CHAPTER XLIV.
THE FATHOMLESS ABYSS.--THE EDGE OF THE EARTH SHELL.
Promptly at eight o'clock the next evening the old man entered my room.He did not allude to the occurrences of the previous evening, and forthis considerate treatment I felt thankful, as my part in those episodeshad not been enviable. He placed his hat on the table, and in his usualcool and deliberate manner, commenced reading as follows:
For a long time thereafter we journeyed on in silence, now amid statelystone pillars, then through great cliff openings or among giganticformations that often stretched away like cities or towns dotted over aplain, to vanish in the distance. Then the scene changed, and wetraversed magnificent avenues, bounded by solid walls which expandedinto lofty caverns of illimitable extent, from whence we found ourselvescreeping through narrow crevices and threading winding passages barelysufficient to admit our bodies. For a considerable period I had notedthe absence of water, and as we passed from grotto to temple rearedwithout hands, it occurred to me that I could not now observe evidenceof water erosion in the stony surface over which we trod, and which hadbeen so abundant before we reached the lake. My guide explained bysaying in reply to my thought question, that we were beneath the waterline. He said that liquids were impelled back towards the earth'ssurface from a point unnoticed by me, but long since passed. Neither didI now experience hunger nor thirst, in the slightest degree, acircumstance which my guide assured me was perfectly natural in view ofthe fact that there was neither waste of tissue nor consumption of heatin my present organism.
"WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING I CREPT ON MY KNEES TO HISSIDE."]
At last I observed far in the distance a slanting sheet of light that,fan-shaped, stood as a barrier across the way; beyond it neither earthnor earth's surface appeared. As we approached, the distinctness of itsoutline disappeared, and when we came nearer, I found that it streamedinto the space above, from what appeared to be a crevice or break in theearth that stretched across our pathway, and was apparently limitlessand bottomless.
"Is this another hallucination?" I queried.
"No; it is a reality. Let us advance to the brink."
Slowly we pursued our way, for I hesitated and held back. I had reallybegun to distrust my own senses, and my guide in the lead was evenforced to demonstrate the feasibility of the way, step by step, before Icould be induced to follow. At length we neared the edge of the chasm,and while he stood boldly upright by the brink, with fear and tremblingI crept on my knees to his side, and together we faced a magnificent butfearful void that stretched beneath and beyond us, into a profundity ofspace. I peered into the chamber of light, that indescribable gulf ofbrilliancy, but vainly sought for an opposite wall; there was none. Asfar as the eye could reach, vacancy, illuminated vacancy, greeted myvision. The light that sprung from that void was not dazzling, but waspossessed of a beauty that no words can suggest. I peered downward, andfound that we stood upon the edge of a shelving ledge of stone thatreceded rapidly beneath us, so that we seemed to rest upon the upperside of its wedge-like edge. I strained my vision to catch a glimpse ofthe bottom of this chasm, but although I realized that my eyes wereglancing into miles and miles of space, there was no evidence of earthlymaterial other than the brink upon which we stood.
The limit of vision seemed to be bounded by a silvery blending of lightwith light, light alone, only light. The dead silence about, and the newlight before me, combined to produce a weird sensation, inexplicable,overpowering. A speck of dust on the edge of immensity, I clung to thestone cliff, gazing into the depths of that immeasurable void.