At the Earth’s Core - Edgar Rice Burroughs (bookreader .TXT) 📗

the crossbeam to which I had been clinging, and fell with a crash to the floor of the cabin, the shock brought me to myself.

My first concern was with Perry. I was horrified at the thought that upon the very threshold of salvation he might be dead. Tearing open his shirt I placed my ear to his breast. I could have cried with relief⁠—his heart was beating quite regularly.

At the water tank I wetted my handkerchief, slapping it smartly across his forehead and face several times. In a moment I was rewarded by the raising of his lids. For a time he lay wide-eyed and quite uncomprehending. Then his scattered wits slowly foregathered, and he sat up sniffing the air with an expression of wonderment upon his face.

“Why, David,” he cried at last, “it’s air, as sure as I live. Why⁠—why what does it mean? Where in the world are we? What has happened?”

“It means that we’re back at the surface all right, Perry,” I cried; “but where, I don’t know. I haven’t opened her up yet. Been too busy reviving you. Lord, man, but you had a close squeak!”

“You say we’re back at the surface, David? How can that be? How long have I been unconscious?”

“Not long. We turned in the ice stratum. Don’t you recall the sudden whirling of our seats? After that the drill was above you instead of below. We didn’t notice it at the time; but I recall it now.”

“You mean to say that we turned back in the ice stratum, David? That is not possible. The prospector cannot turn unless its nose is deflected from the outside⁠—by some external force or resistance⁠—the steering wheel within would have moved in response. The steering wheel has not budged, David, since we started. You know that.”

I did know it; but here we were with our drill racing in pure air, and copious volumes of it pouring into the cabin.

“We couldn’t have turned in the ice stratum, Perry, I know as well as you,” I replied; “but the fact remains that we did, for here we are this minute at the surface of the earth again, and I am going out to see just where.”

“Better wait till morning, David⁠—it must be midnight now.”

I glanced at the chronometer.

“Half after twelve. We have been out seventy-two hours, so it must be midnight. Nevertheless I am going to have a look at the blessed sky that I had given up all hope of ever seeing again,” and so saying I lifted the bars from the inner door, and swung it open. There was quite a quantity of loose material in the jacket, and this I had to remove with a shovel to get at the opposite door in the outer shell.

In a short time I had removed enough of the earth and rock to the floor of the cabin to expose the door beyond. Perry was directly behind me as I threw it open. The upper half was above the surface of the ground. With an expression of surprise I turned and looked at Perry⁠—it was broad daylight without!

“Something seems to have gone wrong either with our calculations or the chronometer,” I said. Perry shook his head⁠—there was a strange expression in his eyes.

“Let’s have a look beyond that door, David,” he cried.

Together we stepped out to stand in silent contemplation of a landscape at once weird and beautiful. Before us a low and level shore stretched down to a silent sea. As far as the eye could reach the surface of the water was dotted with countless tiny isles⁠—some of towering, barren, granitic rock⁠—others resplendent in gorgeous trappings of tropical vegetation, myriad starred with the magnificent splendor of vivid blooms.

Behind us rose a dark and forbidding wood of giant arborescent ferns intermingled with the commoner types of a primeval tropical forest. Huge creepers depended in great loops from tree to tree, dense underbrush overgrew a tangled mass of fallen trunks and branches. Upon the outer verge we could see the same splendid coloring of countless blossoms that glorified the islands, but within the dense shadows all seemed dark and gloomy as the grave.

And upon all the noonday sun poured its torrid rays out of a cloudless sky.

“Where on earth can we be?” I asked, turning to Perry.

For some moments the old man did not reply. He stood with bowed head, buried in deep thought. But at last he spoke.

“David,” he said, “I am not so sure that we are on earth.”

“What do you mean, Perry?” I cried. “Do you think that we are dead, and this is heaven?” He smiled, and turning, pointing to the nose of the prospector protruding from the ground at our backs.

“But for that, David, I might believe that we were indeed come to the country beyond the Styx. The prospector renders that theory untenable⁠—it, certainly, could never have gone to heaven. However I am willing to concede that we actually may be in another world from that which we have always known. If we are not on earth, there is every reason to believe that we may be in it.”

“We may have quartered through the earth’s crust and come out upon some tropical island of the West Indies,” I suggested. Again Perry shook his head.

“Let us wait and see, David,” he replied, “and in the meantime suppose we do a bit of exploring up and down the coast⁠—we may find a native who can enlighten us.”

As we walked along the beach Perry gazed long and earnestly across the water. Evidently he was wrestling with a mighty problem.

“David,” he said abruptly, “do you perceive anything unusual about the horizon?”

As I looked I began to appreciate the reason for the strangeness of the landscape that had haunted me from the first with an illusive suggestion of the bizarre and unnatural⁠—There was no horizon! As far as the eye could reach out the sea continued and upon its bosom floated tiny islands, those in the distance reduced to