It was Milton's opinion that the characters were alphabetical ones, though at first I was at a loss to understand how they could be anything to him but an utter mystery. The letters were formed by straight lines only. The simplest character was like a plain capital T, with the vertical line somewhat elongated. And it was made to perform the office of another letter by the simple expedient of standing it upon its head. The number of cross-lines increased up to six—three at the top and three at the bottom; and in one or two characters there were two vertical lines, placed close together.
"Evidently," observed Milton Rhodes, "this alphabet was constructed on strictly scientific principles."
For a space we stood there looking, wondering what was recorded in that writing so strange and yet, after all, so very and beautifully simple. Then Milton proceeded to place another record there, and, as he wrote, he hummed:
"'When I see a person's name
Scratched upon a glass,
I know he owns a diamond
And his father owns an ass."
The inscription finished, we resumed our descent. The way soon became steep and very difficult.
"That Aphrodite of yours," I observed as we made our way down a particularly rugged place, "must have the agility of a mountain-goat." "Your rhetoric, Bill, is horrible. Wait till you see her; you'll never be guilty of thinking of a goat when she has your thoughts."
"By the way, what kind of a light did the lady have?"
"Light? Don't know. I was so interested in the angel herself that I never once thought of the light she carried. I don 't know that she needs a light, anyway."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"Why, I fancy, Bill, that her very presence would make even Pluto's gloomy realm bright and beautiful as the Gardens of the Hesperides."
"Oh, gosh!" was my comment.
"Wait till you see her, Bill."
"I'll probably see her demon first."
"Hello!" exclaimed Milton.
"What now?"
"Look at that," said he, pointing. "I think we have the explanation of that mysterious sound, which you thought was like that of a great door suddenly closing: in her descent, she dislodged a rock-fragment, and that sound we heard must have been produced by the mass as it went plunging down."
"'Tis very likely, but"
"Great heaven!" he exclaimed.
"What is it now?"
"I wonder, Bill, if she lost her footing here and went plunging down, too."
I had not thought of that. And the possibility that that lovely and mysterious being lay somewhere down there, crushed and bleeding, perhaps lifeless, made me feel very sad. We sent the rays of our powerful lights down into the silent depths of the tunnel, but nothing was visible there, save the dark rock and those fearful shadows—fearful, what with the secrets that might be hidden there.
"The answer won't come to us, Bill," said Milton.
"No," I returned as we started down; "we must go get it."
The gallery at this place had an average width of, I suppose, ten feet, and the height would average perhaps fifteen. The reader must not picture the walls, the roof and the floor as smooth, however. The rock was much broken, in some spots very jagged. The gallery pitched at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, which will give some idea of the difficulties encountered in the descent.
