Down, down and still downward they all traveled. Around and around they all wound their way. Now and then the passage opened into galleries of considerable size. Still other tunnels branched into these and from out of them trooped yet other mice to join in the endless procession.
“They are those who have entered the tunnels that join this larger one as it winds under Dorton, Stubbleton and Nightsville,” Beader explained. “But we have passed the last galleries and will soon be in the Great Room. You may even now be able to see the lights up ahead.”
And Dan could. There, far beyond and above the heads of the mice that marched in front of him, was a faint yellow glow. This grew brighter and wider as they advanced. Then, two minutes after, the column entered the room that Beader had promised.
The Great Room was quite big enough to allow Dan to stand upright. Its walls formed an oblong and along these walls were an almost countless number of balconies to the railings of which scores of torches were fixed. Dozens upon dozens of tiny stairways ran from the balconies while still other flights connected the higher ones with those that were under them. The room had no furnishings. Its floor was of stone and worn almost to a polish as though it had been visited time after time by thousands after thousands of feet.
Having observed this much, Dan looked overhead. It was then he discovered that the room had no ceiling. At first he thought he was peering into the skies, so deep was the gloom up above. But, try as he would, no stars could he see nor yet so much as a glint of the moon. Indeed, there was nothing but the rather dim outline of a most confusing something that swung first to right and then to the left like the pendulum that sways in a clock.
“Like the pendulum that sways in a clock,” puzzled Dan, as he put his thoughts into words. “Why is it a pendulum!”
Even as he spoke his ears detected the steady “tick-tock, tick-tock” that he had heard when he first entered the valley. And the sound came from a point right over his head! Now he knew; now his eyes, grown accustomed to the gloom, told him he was right. He was looking up into the great tower—the tower that he had seen with its head thrust through the trees. And, as if to favor the watcher, the moon at that moment sent some of its beams through a chink at the top, plainly disclosing whole mazes of wheels and two hands of tremendous size. The hour lacked but five minutes of one!
“Yes,” said Beader, who had by this time mounted to Dan’s ruff, “the Great Room is directly under the Clock. And now if you will stand right where you are you will see and hear all that takes place. That’s my balcony up yonder and I must be getting over to it at once.”
Away he scampered and as he did so Dan saw that all the mice were mounting the stairways and climbing to the balconies that bordered the room. In the largest of these, at the center of the topmost tier, a choir was being formed. One who seemed to be the leader gave the pitch now and then by blowing upon a stalk of wheat. Then, at a signal, the chorus began:
“Dickory, dickory dock;