“Wait a minute,” Wise said, “I’m interested in the Case Rivers phase of your existence. Don’t forget you’re the Man Who Fell Through the Earth.”
A strange smile passed over Manning’s face.
“I’m just coming to that,” he said; “I am that man, and I can tell you right now, how, where, and why I made the trip!”
All eyes were upon him. This strange talk,—and he had been so sensible up to now. Was the hallucination of falling through the earth destined to mar his newly returned sanity?
“Go on,” repeated Zizi, and the calmness of her voice restored Manning’s poise, and also raised my hopes of a plausible explanation.
“You were with me, Brice,” Manning looked at me, as if for corroboration.
“Yes; I was in the car with you, but we were not near enough to speak. There was a big crowd,—and I was standing at the rear end, while you were well forward. But I say, Rivers, it’s hard to believe that man in the car was you! Why, you’re not the same type——”
“Wait a minute,” the speaker waved his hand as if to check interruption, “I am Manning,—I’ll explain later,—but now I want to get that occasion well in hand. I got off the front end of the car,—I don’t know what you did,—and as I stepped off, a sudden fierce blast of wind nearly took me off my feet. I was right in the middle of the street but it seemed the middle of a howling blizzard, and as I took a step,—I went down an open manhole into the sewer.
“This I distinctly remember,—the street cleaners were working there, shoveling the snow into the sewer. They had no business to leave the manhole open and unguarded, but that black squall was so sudden and terrific, no one could see or know anything for the time being.
“However, I knew perfectly well, as I fell in, what had happened, but then,—and I remember this, too,—I fell and fell,—down, down,—it seemed for miles; I was whirled dizzily about,—but still I fell—on and on,—interminably. I felt my consciousness going,—at first, abnormally acute, my senses became dulled, and I had only a sensation of falling—ever falling—through the earth!