“I supposed that the meeting of last night would resolve it, for I

believed that my own people had determined to go straight forward, and

that the Dwellers were resolute not to move aside to allow it. But the

appearance of the lizards between them caused my people to halt of their

own will, and the issue was not contested in that way.”

Then she went forward, and I followed closely behind her. Peace was

round us, and a dream-like beauty, golden-green, and deep blue sky where

the trees showed it. The stillness could be felt.

As the body feels when a great wind meets it, so that, though it stoop

against it, it can make no headway, so was the pressure against my mind

to hold me backward.

My companion gave me no thought, and I saw her go on slowly, but with no

sign of effort.

As the pressure increased against me, my heart began to beat very

violently. I became sick with terror. I forced each limb forward with

difficulty, as though there were a weight that dragged it backward. I

concentrated my thought on the fear that if she should leave me I should

be lost entirely, and strove with a despairing energy to lessen the gap

between us, as it threatened to widen. And then, suddenly, I knew that

the pressure ceased, and she looked back with laughing eyes, and a mind

which was elate with victory.

The trees here became very dense, so that we could not see far ahead,

and there were many of the fruit-bearing bushes, such as that on which I

had fed before, that grew between them. I had a sense of great

exhaustion, which I think she shared also, and we sat down and rested.

I saw that she was elate that we had not been turned by this obstacle,

but I found myself less responsive to her mood than usual. I felt that

we were confronted by powers which were entirely beyond our calculation,

and against which we could make no effectual provision. I even doubted

our present success.

“Suppose,” I suggested suddenly, “that while we think we are victors, we

are caught in a trap which we cannot break? Suppose a new danger were to

confront us, how could we flee backward through the stubborn wall we

have passed? Suppose that it is a circle through which return may be

more difficult than the entrance?”

“We may suppose what we will,” she answered happily, “and we may be

right one time in a hundred, but what use is there in that? And such

thoughts seem to me to be of a great folly, for by such means you make

those against whom you should contend the more formidable. You defeat

yourself. You are frightened by a new thing. It is new to me also, but

it is no more wonderful than are many of the invisible powers of which

you have told me, which are known to your own kind, and of which even

the Dwellers--for all I know--may be ignorant.”

I answered, though still unable to rise to her own mood, “I know that

you are right when you say that I defeat myself, for it is the weakness

of my kind to do so. Even in our wars, it is only rarely that a battle

is fought out to the extremity of either side, but a moment comes when

the spirit of confidence dies in one side or the other, and it retires

or surrenders. Often, it is found afterwards that its opponents were

dispirited also, and that the defeated could have been the victors had

they endured for a short time longer.

“But your comparison with the powers of my own world gives me little

encouragement. In our last war it was considered necessary to prevent

people from crossing from one country to another. To effect this a wire

fence was erected along the boundary. It looked harmless, and easy to

pass. Those who touched it died instantly, as by lightning. To an

earlier generation it would have seemed incredible. How can we tell by

what incredible-seeming horrors the Dwellers may be able to protect

their territories?”

She answered buoyantly, “I agree with what you think, though not with

the mood it induces. You are exactly right that we cannot tell, and it

is useless to speculate. But the moment is ours, and I am content to

have a mind untroubled.

“Why is it that your mind and body are alike in this, that they will

fear when there is no cause, or a doubt only, but will rise above it

when a cause confronts them? You are at least clear from the barbarisms

of your own time, which appear to be such by your own telling that it is

a marvel that any of you remain alive to endure them. And you can take

courage from the thought that the Dwellers are not of your kind.”

I did not answer further, for I was now rested, and had eaten freely,

and with the physical comfort the mood was passing, but I had less

confidence than she in the Dwellers, and a greater fear than I had felt

before.

CHAPTER V

THE TEMPLE

Now the trees were thinner again, and of a changing character. They

appeared to be a larger variety of those which we had encountered during

the previous night. Light and graceful they rose around us, with a crown

of spreading boughs from which long ribbon-leaves fell thickly. These

leaves were many yards in length, of the width of a finger, and of an

almost incredible lightness. The air was quiet, but not with the

unreasonable stillness of the area of that forbidding will, and when a

light wind moved, the leaves were lifted like a woman’s hair, and blown

aside, so that the straight slim trunks showed nakedly between them.

Always these light leaves murmured with a stealthy whispering sound, so

like to speech that I had a feeling that there were words which I almost

heard, which I should catch if I should listen more carefully. I began

to imagine that they were urgent to warn or threaten.

I turned to my companion’s mind to break the spell they were casting,

and found her receiving it with a like pleasure to that with which she

bathed in the cold springs of the lake-floor.

Her mind paused reluctantly from its enjoyment to answer me when I

queried in wonder how she should find a delight which approached to

ecstasy in such a way, when I had understood that the sounds of speech,

and (I supposed) all noise, were a barbarism that repelled her.

She answered, “You confuse things the most opposite. Is the beauty of

bird or beast increased if it be torn open? The sea is full of sound,

and like the wind it has many voices, which it contains within itself,

as the air contains them. These voices are as the very basis of life to

every sea-born thing. Even a dead shell cannot forget them. The unending

murmur of these leaves soothes me with delight, while it arouses longing

to return to the ocean-depths where there is neither noise nor

stillness. Do you not hear that it is at once monotonous and many-toned,

as all sound should be? Would not even such as you are shrink to violate

it with the intolerable noises of the speech you practise?”

I did not answer, for her mind left me as it ceased its protest, and we

went forward in silence, soothed to drowsiness of thought by this

monotony of multitudinous sounds, till the trees ceased, and I was

suddenly conscious that my companion was left behind, and that her

thought was urgent to call me.

Thoughts that pass from mind to mind are swifter than speech, a thousand

times, and more luminous. So it was that we had mutually realised in a

moment that which would have been beyond the ready apprehension of human

intercourse.

She stood back because she was confronted by a wall of blackness, where

I saw sunlight, and a level lawn. It was not darkness that she saw, as

that of night, but a blackness as of a curtain, gross and palpable.

When she knew that the way was clear to me, and that it held no visible

menace, she decided instantly to go forward. “We will hold our purpose

of boldness, as the better hope both of success and of safety. I will

see with your mind, as you saw with mine in the night-time.”

I agreed, and we joined hands, and went on together.

Now, as we had found before, it is the disadvantage of this method of

helping another mind that it hinders thought, so that I went on with my

will fixed on conveying that which I saw to my companion, and could not

reflect, or even wonder, without some blurring of the vision which I was

transmitting.

The forest which we had left swept a wide forward curve on either hand

around a level plain, on which was a circular building which must have

been more than a mile in diameter. It consisted of a series of

platforms, each receding from the one below. There were many of these,

each about four feet higher than the last, and the central elevation

must have been considerable, though the extent of the building dwarfed

it. In colour it was opalescent, reminding me of the pavement which I

had first encountered, but it was of such extent and such beauty that

the comparison is one of kind only.

So far as I could see from that position, it was crowned by a level

platform. It was entirely silent: no life moved nor was visible.

All this I showed to my companion, who received it without interruption

as we paused for me to view it, but when the survey was completed, and I

would have continued our advance, I found her slow to follow, and it was

only after an interval of irresolution that at last she told me. “I am

afraid. I have doubted whether we should go forward. There is a mystery

here which awes me, whereas the unknown, or the perilous, has allured me

always. I have thought backward as far as mind will reach, and the

feeling is new. But, after this, I thought that we have taken a new road

with minds aware of its danger. We may come through harmless, or with

broken bodies, or, for all we know, we may be destroyed by forces which

are beyond experience or imagination. But there is one thing that

remains to our own wills, that if we fail we may do so conscious either

of a bold or of a craven failure. Having lived so long, I have no will

to perish with shame in my thoughts. You have walked where your sight

failed, and I can surely do so. We will go forward together, and you can

give me the sight I need, unless a greater urgency should require you.

It may be that the darkness will pass, as did the pressure.

“But, perhaps, you are yourself unwilling to continue with a comrade so

helpless? If you would rather that we turn aside, or that you go forward

alone, I am content for it to be as you will.”

I answered readily, “I am well content to go on together. I do not share

or understand your feeling. So far as I can see them, the platforms are

quiet and vacant, and nothing warns me of danger. It is a strange thing

that you cannot see, and may be ominous. But we have chosen a dangerous

search, and we are little likely to reach success if we turn from

shadows. To do so, would be (it is your own thought) to defeat

ourselves, before any hostile movement should avail to thwart us. Let us

at least go round the base of the building until we find whether the

other side be alike. We might do this without penetrating the space

within which you cannot see.”

She answered, “Not by my will. For the fear is less since my resolution

denied it; and how do we know that the higher platforms may not show us

the entrance which we seek? Or that my sight may not avail when we gain

them?”

But her sight did not return, and though I was able to convey the scene

so that she walked confidently, yet our minds could not divert to the

exchange of other thoughts,--could, indeed, scarcely think at all,

without reducing her to a darkness which was not merely such as I had

experienced on the previous night, but blackness absolute and

unrelieved.

We went straight upward from one circular platform to another, finding

no change whatever. We walked on surfaces as smooth as polished granite,

in some places of a milky opaqueness, at others of deep and

multi-coloured transparencies. Always before us was a wall of the same

substance: climbing it, we found another similar platform to traverse.

The outer edge of each curved very slightly upward, not more than a few

inches, like the low rim of a gigantic saucer. It was nothing,

proportionately, to the dimensions of the platforms themselves, but was

enough to make me wonder how they were drained, when the rain fell. Then

I wondered whether rain were allowed to fall in that solitude. Looking

closely, I noticed, at the foot of the next wall, that there was a space

of an inch or two between its apparent base and the platform beneath it.

Apart from these apertures, which gave to each of the circular walls an

appearance of being unsupported, there was no opening anywhere, as of

door or window, nor sign of joint nor division in the whole extents of

walls or platforms.

The colours before and beneath us were of innumerable variety, and of

deep and glowing intensities, changing continually as we advanced. They

changed, but did not flicker, nor sparkle. We walked on lakes of frozen

fire, that faded as we advanced to the quiet green of an English sunset

when the mists are windless. Here, I thought, might be the place of the

birth of sunsets. Sometimes the approaching wall would show a violet

colour of an intensity which I had neither seen nor imagined, but this

colour was never beneath our feet, nor could we reach it closely, for as

we approached, it always changed and faded, if fading it could be called

which was most often into a blue of more than peacock brilliance. But it

was dull to the violet light which had preceded.

So we climbed unhindered, till we traversed a much wider platform than

those below, and knew that the last wall was before us. It was higher

than the previous ones had been, and we mounted it with some difficulty.

We then saw a circular space of a diameter of about two hundred yards,

and of an absolute flatness. It seemed that there was nothing more than

the sides had shown already to reward our climbing. Except--so small a

thing. A tiny point of light on the surface at the centre--so small a

point. As we walked toward it I expected it to show more largely, but it

did not do so. When we stood within a few yards, which was the nearest

that we dared to venture, it was still too small for the eye to measure.

It was a point without magnitude. I cannot say that it was embedded in,

or that it lay upon, the surface. I cannot say that it was red or

yellow: it was fire. It did not change or sparkle.

We stood there for a long time. I had no thoughts that I can translate

to words. I have none now.

At last, we continued our way to the farther side of the platform, where

we found a new reason for pausing. Beneath us lay the penultimate

terrace which we had noticed to be so much wider than the others.

Where we had crossed it in ascending there had been no other difference.

But here I looked upon the body of one of the Dwellers, who lay

face-downwards before us.

She did not lie on the flat surface, but in a shallow depression,

hollowed to the shape of her body, which was half beneath and half above

the surface of the platform on which she lay. It fitted her as though it

were a mould in which she had been cast. It fitted her arms, that lay

stretched straight and wide above her head. The whole attitude was one

of grief or adoration. We watched, and saw no movement.

We walked aside for some distance, before climbing down to the platform

on which she lay. Having done this, I looked toward her, and saw that

she was now standing. We remained motionless. We could merely watch. If

she saw us there could be no escape nor evasion. We could not exchange

thought, for my mind was occupied in conveying to my companion the

vision of what I saw, but she contrived to let me know that it was as

inexplicable to her as to me, and I remembered that she had told me that

she had never seen more than three women among the Dwellers, although

she supposed them to be more numerous.

The one we now saw stood upright, showing a girlish slimness, her great

size neutralised by the parity of her surroundings. She was gazing

towards the point of light, her arms held down before her, and the

joined hands twisting as in an extremity of controlled emotion.

Unlike the male Dwellers, she had hair on her head, abundant, though not

long. It was golden-brown in colour, and extended down the spine, a

narrow lifted ridge. Otherwise the body was hairless. The back was the

brown of a burnt biscuit, changing in front to rich cream-colour.

Otherwise, she might have been a woman of to-day or yesterday, with the

grace and symmetry of a Grecian statue.

So, for a time, she stood, and then turned, and descended.

As I watched her do so, I became conscious that she could see no more

than my companion. For though she walked confidently enough down what to

her were no more than very wide and shallow stairs, I saw her twice put

a foot forward, as with an instant’s doubt, to feel the slight flange

which rose at the edge of each platform.

Before we descended farther, we walked to the edge of the hollow in

which she had lain, and I had an impression of the enormous mould of a

human form, as though it had been pressed in wet sand, but all the

substance of that hollow showed the violet light of which I have told

before, and though it did not flash nor shine into the eyes as sunlight

does, but was, as it were, buried within the stone that contained it,

yet it was of such intensity that my sight was lost as I saw it, and for

some moments after I turned away I was a sharer of my companion’s

blindness.

It was inevitable that we should take much longer in our descent than

had the Dweller, whose stride from platform to platform was so different

from our shorter steps, yet when we arrived again on the level ground

she was still there, and had turned to face the temple (if such it were)

with thrown-back head, and uplifted arms, and an expression as of one

who has been hopelessly repulsed, and yet makes one more appeal, not

with expectation, but because it is intolerable to turn away, and to

admit defeat which is final.

* * * * *

It may be convenient here to explain certain facts regarding the

Dwellers of which I learnt later, and in gradual ways. They had, in the

course of numerous millenniums, developed bodies which were immune from

disease, and (in comparison with our own) from accidental injury also.

So far as their experience showed, there was no physical deterioration,

nor any reason why they should not continue indefinitely. Yet their

solution of the problem of longevity proved inferior to that which had

been evolved by the Amphibians, in an unforeseen way. In our own race,

we know that the desire of life may persist in a body which is both old

and organically defective, and that the brain is usually the last

stronghold of a vitality which is reluctantly surrendered. Their

experience was opposite. A time would come when the body functioned, but

the mind grew weary. Year by year, an increasing lethargy would be

succeeded by a more active desire for death, till the slow operation of

their own will-power would destroy their bodies through the misery of

its final centuries. To the young, this condition would appear

incredible, and they would confidently boast that they would resist it

successfully, but, sooner or later, it would inevitably descend upon

them.

Such was their individual doom: as a race they lived under a darker

shadow. When it became evident that they had so far overcome the threats

of disease and decay that the individual might continue indefinitely,

they had naturally been concerned rather by the fear that there might be

an ultimate congestion of population, than that the race should fail in

fecundity. But this fear had not been acute, because they were then

engaged in exploiting a new, and seemingly almost limitless,

subterranean territory. Also, they passed through a period of warfare

with the inhuman population of other portions of the earth’s surface, in

the course of which many of them were destroyed, and which remained as a

continuing menace when the actual conflict ceased.

They had soon learned that though the lives of their women were

prolonged indefinitely, their power of procreation did not continue, and

they had first observed, immediately after the war of which I have

spoken, that the children that were born were males in a considerable

majority. They were not alarmed at this circumstance, which those who

specialised in such matters assured them to be of a temporary character,

either because (as some held) their males had been weakened in strife,

and their boldest and strongest killed, and it was (they said) a natural

law that the young should be of the sex of the weaker half of the

community; or (as others held) because the spirits of the dead were

reincarnated, so that, in time of warfare, an excess of male births was

a natural consequence of the fatalities which preceded them. With all

their wisdom they could not resolve this question with certainty. They

were not even agreed as to whether there were any necessary relation

between the births and deaths that occurred among them, or whether,

should they cease entirely to die, new spirits could be incarnated

indefinitely from the Unseen.

But the war ceased, and the years passed, and the excess of male births

did not cease, but augmented continually. Many troubles resulted, many

expedients were tried, many laws were passed, but this condition

persisted.

At this day, while the males and older females must have numbered tens

and may have numbered hundreds of thousands, there were less than

seventy women of marriageable age alive, and of some two score of

children there were three girls only.

* * * * *

As the Dweller stood thus, a feeling of desolation came upon me,

settling into a dull despair, which I had no force to combat. It may

have been the attitude in which she stood, solitary and silent, in that

strange setting, the vacant beauty of the temple before, and the golden

circle of the woods behind her, her arms lifted in dumb protest against

the inexorable destiny which overshadowed her.

It may have been her attitude only, or it may have been more than that,

as I realised later.

For when at last she cast down her arms with a gesture of impotence, and

turned with bowed head, and descended into some cavity of the ground, my

companion opened her mind toward me, and the shadow darkened as she did

it. Then her thought grew clear to this issue,--“When you have shown me

the dark things of the time from which you came, I have been curious, or

repelled; or I have sympathised or marvelled only; yet it has been as

unreal as is a reflection in water. But here I find it close, and very

terrible. Its meaning is beyond me, but I had not imagined that the

world could hold such sorrow.... It is strange that we could receive

thoughts which were not directed to us, but it may be that when they are

cast loose in such intensity of petition they may be received by all who

are near them.”

I replied, “That is scarcely so, for I saw only, and her thoughts were

hidden.”

She answered, “It may be that you do not receive the thoughts of the

Dwellers as easily as we do, or as you receive ours, or there may be

another cause, but to me her thought was clear and vivid, though it was

formless, being a desire that was so strong that it could endure with

little hope to support it. I do not know for what she asked, but I think

she called for help which will not be given. I can show you her

thought.”

Then she gave me the prayer which had gained so unexpected an audience,

and my mind was filled at once with a sense of intolerable calamity, and

with the cry of one who knew that the time for hope was over, and who

struggled to reject a despair which would be beyond her endurance, so

that her mind beat lamentably against the repulse of closed and

indifferent doors.

I suppose it to have been because her trouble was of a nature more

easily explicable to myself than to my companion that I found in the

transmitted thought a more concrete quality than she had recognised as

she received it.

I could not tell the cause of her calamity, or its incidence, but I

became aware that it was the impending destruction of her race against

which she pleaded, and that this was joined in some undisclosed manner

with a personal grief, the larger shadow being a connected background to

the more imminent catastrophe.

It was not evident that we were concerned in the troubles of any one of

the Dwellers, or in their general welfare. Indeed, their perils or

pre-occupations might contain our safety. They were alien from, and

might be contemptuously hostile to, my own humanity. Yet the depression

of that telepathy would not lift, and it was with a sense of overhanging

tragedy, illogically enough, that we advanced to investigate the cavity

by which she had descended.

The ground declined as we approached it, becoming a rounded channel or

gutter, down which we moved, the temple on our right, and the surface

soon above the level of our heads on the left. We must have descended

thirty or forty feet when we came to the lowest point, the ground

commencing to rise before us, and at the same time we became aware of

the entrance to a tunnel on our right which sloped down and inward

beneath the temple.

In dimensions it reminded me of the tunnels beside the opal path with

which I was already familiar, but it was otherwise different. There was

no vertical rod, such as that which had drawn the eyes, and stayed the

pursuit of the Frog-Mouths. There was no difference between floor and

walls, but all were marble-smooth, and hard, and cold. They were

opalescent, but of a kind and colour which I had not seen previously.

The sides and roof were of the dim green of the under-surface of an

arching wave, and like a wave they curved over, differing from the

upright walls and flat ceiling of the earlier tunnels. The floor gave an

impression of dark green depths through which we could have seen to the

remoteness of the earth’s interior, had the faint light allowed it.

We had ceased to think as we moved forward, so that I might once again

give to my companion the benefit of the sight she lacked, and it must

have been my own volition that caused us to take a few steps within the

entrance of the cavity. But as we did so, her thought broke sharply

across my own, “You need show no more: I can see here.” It was a relief

that did not lessen the marvel. She showed me that the blackness still

fell like a curtain over the very mouth of the cavity, where I looked

out into sunlight, but the gloom within was alike to both of us, and in

the relief of this renewed equality we sat down, not very prudently,

against the wall of the passage, forgetting its potential dangers in the

pleasure of needed rest, and in the necessity of reconsidering our

position.

“The question is,” I began immediately, “shall we continue the plan we

made before we knew that this tunnel existed, or shall we do better to

attempt to descend it?”

“It is one question, among several,” my companion answered, “but it is

hard to answer. We have some facts now of which we were ignorant when we

decided two nights ago. If we exchange our thoughts at once, we shall

make confusion only. Let us think separately till we have each resolved

what is best, and have made our reasons clear to ourselves. Then, should

we differ, and either prove unable to convince the other, I will give

way very willingly.”

I assented to this, knowing it to be unlikely that such a difference

would arise or continue, and we remained silent for a considerable time,

for my own thoughts were chaotic, and I was anxious not to interrupt the

exhaustive logic of the mind beside me.

My inclination was to explore the cavity to which we had now come, but

when I attempted to formulate arguments in support of this preference, I

knew that I could not do so conclusively. I was in a state of nervous

exhaustion, and my courage sank at the thought of struggling outward

through the belt of the resisting will, only to front the perils of the

pathless hills, and the jaws of the waiting Frog Mouths. Though to

descend to the Dwellers might mean destruction, I was in no mood to

defer it, but rather to cast myself upon their mercy, with a feeling of

indifference as to what the end might be. So that when my comrade

indicated her willingness to converse again, I was quick to ask her

opinion first, to which she assented with her usual equanimity.

“It is evident,” she began, “that though we know more than we did, we

still know so little that all decision must be guessing, and each new

fact, as we gain it, can only demonstrate how foolish may have been the

choice we made before we perceived it. Yet, when the roads branch, a

choice must be made.

“The Dwellers may have information by which they know of our movements,

or they may be searching for us, in ignorance of where we are; or they

may be entirely unaware or indifferent.

“In the first case, it seems clear that should we return we are adding

useless dangers to a sufficient peril, for we must face them, first or

last, and we can gain nothing by wandering upon the surface before we do

so; in the second, we may be more likely to avoid them if we descend

here, by an entrance which appears unwatched, and where they do not know

us to be, than if we return to those with which they already know us to

be familiar; in the third case, it may still be to our advantage to

descend at once, rather than to wander farther upon the unfriendly

surface of an unfamiliar world. I can see that there may be facts which

would make folly of these conclusions. We are certainly distant from

where my Leader’s body was left to their mercy. We have no reason to

suppose, if it have been preserved at all, that it has been conveyed

below the surface in this direction. We have no reason to suppose that

we shall be able to penetrate under the surface toward the point from

which our search should commence more easily than we can do above it. We

have no certainty that there is any connection whatever between this

passage and those of which we knew previously. Should we descend, and

escape capture or destruction, it may still be that a later day will see

us emerge with time lost, to no end but the experience of an abortive

adventure. This is the more likely because there is no evidence of

traffic to or from the entrance, but the whole aspect is of the

reservation of a peculiar and sacred place. I cannot tell which may be

best, but my inclination is to go down.”

I answered, “So is mine; and I can add to your reasons two at least

which you have not mentioned. The one is that while within the tunnel

you have lost the disability of the blindness which had hindered us in

the surrounding area; the other, which is more serious (because I

suppose that we could quickly reach the woods where you would presumably

see as before) is that, after this delay, it is doubtful whether we

could cross the hills before the night falls, and now that my last

remnants of clothing have left me, my body is ill-adapted to meet either

storm or frost, and I have less fear of the more even temperature of the

subterranean places.

“It is true that this passage is not like the one which I first

penetrated. Its slope is less. Its current of upward air is less

evident. Its floor is less easy to tread. Its roof does not give the

same measure of light. It may not be frequently used, and it may lack

the stores of food and water on which I subsisted. But beyond this, all

is conjecture. It is a choice of risks, and we agree as to the one to be

chosen.”

So we rose, and went down together.

CHAPTER VI

THE DOWNWARD PATH

I have often speculated as to what might have happened had we decided

differently, and had I survived the dangers of the surface world, and

attempted the penetration of one of the seaward tunnels. Knowing what I

do now, I suppose that it must have ended fatally for myself, if not for

my companion also. But so much is still mystery, so much conjecture,

that even that may not be certainly true.

As it was, we went on for some time in an eventless silence, the dark

green shadowy smoothness of the surface on which we trod sloping gently

downward, the glassy arch above us becoming gloomier as we left the

daylight. The idea oppressed me that we were actually traversing a

wave’s interior cavity. I think that I had been mentally exhausted by

the prolonged effort of conveying the scene through which we had passed

to my companion’s mind.

Once or twice I tried to establish connection with her, but her thoughts

were closed against me, and I gained no more than a knowledge that she

was abstracted and troubled, and indisposed for conversing. Then we came

to a place where we must needs pause and consult, for the straight path

ceased. The slope ceased. We stood on a level path that curved forward,

right and left, with a blank wall before us. Either side we might turn,

and the choice could scarcely be made in silence.

I questioned my companion with thought and eyes. It was too dark for me

to see hers, but mine may have been visible to her better sight. She

answered readily.

“Yes, we must choose; but I have been concerned with a greater urgency.

As we entered the tunnel my mind inquired for my own people, with whom I

had been disconnected since the encounter with the Dwellers which we

witnessed together, and though I have learnt nothing of their welfare I

found that an urgent message is being sent out to me

continually,--‘_Return at once. Further concealment useless. The animal

must go to the Dwellers, who have already dealt suitably with those he

Seeks. Do not reply._’

“That is the message, about which I am troubled. I cannot quickly tell

what is right to do. I conclude that no reply is desired because there

is either fear or certainty that it would be intercepted, and understood

by the Dwellers, and might do harm in ways which I cannot know, and

might not therefore avoid. It may be from the same cause that the

message contains no mention of the body of my Leader, though that is the

object for which I am here. It may be that this trouble is over; even

that it is returned already. Yet the objection to any reply being sent

indicates less than complete harmony, and there may be actual hostility

between the Dwellers and ourselves.

“From these thoughts two questions follow.

“If there be dissension between the Dwellers and ourselves, and

concealment be useless, how can I hope to return openly and in safety?

Possibly they may have agreed that I shall not be hindered, if you

remain, though there are some improbabilities in this supposition. So

far, I have thought of no other.

“The second question, which is greatly the more important, is this. Am I

right to leave you? Never, from the remotest memory, have I known such a

doubt to rise, nor can I tell how to resolve it. Always we have acted

together. Our Leaders have thought for all, and our will has been

single.”

The news which she gave had disconcerted me sufficiently for my thoughts

to be both confused and depressed at the first hearing, and I cannot say

to what protest or reproach they might otherwise have led me, but to

this appeal there could be only one answer possible.

“If you feel under the obligation of the promise that we should explore

the tunnels of the Dwellers together, there is no need for concern on

that point, for I release you from it. Even if I should not, I think

that your first duty must be to your own kind, and that the news which

your message gives has altered the whole position so radically that no

arrangement could be binding which was made in ignorance of it.”

She answered, “You confuse me with vague thoughts. Let us be silent,”

and for some minutes she closed her mind.

Then she continued, “Your thought is generous, and I should be unfair

not to recognise it, but it is born of conditions which are as alien

from ourselves as are the ways of the Frog-Mouths. If I be under

obligation to keep an undertaking to you which may have already altered

your course, and changed the experiences which you must now encounter,

how can it affect what is right for me to do, that you should accept my

desertion without protest? When you suppose that you can release me in

such a way, you assume a position of Deity--and of a Deity who could

alter the essentials of what is right and wrong. It is not your

willingness that I should go which concerns me--it is the verdict of my

own mind.”

I answered, “I have no doubt that you are right, and that you have

rebuked me justly. Yet, no less, I should like to feel that you have

decided with a mind untroubled by any thought of consequence to myself;

for the event, whether you stay or go, is beyond forecasting. Either way

may be the more dangerous for me. It is beyond knowing. But for

yourself, it seems evident that should you stay you will incur a

needless risk of the anger of the Dwellers, and must be troubled by the

additional fear that you will have disobeyed your Leaders, and may have

to face the consequences of their anger, should you escape the perils of

our present enterprise. It seems to me that your position would then be

worse even than my own, and I cannot willingly agree that you should

incur such dangers to aid me.”

“You think,” she answered, “after your own kind, and suppose a fear

which I could not feel, and a contingency which will not occur. If it be

evil that there should be discord of thought between me and my people,

is it reasonable that either side should desire to continue and perhaps

increase it, in a vain quarrel concerning what will have happened?

“Should I finally return, I shall give my reasons, and, should they be

found insufficient or otherwise, the event must be a source of wisdom

for all of us. But that must wait its time. In which direction shall we

go?”

We looked to right and left, along corridors that curved forward on

either hand, and which were more nearly of the kind that I had first

explored than was the tunnel behind us, excepting that they were

level-floored, and were not lighted in the same way.

The walls were vertical: the ceiling flat: the flooring was of the

material that looked like polished steel, and was soft to the feet, with

which I was already familiar. But in place of the dove-gray walls, and

the faint opalescence of the roof of my first experience, there was an

intermittent darkness, broken by moving fires that glowed, as it seemed,

deep within the substance of the walls, and changed, and faded, and

revived elsewhere.

It shows how dulled we had become to unfamiliar wonder, or how

concentrated our minds had been upon the new problem which had disturbed

us, that we had not observed these shifting lights when first our eyes

must have beheld them.

Now, as we gazed, the left-hand side of the leftward passage glowed with

a sudden redness not twenty yards away. The light spread, and spread,

along the glassy surface of the wall, until it had almost reached us. It

rose up till it neared the gloom of the distant roof, of which the

darkness was not pierced but was changed to a dusky red. The steel-gray

floor was stained also with a faint reflected redness. The glowing

colour showed the lofty passage before us till it curved out of view.

“Come,” she said, “while the light lasts,” and I knew that, with the

decision made, her mind had recovered all its buoyant serenity.

As we left the light, it was already fading, but others showed ahead,

and we went on in an ever-changing darkness, seldom far from some

luminosity which was sufficient to guide us on a plain and unimpeded

way.

The colours in the walls were various, not only in their kind, or in

their intensity, area, or duration, but they had an appearance of being

of varying distance from us, so that we would look at the dark wall, and

see the transient motion of some glowing splendour, as it seemed, a mile

within it, and then an interval of darkness and then a burst of light

and colour, like an open rose, that seemed to be scarcely covered by the

surface of the wall that held it.

So we went on until, in no great space of time, we came to an opening on

the left hand, wide and high as the passage in which we were, and on the

same level, but in an absolute blackness.

We were of one mind to explore it, for the thought had come to both of

us that if we continued to traverse that in which we were, we must

return to the point from which we started, should the curve continue. My

companion, whose judgment was far more accurate than my own on such

points, was definite that we had completed a quarter of the full circle

when this side-corridor was reached. So we decided; not doubting that it

would be lighted in the same manner, and foreseeing no obstacle. I have

little doubt, from our later experiences, that we were right on the

first point, as we were certainly wrong on the second, for we found at

the first step that we were confronted by the same withstanding force

that had obstructed our passage of the sleeping wood, but more instant

and urgent in its application, so that we did not attempt to hold our

ground, but fell back at the same impulse to consult whether we should

again adventure against it.

Recalling our previous decision, and our successful effort, I was

disposed to accept the challenge it gave us, but my companion differed.

She pointed out that it had then resisted the straightforward path which

we had resolved to take, but that now we should be turning aside to face

a needless difficulty, without knowing that the passage we left might

not be in every way the more direct to our purpose.

So we went on, and twice again, at similar intervals, did we come to

such a passage, and each time we attempted it for a few paces, and

recoiled from the resistance of the will that met us.

But the third time we did not accept defeat as we had done previously.

We considered that these passages had appeared at similar intervals, and

that it was probable that this was the last we should meet, the fourth

quarter of the curving path returning us to the point from which we had

started. Faced by this probability, we rested awhile, and then, hand in

hand, that my companion’s vitality might give me the physical strength I

needed, so that my will should be free for the nervous conflict before

us, we went resolutely into the dark mouth of the cavity.

In the course of a few steps, taken with difficulty, as though our feet

dragged in a heavy sand, and our limbs and bodies were pressed against a

trammelling and resisting garment, we found that we were in an absolute

blackness, so that we could not see our steps, and it is doubtful,

indeed, whether we should not have retired at once from so menacing a

prospect, had not my inferior power of progression caused us to bend our

course somewhat to the right, on which side I was, and as we drew nearer

to the wall we discovered that it was of a quality which I may best

describe as having an interior luminosity. It gave no light to the

passage at all, but standing closely to it we could look into it, as

into a glass, yet seeing no reflection of ourselves, but a vision that

held us absorbed and silent. At first we saw a dark pool, or it might be

the shadowed space of a river, but it showed no current, nor any motion

of wind. Strange, fronded trees grew beside it. At some distance, there

was a touch of moonlight on the water, but it did not waver. We watched

for some time, as though expecting something to happen, and yet I

thought it to be nothing more than a picture of some primeval creation.

Then it seemed that the dark surface of the water broke, and a long

snout, as of an alligator, moved into the lighted space, and sank again

very quietly. Nothing else. We watched a long time further, but nothing

changed, unless, perhaps, the light on the water was slightly fainter.

“Is it real?” I wondered. “No, surely,” she thought, “I suppose it to be

a picture of things long past. I do not think it to be of the earth of

this time. Shall we look at the other wall?”

I agreed, though I was reluctant to withdraw my gaze from that primeval

night, where I might see I knew not what of mystery or of wonder if I

should wait till its morning came. The pressure was more tolerable while

we made no effort to move directly forward, and we crossed the interval

of blackness quite easily, to find, as my companion had thought, that

the opposite wall held a corresponding wonder. But it was not of any

strange or terrible or momentous scene.

There was a faint light, as of the late evening, or the very early dawn

of a winter day, and snow was falling thickly. Bare trees showed dimly,

and one ivied trunk was close, as though we might have reached to touch

it, and on the dark berries a pair of hawfinches were feeding. They were

so real and close that it seemed strange that no sound came as they

changed footing with a flutter of wings, or pulled the sprays apart.

That was all. It might have been a scene from winter of my own day, or

of millenniums before or after.

And while we gazed, we became aware that something with a heavy tread

had entered the passage. We thought it (and rightly) to be one of the

Dwellers. The steps passed us, and went forward. We were of one mind to

follow.

Returning to the centre of the tunnel, we were again in darkness, but

the footsteps led us, and we found that the resistance against which we

had fought had ceased to trouble us while we followed the unseen feet.

Realising this, we increased our pace to a run, lest the dividing space

should widen, so that we were but ten or fifteen yards behind--our feet

making no sounds on the soft flooring--when our unseen guide turned

sideways into a chamber on the right-hand side of the passage.

CHAPTER VII

THE LIVING BOOK

We stood at the entrance of a room of (to us) enormous proportions. It

was filled with an equally-diffused light, of which I saw no origin.

Neither, when I considered it later, could I observe any appliances for

the regulation of temperature or ventilation. Yet the warmth was such

that I did not suffer from my lack of clothing; the air was fresh and

exhilarating. The arched entrance to the room had no door, but the light

stayed at the threshold. Standing on the outer side of the entrance, we

supposed ourselves to be unobservable in the darkness.

The Dweller that we had followed was a woman, like the one that we had

last seen, but her colouring was different. The hair on her head was

short, curling, and glossy black. It extended down the spine in the same

way. The body-colour varied from a dark bluish-black to the softest,

palest greys. The effect was beautiful beyond describing.

Her form was as straight and graceful as had been that of the other, nor

did it give an impression of great size in a room which was proportioned

to it. It was not she that was large, but we that were small. Her body

was slim and perfect in its proportions, and her face was flawless, yet

where the other had given an impression of youth, there was here an

atmosphere of age incalculable. I cannot say from what it came, unless

from one thing only. Her eyes were intolerably tired.

As she entered the room she had an object about the size of a football

perched on her left shoulder. There was a table in the centre, of a

transparent blue substance. It had three legs which joined in a twisted

knot, and then spread out. I noticed that these legs moved so that the

table adjusted itself to her as she approached it, but whether this

movement were sentient or mechanical I could not tell. She extended her

left arm to the surface of the table, and the object on her shoulder

rolled slowly down.

It was of the colour of a boiled lobster, with many bluish-white

appendages hanging from its surface. They were about an inch in length,

and of the shape to a dachshund’s ear. As it rolled forward they spread

out like hands, to balance and control its motion, and when it rested

those that were close to the ground would support it steadily.

It was evidently alive, but it had no other features that I could

observe, and it appeared equally comfortable whatever part of its

surface were uppermost.

The table was relatively higher than those to which we are accustomed,

and there was no chair or other seat in the room.

The Dweller remained standing, as though her attention were fixed upon

the red globule before her. I turned to my companion to convey my

wonder, but she gave me a quick thought that she was trying to follow

what was happening, and did not wish for distraction, so I looked

quietly round the room while I waited.

The wall on the side on which we stood, and those to right and left,

were blank of all but colour, which was blue, of a very

delicately-beautiful tint, which I had not seen previously, evidently

designed to harmonise with the colouring of its occupant.

The farther wall was of the same nature as those we had passed in the

passage, having a living picture within it--if living it could be

called, much was an epitome of desolation.

It showed far more plainly, or at least to a far greater distance, than

did those into which we had looked before. It was a scene of a frozen

river, which itself must have been half-a-mile in width, and of an

endless solitary frozen plain beyond it. The sky was frosty blue and

cloudless. There were no trees,--nothing but the frozen river, and the

frozen snow.

I had a perception that it had lain thus for many centuries, lifeless,

windless, and unchanging, and that it was in some inexplicable way akin

to the one who appeared to have selected it to companion her, and that

within it lay the explanation of the weariness in her eyes.

But its desolation was less than hers, for it must have ended at some

time in the earth’s history. Though it might have endured for

millenniums, yet the time had come when the earth again swung sunward,

and the warmth found it. But for the weariness from which she suffered

there was no hope at all.

Following this impression, it occurred to me as a natural thing that, if

reflections of the earth’s changing past were used as mural decorations,

such scenes and periods would be preferred as would show little or very

gradual differences, or their suitability might be lost.

The articles in the room were few. There was a wide shelf at the centre

of the left-hand wall, on which were stacked a number of flat boards

which were probably pictures, or material for them, for, to the right of

the table, there was an easel, such as would have looked natural enough,

apart from its size, in a studio of our own day, with a similar board

upon it, on which a picture of the frozen desolation was half completed.

There were various smaller articles ranged beneath the shelf, of which I

could not understand the nature or utility.

I returned my attention to my companion, to find her ready for

conversing. She said “I cannot learn much, as the thoughts which are

passing are not meant for us, but it seems that there is something here

similar to your own device, of which you have told me. I know that you

have a method of recording ideas and facts by means of marks on

retentive substances, so that the knowledge of them may remain, though

the brain in which they originated be ended, and that, by this means,

you have partly overcome one of the defects of your individual

mortality. It seems to me that this method must be subject to great

disadvantages, as it must be even easier for such as you are to make

marks which will be false, or the record of foolish imaginations, than

to be accurate in fact, and wise in deduction; and, as you have no

authority to distinguish between them, your children must often be

induced to foolishness, or misled to disaster. Possibly the confusion

may be so great that they are distracted from any continuing path, and

the result is the inconsequent and abortive activities of mind and body

to which you are so largely accustomed.

“However that may be, it appears that the Dwellers have devised a

somewhat similar method of recording the facts they accumulate, or the

theories which they formulate, such as is more suited to their greater

longevity, and their superior intelligence.

“This which we see is one of their books--a living creature of a kind,

designed to store the thoughts that are given to it, and to convey them

at later periods to any inquiring mind. She whom we now see is both the

custodian and the compiler of these volumes, and I gather that she is

now placing on record the events in which we have so lately

participated.”

While I received this explanation, the Dweller had crossed the room, and

picked up a metal article of a brass colour, and of the shape of a

figure eight, which she laid flatly on the ground, and within one of the

loops of which she placed the living ball, with which she had now

apparently finished, and then stood for some time gazing at the

half-painted picture, and at the scene from which it was taken. Her

method of painting was different from our own in this particular, that

one part of the picture was entirely finished, but ended abruptly at a

blank which was not touched at all.

After a time, she resumed her work, and the reason of this became

evident. She painted with a long pencil terminating in a small flat pad,

of a surface of two or three square inches, and this she dipped into

saucers of various semi-liquid colours which were arranged upon a wide

ledge of the easel below the picture. There could only have been black

and white and shades of blue and grey that were needed, but the pad was

dipped many times, and touched lightly with a finely pointed instrument

in her left hand, till at last she was satisfied, and it was pressed

upon the surface of the picture, to which it added a further rectangle

of finished work. The picture was then touched slightly with another

pad, apparently to blend the added portion perfectly with the earlier

work, and the same process was resumed.

It was slow to watch, but my companion was of an unhurried mind, and it

is my own disposition to go cautiously when in doubt. I was neither

willing to leave this scene for a further risk of the dark passage, nor

to face a crisis by revealing ourselves in the room, and so we sat and

watched in the outer darkness. It was not a very long vigil, for the

artist appeared to weary, laid down her tools, hesitated, walked towards

the scene which she had been painting, stood gazing at it for some time

in silence, and then lay down beneath it, where it appeared that the

floor rose in a smooth curve, a few feet above the surrounding level.

This surface gave way gently to the impression of her body, which sank

down partly within it. She lay face forward, her head turned from us,

her arms extended straightly above her head. Lying so, she stretched for

half the length of the room. There was no sound of breathing, and we

could not tell whether she slept, but after watching for some time

longer we were of one mind to adventure a further investigation, and

very quietly we entered the room together.

CHAPTER VIII

THE TREATY

It was with a common impulse of curiosity that we first went towards the

living book which was resting motionless within the metal circle. It had

no distinguishable features, and I cannot tell how it became aware of

our existence, but it was its function to respond to the approach of any

inquiring mind. It rebuffed any attempt to explain our own presence, or

what we were, being evidently unable, or forbidden, to accept

information except from the official librarian, but as we were more

anxious to obtain information than to impart it, we had no objection to

this, and, as we found it a cause of confusion to question it together,

my companion generously gave the preference to my own curiosities, and

composed her mind to receive the replies which it should give me.

We learnt at once that it was the last volume of the official History of

the Dwellers, its record extending back for about two hundred years, and

it would have been quite willing to begin at chapter one of that period,

and go on for a week, had we been willing for it to do so. When it

understood that it was required to select specific information in

response to my questions, it assented, rather sulkily, though I soon

realised that its function was limited to supplying the actual

information which it possessed. It was unable to give any explanation or

comment beyond anything which it had received with the facts. To any

question which went outside its period, or beyond its province, it

returned no answer. Even of the way to the library from which it had

come it had no knowledge, though it wished to be returned to its

accustomed shelf. It knew, however, that it must not venture to cross

the metal circle which now confined it, under penalty of a swift

destruction, should it touch it at any point.

My companion perceived the reason for this, as she was aware, without

touching it, that the metal was heavily charged with some petrifying

force having the vigour of electricity, and of a current sufficient to

overcome a much larger creature than that which it now imprisoned.

“Are you impervious to electricity?” I was led to ask, as I perceived

her indifference to this new danger.

“No,” she replied, “of course not. How could we live without it? But we

can naturally control the quantity which we receive. Otherwise our

bodies would be continually exposed to the risk of a sudden destruction.

Are you so liable?”

I said that I was certainly not immune from such danger, and it added a

new peril to our investigations if the Dwellers were accustomed to use

it or other forces of unknown potentialities, in such a manner. She

agreed, but assured me that she could give warning very easily, now that

she knew of this additional infirmity of my body, as she could always

tell the quantity and direction of any electric force which might be in

her neighbourhood.

I was puzzled to think that the Dwellers should expose so valuable a

record to the risk of destruction as a penalty for its own disobedience,

and this made me somewhat sceptical of the accuracy of my companion’s

explanation, but I learnt afterwards that the effect would merely have

been that a new volume would have been commenced. These creatures are

only kept alive until they have received as much information as they are

capable of retaining, and are then slaughtered. The information which

they contain being permanently available, as is that of a gramophone

record, and the minds that hold it being more surely and easily stored

when they are dead, than in a living state.

Having realised the character and limitations of the record at our

disposal, I asked first concerning the safety of the two friends whom I

had come to seek. I had to repeat the question in many forms before

obtaining any response, but I finally obtained this information, which

was obviously the only record which had been made, and the extent of the

help which was here available.

Two Primitives of the False-Skin Age were captured by the

42nd Coast Patrol. One was of a venomous kind. They were

received by the Bureau of Prehistoric Zoology. The body of

one was found to be suffering from microbic disease beyond

sterilisation, and was scraped by the Vivisection

Department. The other was transferred to the Experimental

Section, after the usual method.

That was all. The fate of one of those who had preceded me was

sufficiently indicated, and that of the other was, at the best,

enigmatic; but I could learn no more. Even of the place or nature of the

Bureau it mentioned the living book was entirely ignorant.

Little as it was, it was sufficient to suggest that I should be very

foolish to place myself in the hands of the Dwellers, unless I were

compelled to do so. I realised, as I had not done previously, that my

position was that to which, in my own time, the human race had reduced

all the other living creatures on the earth’s surface, and that the

Dwellers, however justly they might act to each other, would probably

consider it an absolute duty to put me to death or torture if they could

gain any knowledge, obtain any advantage to themselves, or even avert

some trivial inconvenience, by so doing, as many men, and nearly all

women, would subject a mouse to a violent or lingering death for no

greater reason than that it had annoyed them by a sound in the night.

Having realised that I could obtain no further information on the

subject of my own search, I remembered--none too soon--that my companion

must be equally urgent to learn of the one for whom she was seeking, and

of the events which had occasioned the recall which had reached her, and

I inquired accordingly, and received this answer:

Article 5. In consideration of the foregoing, the body of

the Amphibian will be delivered at the Fishgates, at once,

and uninjured. The one who is seeking it will be allowed,

and, if needful, assisted to return in safety, provided that

such return be made before the third sunset, and that she

shall not have entered the Sacred Places. The Primitive

shall remain. He shall be treated with such kindness as

circumstances admit, and, if healthy and quiet, shall be

transferred to an appropriate Reservation. But if he be in

any way diseased he may be dealt with according to the

nature of his infirmity, and as the protection of the

community may require. Otherwise, unless he be violent or

intractable, he shall not be slaughtered, either for food or

for any other purpose, except in the ordinary course, and at

such period as is usual.

Certainly there was information here, and warning, and some mystery

also. Our thought was single that this must be the purport of an

agreement that must have been made between the Amphibians and the

Dwellers since the commencement of our expedition, and we were alike in

desiring to learn the other clauses of the treaty, before we considered

our course of action.

These were very promptly given, for I believe that these living books

were so constituted that they derived a positive physical pleasure from

such thought-transference as would convey their contents to other minds,

such as is commonly experienced in the exercise of the ordinary

functions of the human body.

The treaty (omitting the fifth clause already given) was this:

Article 1. The Leaders of the Amphibians pledge themselves

and their nation, without reservation or exception, that

they will not henceforward, or any of them, invade the

continent of the Dwellers, either above, at, or on the

sea-level, unless or except as may be mutually agreed

hereafter.

Article 2. The Leaders of the Amphibians shall appoint two

of their number, and the Dwellers shall appoint two of their

number, to confer and agree upon the times at and the

conditions on if any which the Amphibians or any of them may

enter or remain upon the surface of the territory of the

Dwellers, or any part thereof.

Article 3. The Amphibians pledge themselves that they will

not give any aid, assistance, or information, active or

passive, to the Antipodeans or hold any communications with

them, except, if at all, at the desire of the Dwellers, and

to obtain information on their behalf.

Article 4. The Amphibians will forthwith institute and

maintain a complete service of observation upon the coasts

of the Antipodeans, and upon all aerial movements above or

from their coasts, with such relays of communication as

shall convey all such information to the Dwellers at the

least possible intervals of time after the observation of

such movements.

Article 5. (Already given).

Article 6. Should the Amphibian who is now landed have

invaded, or invade, the Sacred Places, or should she remain

hidden in the land until after the time of the third sunset,

or should she neglect or refuse to return by or before the

time stated, then the Dwellers shall be free to deal with

her as may appear just to them, or as their safety or

interests may require, and the Amphibians shall none the

less carry out the first four Articles of this treaty, as

though she should have returned safely.

Article 7. In the event of the successful resuscitation of

the body of the Amphibian Leader and of her assent to this

clause, and providing that the Amphibian now on the

territory of the Dwellers shall have returned in safety

whether within the period stated in Article 5, or later by

the clemency of the Dwellers, then, and in these events, the

Leaders of the Amphibians severally and on behalf of their

nation and of every member thereof, do pledge themselves

actively to assist the Dwellers against the Antipodeans, in

the hostilities now impending, to the full extent of their

national and individual capacities, according to their

natures, and by such means as they are spiritually and

physically qualified to do.

Article 8. The Amphibians are entitled to communicate with

the member of their nation who is now on the territory of

the Dwellers for the purpose of recalling her, but not

otherwise, nor shall they invite or receive any

communication from her while she remain upon any part of

that territory or within it, nor with the Primitive who was

her companion.

Article 9. This treaty is made in honour, verity, and

goodwill, without guile and without duress, each nation

contracting freely, and on its own territory, that which is

past being forgotten as though it had not been; by the six

acting Leaders of the Amphibians, and, on behalf of the

Dwellers, by the High Council of Five, and by the device of

the Aged Ones, all equally, severally, and unanimously

assenting thereto, in the Audience of Space, and in the

Light of the Perpetual Stars.

Had I been alone I might have delighted the source of this information

by requiring its repetition several times, for it contained much which

required exactness of memory for its consideration, and it suffered from

the defect of all treaties since the world began, that the effort to

avoid possibilities of ambiguity or evasion results in an added

obscurity, so that they are much more vulnerable to misconstruction, as

they are more difficult to readily comprehend, than are simpler and more

straightforward documents. But my companion intimated at once that she

could recall it as required, and she proposed that we should retire into

the comparative security of the darkness while we considered it

together.

This we did, and I opened my mind to her at once in this manner, “There

is much in what we have heard which must be clearer to you than it is to

me, but it is evident that some larger issue of impending warfare has

assisted your nation to adjust their differences with the Dwellers, and

that you have no further need for concealment, or cause to continue our

enterprise. On the contrary, your safety lies in a prompt and open

return to your own people.

“But my position is different. Your people have abandoned me to the

Dwellers, and it appears that, if I fall into their hands, I shall lose

my liberty at the least, and be exposed to death, or even torture, or

the foulest outrage, as caprice, or self-interest, or curiosity may

suggest.

“For though you appear to regard the Dwellers as of superior mentality

to myself, they do not demonstrate this by brutalities, such as it

appears may have been fatal to my friends already, and which can only

regard a being whom they know to have reached them from an earlier age,

as something to be killed and eaten. In some parts of my own world there

are savages so degraded in type that they will eat the decrepit members

of their own race, or strangers who wander into their territory, but

they are regarded as the lowest specimens of their kind.

“In the experience of my own time it is not usual to find exceptional

brutality such as this to be allied with any high level of intelligence,

and it occurs to my mind that the Dwellers have not shown any

conspicuous ability in discovering our movements, and that when I was

actually captured by one of them, I escaped very easily.

“So far am I from deciding to place myself in their power that I am

resolved to outwit them. I suppose from what we have heard that one of

my friends has already become a victim of their cruelty. The other I am

resolved to rescue, if he be still living. After that, I hope to find

some means of concealment and sustenance on the surface, to which I

shall return, until the time come when I shall be able to rejoin the

civilisation that you deride, but which offers a peace and security

which I am never likely to find among the barbarous cruelties which you

esteem so lightly.”

My companion closed her mind from me when I had finished, but only for a

short time, and then answered quietly. “I think I understand something

of the feeling from which your thoughts had their origin, and at the

injustice to myself and to my nation which you have implied I am not

angered at all, but I think that our minds have never been so far apart

since first I met you.

“There was not a single thought which you showed me which was not either

false or foolish, and it is easy to believe that you come of a species

which devour each other, though there are few created things so base as

to do this, in all the seas that I have known until I came in contact

with you.”

I was startled by the unexpectedness of this rebuke, the justice of

which I did not easily realise, but my mind was cooled by contact with

one which declined to rise to its temperature, and I replied in a

somewhat different mood, “I should be sorry to be unfair to your nation,

and especially to yourself, from whom I have had nothing but a loyal

comradeship which I have done little to merit. I know that my mind was

troubled and indignant, though it still seems to me that I had cause for

such feelings. But if you think differently, can you not show me in what

I have deserved your censure?”

“Yes,” she replied, “I think I can do that very easily, but it is the

more interesting to me to observe how entirely the use of your reason

ceases when you are moved by anger or fear, or, perhaps, by other

feelings, for I can see that the thought that we were about to part was

among the disturbances that suspended your capacity to think to any

useful purpose.

“First, it is by no means clear that I can return in safety, or at all.

How do you know that I have not invaded the Sacred Places, or even that

we are not now within them? I think we may be.

“Second, there would, in any case, be no occasion for us to part

immediately, should we remain undiscovered. The third sunset is still

distant.

“Third, my people have done nothing to cause you to fall into the hands

of the Dwellers, which you are still free to avoid if you are able. They

have been careful to make a treaty which gives you a measure of

protection which you could not otherwise have secured should you be

captured. We have explained already that you could not come with us,

being physically unfit to endure existence in the only territory we

control, or in the waters to which we are native, were we willing to

have you, and were we able to remove you from the place that you have

chosen to enter.

“Fourth, you are unjust to the Dwellers, and forgetful of things which

you have told me of your own kind.

“You have told me that your own race will destroy other creatures

without shame, not only for their own food, or safety (in which you

would not yourself say that they are wrong) but merely for the pleasure

which they derive from inflicting misery upon those who have done them

no injury, or for the gratification of curiosity, or in the hope of some

material advantage resulting to themselves or their fellows.

“More than this, with an unnatural baseness, they will even accept

service from, or make such professions of friendship as will gain the

confidence of, other creatures, which they will not then hesitate to

betray and murder, as caprice or self-interest may incline them. You

have told me that you habitually destroy creatures whose affection and

loyalty you have gained, when they become old and infirm, or are injured

by accident, readily persuading yourselves that you do these things out

of kindness, although you do not desire that you should be dealt with in

a similar manner when your own body shall show evidence that its vigour

is decreasing.

“You have shown me that you justify these things in your own minds by

arguing that you are of such superior nature that the welfare, or

existence of all other creatures is of comparative triviality.

“But even though such conduct could be condoned by a demonstration of

superiority, or would be consistent therewith, it is difficult to

understand by what arguments this asserted superiority could be

maintained.

“Is it by your power to cause the deaths of others? Then a disease-germ

(as you have yourself admitted) may be greater than you.

“Is it by conduct? But you have shown me that you work violence, fraud,

and cruelty among yourselves, and against the creatures around you.

“Is it wisdom? Have you discovered a way of life which is more safe,

more leisured, more healthy, more in harmony with your surrounding

conditions, than that of the creatures which you despise and destroy?

Are their conditions more abject than are those of the disordered and

disastrous lives of which you have told me, where you crowd together in

disease and dirt, inexplicably separated from the land which supplies

you with the food which your bodies need so continually?

“As are the vermin which you trap and kill without mercy, so, and less

than so, and rightly less than so, must you be to the Dwellers.

“You are not of their world. You came unasked. You may bring strange

disease. You may produce discord in a thousand ways. Your mind is

indignant and hostile, merely at the assurance that they will deal with

you in patient justice, after inquiry has been held,--or, it may be, at

the worst, with that expediency which is the basis of the civilisation

from which you come.”

I answered quickly, for my mind responded to hers with more thoughts

than I could easily control for transference, “I see that you have

judged more reasonably than I was able to do. My mind was moved by fear,

under which influence its reactions are instinctive rather than

rational. There is much in your thoughts which is true, as it reflects

upon my own kind, and there is much also that might be urged in defence

or extenuation of conduct which appears to you so monstrous. But there

are questions of practical urgency also which must be faced, and the

occasion is scarcely one for explanation or argument concerning abstract

or distant things.

“Yet one thing I should like to show you. You may reflect adversely upon

our treatment of living creatures of other kinds than our own, and your

thought may not be far from mine, but were you one of ourselves, you

would be faced by issues which are not simple to decide, and by

conditions which are not easy to alter.

“It is true, for the most part, of the domestic animals that we eat,

that we work for them all their lives in a willing servitude, which is

the price we pay for the right to kill them at last. We build their

houses; we prepare their food; we heal their diseases: we wait upon them

in the most menial ways. They are fed with regularity, and without their

own exertion: they are protected from inclement weather. We may even

risk our own lives to guard them from the murderous attacks of other

beasts of prey. Finally, they probably die with less pain, and with far

less of fear and foreboding, than will be the lot of those who minister

to, and then destroy them.

“It is true that we do these things for our own ends, and they owe us no

gratitude, but it is also true that, apart from these things, they would

not exist at all, nor is it true that we are regardless of their

well-being nor indifferent to their suffering. Some may be, but many are

not.

“I am not sure but that the heavier indictment against us may be, not

that we give them death at last, which comes to all, but that we deny

them life while living. It is an inevitable result of their protected

lives, that they have degenerated in intelligence and character, and

compare very poorly with those of their kind that have retained their

freedom in remoter places.

“Further, it appears evident that, with rare and doubtful exceptions,

they have no understanding or premonition of death, and are in this

respect happier than ourselves.

“You have asked why we should consider that we are greater than the

other creatures around us. I agree that a superior capacity for

successful violence is a poor argument in support of such a claim, nor

should I urge it. Nor should I urge that our conduct of life is

superior, for there is a barrier dividing their mentalities from ours

that no man has been able to cross, and I should confuse assumption with

evidence: nor can I, for the same reason, and for others also, claim

that we are of greater wisdom than they. Greater knowledge we may have,

but it is of the race rather than the individual, and it would be a poor

ground for such a claim, at the best.

“If I should seek to support such a plea, I would rather urge the

difficulty of the conditions against which we contend, than the extent

to which we triumph.

“Our ancestors broke from their environment, and may have shown a

doubtful wisdom in so doing. But having so broken, we are confronted

with difficulties from which the rest of the creation is free. If our

conduct be worse, our circumstances are more treacherous.

“But there is another difference. Most other creatures, though we may

not prematurely destroy them, are even shorter-lived than we. They lack

the assistance of our inventions for recording knowledge, and, to some

extent, handing it down to our children. So far as we can judge, they

have no substitute for these, and their individual ignorance of our

purpose to destroy them, and of the methods we use, is a natural

consequence.

“I am not sure that this thought does not bring us nearer to

understanding the difference between my kind and other animals than

would any of the three tests you proposed. All animals have an inherited

fear of pain or damage to their bodies, and this leads them to such

actions or reactions as will conserve their lives, but it is a curious

thought that, since the hidden beginning of created things, no one can

have had any inherited experiences of death, of which we know by

observation only. Our parents were alive at our conceptions and births,

as were all their ancestors before them, and our direct inherited

experience could be no different were they all alive and immortal. But

the accumulated observations and records of the race familiarise us with

the nature of death--at least in its physical consequences,--and teach

us its inevitability, from our earliest years. ‘_In his eyes

foreknowledge of death_,’ that is the burden, and perhaps the glory, of

our kind; and that which may divide us furthest from those who have been

content to obey the laws of their creation. It is curious fact that such

animals as we may allow to associate with us in any intimacy must share

to some extent this difference, be it height or depth, which divides us

from the rest of our creation. A lion cannot sin: but a dog can.

“--But perhaps I weary you with details which are beyond your interest?”

She answered, “No, for I would gladly know more of these things, were

there time for the learning, though we must leave them now. For it seems

that the more our thoughts exchange, the more nearly do our minds

approach to a common point. It may be that we both see truly, though the

same things may appear different. Looking from a distant point, I see

the outlines of your existence as you cannot easily do. Knowing it more

closely, you are aware of dangers and fertilities which I overlook,

seeing only the contours of the mountain peaks, and of the depths which

divide them.

“But there is one thought in which you may take some comfort. You have

told me that your kind, or some of them, will eat their fellow-men when

occasion offers. The Dwellers are, at the worst, so entirely incapable

of such conduct, that you may reasonably hope that there will be a

similar measure of difference between your own treatment of your

domestic animals, and that which you will receive from them, should you

be captured or surrender to them.”

I replied, “I should be glad to think so; but the fact is that the

practice I mentioned is almost entirely confined to men with darker

skins than mine. I have, as you observe, a light skin, tinged with pink.

All men whose skins are of this kind believe it to be an evidence of

every kind of superiority,--and how the darker cannibals may treat their

domestic animals it is unfortunate that I do not know.”

Her mind replied with a sudden ripple of merriment. “I suppose you jest.

But let us turn from these things, and consider what next we shall do,

and how quickly. For time is short before I must take decision as to

whether I shall return within the limit fixed. Yet much may be done, if

we are fortunate, in the space remaining; and, as you said in your

anger, the Dwellers are not quick to discover us. Yet I think you err

when you make light of our peril. Are there no vermin in your own

buildings, which you might disregard for more urgent matters, but which

you would destroy very easily at the allotted time, or should occasion

arise to do so?”

I said, “Yes, there are; yet some of them have found craft by which they

continue, and so must we also. But, first, cannot we learn something

more from this book which we have borrowed so easily? For myself, I am

determined to seek my friend, till I know of his death, or have found

him. He may be near us now, or he may be a thousand miles away, or in

depths beyond our imaginations. What can we tell, with so little to

guide our guessing? And for you, if we can discover whether we have yet

intruded into one of the Sacred Places to which the treaty alludes, it

may make a vital difference to the action which you should take for your

own security.”

She answered “Let us try,” and we rose, and moved again as quietly as

possible into the lighted room. I do not think that this was really

necessary, but it gave us a sense of secrecy to interrogate the red

globe from the shorter distance, and appeared to reduce the risk that

our thoughts would disturb the mind of the sleeper.

CHAPTER IX

THE FLAME OF LIFE

For a long time we asked questions to which we could obtain no answer,

or not such as conveyed any meaning to us.

We tried to learn the extent and depth of the domain of the Dwellers,

and the location of the Reservations in which my friend might be

confined. But the book was not a geography. Neither was it a first

volume. Its records evidently assumed a mass of knowledge which we did

not possess.

We made progress of a kind when it occurred to me that it would give us

some indication of the probable extent of the subterranean world if we

could learn its population.

“How many are there of the nation of the Dwellers?” I queried.

There was no answer.

“How many were there last year?”

No answer came.

“Have you any records of population?”

It seemed as though there were a mental impulse of hesitation, but still

no answer came.

“How many children were born last year?” it occurred to me to ask.

The answer was immediate, “_It was reported to the Council of Five that

three boys had been born in the Great Nursery, and one in the Place of

Renunciation._”

“And how many girls?” I replied, in a natural supposition that this

information was incomplete, but there was no answer.

I then went back, querying from year to year, getting for each year a

similar answer but with a total that increased as the years receded, and

with a record of male births only, till, at ten years’ distance, the

reply came--

_It was reported to the Council of Five that eight boys had been born in

the Great Nursery, and twenty-four boys and one girl in the Place of

Twilight._

I would have asked further, but my companion interposed with reason. “I

think that we are learning little. If it can tell how long they live,

and how many are their deaths, (for as they are born, I suppose that

they may die also), we can then judge how numerous they may be, but from

their births only we cannot.” This we tried, but only to be met again

with silence, or with baffling answers.

By persistence and variety in the form of queries we obtained allusion

to “those of the Great Lethargy,” and to “The Desire of the Darkness,”

but nothing more definite. In a final desperation I tried to obtain

information by means of inquiry as to their customs of marriage, and at

last obtained abstracts from the report of a very lengthy trial or

debate, which threw a sombre and uncertain light upon the information

which we had obtained already.

Mainly, it consisted of a duel of argument between The First, who was

evidently male, and whom we supposed to be the head of the Council of

Five,--and the Elected One, who was a woman.

It was evident from the moods of both that the matter with which they

dealt was of a tragic and overwhelming importance, though there could

hardly have been a greater contrast than was shown in the styles of

their controversy.

The thoughts of The First were slow, deliberate, weighty, solemn, yet

with an extremity of urging which almost amounted to supplication. Those

of the Elected One were swift, insistent, passionate, crowding thought

on thought, in protest, defiance, and vindication. They were impatient

with the intolerance of youth, and bold with the assurance of

immortality.

It appeared that the First One put forward a new method of life for the

women of their kind, or for their descendants, pleading that its

adoption was essential to the continuance of the race of the Dwellers.

But with a fierce scorn she repelled it--“Do you think that women will

consent to be as uncoloured and alike as men? Or that they will conceal

themselves in dead hangings, as in some savage infancy of the world?”

He answered slowly, “It is only this, that you will be alone if you will

not. If you will not that your daughters do these things to save our

race from extinction, then you will be alone in your own places. No man

will come to you. It is already resolved that all shall take this vow,

if you refuse to aid us.”

The reply came with a swift derision. “And would they keep it for a

score of sunsets? Is there a man in the Lower Places that would not come

if I should call him? But it is the thing which we have resolved also.

It is no threat to us. Till we have the girl, there is no man shall come

near us. There is no man shall cross the Blue Darkness, nor enter into

the Place of Twilight. We will not appear at the Feasts of the Inner

Moon, nor at the Mimes of the Recollections. Should we rejoice in our

seats on the Upper Slopes, knowing that we had doomed our daughters to

be less than we?”