In Caverns Below

It is impossible to describe with what emotion I read this account. That the throne of Zu had cracked; that the Dictatorial power had been split asunder; that the renewal of war was likely—all this appeared as nothing; my one great, my overwhelming concern was with Clay. Where was he now? Had he escaped the maddened multitude? Or was he already a martyr to their bloodthirsty frenzy?

With excited haste, I rushed to my secretary and gave orders that scouts be sent out, and that if any one answering to the description of the former Dictator of Zu was found, he was to be offered a sanctuary in Wu. There seemed, it is true, small chance that he would be found; but, in my terror for my friend's safety, I wished to leave no stone unturned.

Hardly had I issued my orders when one of my palace guards approached with every evidence of excitement. After bowing to the floor in the established manner, he addressed me hastily.

"Your Abysmal Excellency, there is a vagabond outside who asks to see you. I told him it was impossible, that you were tied up in a conference; but he insisted until I had a mind to throw him into the dungeon to cool his impatience. Finally he gave me a bit of paper, and said that if I passed it to you, you would understand. He must be a madman, Your Excellency, for the paper is filled with a meaningless scrawl."

"Let me see it!" I demanded as I fairly snatched at the rumpled notepaper which the guard held out.

I am sure that the man, thoughtless though he was trained to be, was surprised to note the gasp of astonished joy with which I glanced at the paper, and the agitated haste with which I demanded, "Quick! Show the visitor in!"

As the guard saluted and left, I began to pace rapidly back and forth, while reading over and over again those few words in a handwriting I knew so well!

A minute later, a queer-looking figure entered the room. I do not wonder that the guard had called him a vagabond; his robe was ripped and torn in a hundred places, and here and there it was stained with splashes of blood; a dark hood was drawn over his face, concealing the hair and the features; his eyes looked out at me from behind binoculars, such as were worn by near-sighted citizens; his long, cone-shaped hat was battered and dented as if from a scuffle, and the black glove was missing from his right hand.

My visitor waited until the guard had left; then he removed his binoculars and threw off his hood to reveal a figure familiar and yet strange. For a moment I gaped in astonishment at that closely cropped head and that face from which every vestige of a beard had been shaved—at those eyes, deeply sunken as if from a sleepless vigil—at the long, drawn features, with the worn and ravaged lines. "Phil!" I exclaimed. "I hardly recognized you!"

"No wonder!" he returned, wearily, as he sank down upon a chair, "I've been through hell itself!"

"But you're here at last! That's the main thing!" I rejoiced. "Heavens, you don't know how worried I was!"

"You don't know how worried I was, old pal!" he replied as he wiped his perspiring brow and shook his shorn head dolefully. "I ought to have taken your advice, Frank. This Dictator business doesn't agree with me!"

"How did you escape?" I inquired. "The paper says—"

"Says that Rah the Righteous is about done?" he interrupted. "Well, there isn't so very much left of him. There wouldn't have been even mince meat if that mob had gotten me. It was a mighty close call."

He paused, mopped his brow once more, and continued.

"By God! When I heard the rabble streaming through the streets, crying for my blood, you can believe me, old man, I was scared. I had to think fast! I took just about the quickest shave of my life, cutting off my red hair and whiskers. Then I pasted them on a dummy, which I placed near the palace entrance. While the mob was storming the gates, trying to get at that old scarecrow, I slipped on these binoculars and hood, dressed in servant's clothes, went out by the back entrance, mixed with the mob, and even joined in yelling, 'Down with Rah the Righteous!' and finally escaped through a side-gallery and took a 'scootscoot' here. I've been all night at it! At the border of Wu I had a tussle with some sentries and laid three of them flat before I made my get-away. That explains my nice society appearance, old pal."

With a rueful grimace, he looked down at his torn, blood-spattered clothes.

"Well, don't mind that, Phil, old boy!" I said, coming to him and slapping him heartily on the shoulder. "I'll look out for you now. We've stuck together most of our lives, and I guess we can stick it out just a little longer."

Yet, even as I uttered these words, I realized how embarrassing it would be for me to be found sheltering the runaway Dictator of Zu.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Toward the Light

It was only three "wakes" later when catastrophe struck.

During the interval, I had been sheltering Clay the best I could, trying to keep him disguised and hidden, laying out a future course of action. Many were our hurried little talks in which we decided that the only safety for either of us lay in the Overworld; however, since premature flight would be worse than none at all, we were making our plans coolly and deliberately. Already I had withdrawn the military guard from the tubes; I had secreted a quantity of hooks, ropes, and other climbing tackle at the base of one of the flues, which, I knew, led upward to the Overworld; I had taken steps to secure quantities of concentrated food, medical supplies, and other necessities, to be strapped in knapsacks about our backs.

But before these projects were complete, the tempest broke. Each day I had seen it brewing more threateningly, and all my efforts against it were fruitless. The report of the overthrow of the dictator of Zu and the statement that he and I had been suspected of collusion had taken dangerous fire in the public mind; demagogues, too numerous to suppress, had risen to warn the people that I was "conspiring against their interests"; and these charges, added to complaints about my conclusion of an "inglorious peace," could not but have an effect upon a public so far advanced in thoughtlessness as the people of Wu.

Worst of all my visitor from Zu, on the third "wake" after his arrival, had unwittingly betrayed me. It would be impossible, I knew, for him to stay hidden forever; but I had hardly expected him to reveal himself just when he did—not that I blame him. The whole affair was an unfortunate accident; for when he came out of the rooms where I had told him to remain, he had expected to find me alone. But alas! I was just being interviewed by a reporter for the Screamer! Too late I saw Clay, on whose face a stubbly red beard was again beginning to sprout. Too late I motioned him to retreat. The knowing gleam in the eyes of the reporter showed that he had seen all!

To threaten the journalist, to offer him a bribe, would only have been to make him more suspicious, and hence more dangerous; my only hope was that he would misinterpret what he had seen. But in this hope I was to be cheated. Only a few hours later, the Screamer appeared with a special edition, describing the "mysterious stranger" seen in the home of Luma the Illustrious—a stranger whose "foreign origin" was evident from his queer appearance. It was stated that his eyes were of an outlandish blue, and that his stubbly hair was faintly red—a color attributed to only one man in all history. Could it be that the outcast Dictator of Zu had found shelter beneath Luma's roof? Was Luma plotting with Rah the Righteous against his own people?

I have always held that the citizens of Wu cared little about Rah the Righteous; but so perilously inflamed were they that it required no more than a spark to set off the conflagration.

The storm burst over me with cataclysmic suddenness, I had been having one of my many little discussions with Clay, talking over old times and planning for the future, when I heard a tremendous thumping at the door. I opened it to admit one of the guards who entered in such excitement that he forgot the customary formality of bowing till his palm scraped the floor. His face, normally white, had grown red with agitation; his hands fluttered; his salmon eyes gaped wide with bewilderment and alarm. "Excellency!" he gasped. "Your Abysmal Excellency! Quick! The mob! The mob! Come! Look! See! Quick!"

"What's that?" I demanded, startled. "What about the mob?"

"Come! Look! See!" he repeated, starting away down the long greenish-yellow gallery.

Exchanging frightened glances, Clay and I followed in silence until we had reached the further end of the palace, where the guard lifted a little slit of stone in one of the walls—a fragment barely an inch across, just enough to permit us a peep through the thick partition, while keeping us safe from observation.

Instantly a confusion of savage cries came to our ears—cries fierce, shrill, blood-curdling as the war-shouts of embattled Apaches. "Down with Luma! Down with Luma! Down with Luma! Lynch him! Stab him! Massacre him!" I heard, mingled with yells of, "Back with Thuno Flâtum! Back with Thuno Flâtum! Long live Thuno Flâtum!" And, peering through the little slit in the wall, I witnessed a sight that made my heart give a ferocious leap and my hair prickle as if ready to stand on end.

Back and forth, through the gallery outside, an excited throng was parading. Hundreds deep, they moved with a swarming fury; their eyes showed fierce and bloodshot in the greenish-yellow light; their arms swung through the air with vehement gesticulations. Some brandished sticks and poles frenziedly; some held ropes coiled into nooses; some waved faggots ready for lighting, while all, as if possessed by demons, howled over and over again that bloodthirsty refrain, "Down with Luma! Down with Luma! Down with Luma! Kill the traitor! Murder him! Turn him over!"

At the same time, there came a tremendous battering sound from one corner of the wall—a sound as of a sledgehammer striking.

"They're pounding down the gates!" whispered the guard as he hastily shoved the slit of stone into place again. "Can't hold them back much longer!"

"Can't hold them back!" I moaned agreement, knowing that no wild beast was more to be feared than that mad rabble. And then, frantically turning to Clay, who stood watching with eyes half popping out of his head in horror, I screamed, "Come! There's no time to lose!"

At sprinting speed, we ran back through the gallery, then down a side-passage beneath the palace, where we paused long enough to secure provisions and disguise ourselves—Clay by assuming again the garb in which he had escaped from Zu, and I by smearing my face with white powder, exchanging my royal clothes for a plain black robe, and covering my eyes with dark glasses.

Already, from the palace above us, we could hear the screaming of the mob.

"They've broken in!" I muttered. "In a minute they'll be down here!"

"Let's be off!" he nodded; and while the howling of the multitude grew louder, we started off down a dark and winding tunnel sloping deep underground.

Neither of us spoke as we hastened along, scarcely daring to turn on a flashlight to guide us. But well enough we knew our destination—the base of the ventilating flue, where we had concealed the climbing tackle by which we hoped to reach the Overworld.

In a straight line, this point was not far; but, in order to avoid detection, we had to circle miles out of our way, through obscure and little-used corridors. Hence hours passed before we had approached the safety point. And then, for a few minutes, we had to face a greater peril. Separating us from the ventilation flue was a stretch of a more frequented avenue, from which neither of us might easily escape.

Yet, there being no choice, we faced the danger resolutely, and, trusting to our disguise, stepped boldly out of hiding.

Emerging into the wider thoroughfare, we found the people crowding back and forth excitedly; but, fortunately, none seemed to take notice of us. The "scootscoots" rushed hither and thither as crazily as ever, several of them missing us by inches; while a newsgirl raced here and there squeaking furiously, "Latest Screamer! Buy the latest Screamer! Super-super-super-extra-extra-extra! Great revolution! Luma the Illustrious abdicates! Thuno Flâtum restored to power! Super-super-super-extra-extra-extra!"

"Super-extra-extra! Buy the latest Blare!" I heard from another side. "War with Zu breaks out again! Thuno Flâtum sends troops to the depths! Huge turnover! Subterrain attacks renewed! Buy the latest Blare! Super-extra-extra!"

As if to emphasize the truth of these words, we caught a glimpse of marching helmeted forms, hundreds upon hundreds, tramping with a prancing military motion along a side-gallery, while over them the green and vermilion banners demonstratively waved.

At the same time, a turn in the gallery enabled us to glance into the mile-deep vastness of a prodigious chasm, such as we had seen on arriving in the Underworld. Far beneath us, in the eerie depths, we observed multitudes of tiny forms, drawn up in military columns and regiments; while from the walls of the abyss, great shafts of lightning, white and violet and orange and green, began to dart to the accompaniment of portentous thunders.

But all these sounds and sights were swept from our consciousness by demonstrations of a still more alarming nature. Straight toward us, from down the gallery, a swarm of Third Class citizens came flocking, thousands deep, wielding spears and ropes and clubs, while they hoarsely shouted.

"Down with Luma the Illustrious! Down with Luma! Grab the traitor! Tear him to bits! Gouge out his heart! Turn him over! Down with him! Down with him! Down with him!"

"Quick!" I whispered to Clay, and we slid across the avenue and into a smaller gallery which, a few yards farther on, gave access to the ventilating flue.

"Down with Luma! Down with Luma! Lynch the coward! Tear him to bits! Down with him! Down with him! Turn him over!" I heard the mob repeating, with rising fury, as the ventilating lid slammed to a close above our heads—and the multitude, not observing us, went shouting on its way down the avenue.

The next moment Clay and I had seized the ropes and hooks and had begun the climb back to the Overworld.

There is no need to dwell upon our adventures when, tied together with ropes like mountain climbers, we accomplished the ascent through the air-tubes. Several hours later, thanks to my expert knowledge of the ventilation system, we had wearily reached the outlet, and, for the first time in years, stood beneath the open sky, blinking in the bright sunlight and exposing our skin to the luxury of the breeze....

It was days later when we reached civilization. For scores of miles we made our way, scarcely knowing where, across the sagebrush barrens of the Nevada desert; and had we not found water by melting the snow from the sunless shelves of the peaks, while nourishing our bodies by concentrated food capsules from Wu, we would not have survived to tell the story. Even as it was, we had reached the last stages of exhaustion when, tattered and torn, with our food exhausted and our faces covered with a ragged growth of beard, we stumbled into a mining camp near the California border. The startled miners had the surprise of their lives when two strangers, still dressed fantastically in the pointed hats and black skirts of Wu, suddenly made their appearance; and it is not surprising that we were mistaken for madmen and that our story was greeted with derisive laughter.

But now that we have been restored to our homes and friends and are once more full of life and activity, I do not hesitate to make the facts public, so that the world may know of the unsuspected civilization inhabiting the chasms beneath the Nevada desert. It is the purpose of Clay and myself to lead an expedition back to Wu and Zu, so that we may fathom their miraculous scientific secrets, many of which we have been unable to penetrate; and it is our hope that we may set forth at an early date, for we do not know how soon, in their renewed strife over Nullnull, the people of the Underworld may blow themselves out of existence, leaving no more than their blackened labyrinths and crumbling galleries to prove that they ever have lived.