to get back, and he turned up next night with
a sack of things he thought he would find useful, and enough weapons in
his belt to stock an arsenal.”
“And he didn’t return,” I added, “so the things he took don’t seem to
have been sufficiently useful. As I said before, if I go, I shall take
an axe; for one reason, because I spend half my leisure in tree-felling,
and I know how to use it. For another, it’s a useful tool, and not only
intended for the destruction of your fellow-men. Whether I shall find
any fellow-men, I don’t know, but, if I go into a strange world, I don’t
propose to equip myself as though I intended to engage it in single
combat. It seems tactless to me.--But did he say nothing about
temperature? I don’t want to stumble into a glacial epoch, without even
a fur collar in which to face it.”
“You need have no fear of that,” said the Professor, “you will be at
least thirty-thousand years away from the nearest glacial epoch, and
Templeton didn’t seem to have suffered either from change of air or an
excessively high temperature.”
“He took plenty of clothes when he went back,” young Danby added, “but
he said it was much easier to throw off clothes you didn’t want than to
put on those you hadn’t got, and he didn’t know where he would be going,
‘it might be up, or it might be down!’--whatever that meant.”
“It doesn’t sound as though he had much confidence in the resources of
the future world,” I said doubtfully, “and there are about fifty
questions I should like to ask, but they wouldn’t make much difference,
even if you knew the answers, which you probably don’t.
“I’ve got to-morrow to make any preparations that seem worth while. I’ll
take the cheque now, Professor, if you will be so kind as to draw
it,--and I’ll give you a note to-morrow which will clear you with Clara,
if I follow Templeton’s example.”