n the floor he had seen burnished gold, shining dully as he entered. There had been a thick vein of yellow in the rock. The floor, at that place, was rough beneath his feet, as if the hot metal had been spilled.
His hands groped before him as he remembered the heaps of rock fragments. Then his feet found one of them stumblingly, and he turned and moved to one side. He remembered having seen a dim shape off there that had made a straight slanting line. His searching hands encountered the object and kept him from walking into it.
The feeling of helplessness that drove him was only being increased by his blind and blundering movements. He told himself that he must wait.
Silently he stood where he had come to a stop, hands resting on the object that barred his way—until suddenly, stiflingly, his breath caught in his throat. Some emotion, almost too great to be borne, was suffocating him.
Slowly he moved his hands. Inch by inch he felt his way around the smooth cylinder, so hard, so coldly metallic. Then, with a rush, he let his hands follow up the slanting thing, up to a rounded top, to a heavy ring and a shackle that was on the end of a cable, thin and taut. And, while his hands explored it feverishly, the metal moved!
e clung to the smooth roundness as it slipped through his hands. It was the bailer, part of his own equipment. That slender cable reached up, straight up to the world he knew. And Smithy was there—Smithy was hoisting it!
He clung to the cylinder desperately. The bore, at this depth, had been reduced to eight inches; the bailer fitted it loosely. And Rawson cursed frantically the narrow space that would let this inanimate object return but would hold him back, while he wrapped his arms about the cold surface of the metal messenger from another world.