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"But we approach the earth's surface? Soon I will be back in the sunshine again."
"Upon the contrary, we have been continually descending into the earth, and we are now ten miles or more beneath the level of the ocean."
I shrank back, hesitated, and in despondency gazed at his hazy outline, then, as if palsied, sank upon the stony floor; but as I saw the light before me, I leaped up and shouted:
"What you say is not true; we approach daylight, I can see your form."
"Listen to me," he said. "Can not you understand that I have led you continually down a steep descent, and that for hours there has been no step upward? With but little exertion
