along the walls and the roof. Others floated along overhead or hung motionless in the air. The changes of form were sometimes very rapid and certainly as unaccountable as the masses themselves. Occasionally we would see a mass slowly take form in the darkness and as slowly fade into darkness again. Where did the light come from, where did it go? And the explanation of this uncanny phenomenon? Undoubtedly some electric manifestation, said Rhodes, analogous perhaps to the light of the aurora. That, I objected, really explained nothing, and Rhodes admitted that that was just what it did explain—nothing.
The spirits of the Dromans rose higher as we toiled our way onward and down. They quickened their pace, and, as we swung along like soldiers marching, they suddenly broke into a song or rather a chant, the wonderful contralto voice of Drorathusa leading, the sounds coming back from the dark secret places of the cavern in echoes sweet as the voices heard in fairyland.
The light-masses were steadily increasing in number and volume. Especially was this pronounced in the great chambers. Fungoid growths were seen, coleopterous insects and at last a huge scolopendra of an aspect indescribably horrible. From this repulsive creature, the Dromans and myself drew back, but Milton Rhodes bent over it in a true scientific scrutiny and ecstasy.
"Look, Bill, look!" he cried suddenly, pointing. "The body has thirty-five somites or segments."
"Thirty-five segments?" I queried, scratching my head and wishing that the scolopendra was in Jericho. "What is there so wonderful about that?"
"Why," said he, "in the Scolo-pendridæ of our own world, the segments of the body never exceed twenty-one. And this one has thirty-five. Really, Bill, I must keep so remarkable and splendid a specimen."
"Great Gorgons and Hydras! Keep it? Don't touch the horrible thing. It may be venomous, deadly as a cobra. And, besides, you'll have plenty of time to collect specimens, and probably some of them will make this one look like the last rose of summer. Leave the hideous thing alone. Why, the Dromans will think that you are dippy. Fact is, I believe that they are beginning to think so already."
"Let 'em!" said Rhodes with true philosophic indifference. "People thought that Galileo was crazy, and Newton and Darwin; Columbus was non compos mentis,[1] Fulton was dippy and Edison was looney. Yes, at one time the great inventor bore the beautiful sobriquet of Looney Edison. Listen to me, Billy, me lad: the greatest compliment that a scientist can ever receive is to be called a sap by sapheads."
All that, I admitted, was very true and truly cogent in its place; but this was not its place, and the Dromans certainly were neither sapheads nor saps. To my relief and, indeed, to my surprize, I dissuaded him from taking the thing as a specimen, and on we went once more.
At length we left the stream, which went plunging into a more fearsome place, into which no man could ever dream of following it. Soon after that, the descent became very steep. The going, however, was good, and we went down at a rapid pace. This lasted for two or three hours, and we had descended many hundreds of feet. The slope then suddenly became gentle, and we were making our way through a perfect maze of tortuous galleries and passages, which at times opened into halls and chambers.
- ↑ "The very children, it is said, pointed to their foreheads as he passed, being taught to regard him as a kind of madman."—Irving.
