The Great Stone of Sardis

by Frank R. Stockton

At this moment a happy thought struck Margaret.

“How easy it would be, Roland, for you to examine this great hole! I can do it; anybody can do it. It's perfectly amazing when you think of it. All you have to do is to take your Artesian, ray machine into that building and set it over the hole; then you can light the whole interior, all the way down to the bottom, and with a telescope you can see everything that is in it.”

“Yes,” said he; “but I think I can do it better than that. It would be very difficult to transfer the photic borer to the other building, and I can light up the interior perfectly well by means of electric lights. I can even lower a camera down to the very bottom and take photographs of the interior.”

“Why, that would be perfectly glorious!” cried Margaret, springing to her feet, an immense relief coming to her mind with the thought that to examine this actual shaft it would not be necessary for anybody to go down into it.

“I should go to work at that immediately,” said he, “but I must have a different sort of windlass—one that shall be moved by an engine. I will rig up the big telescope too, so that we can look down when we have lighted up the bottom.”

It required days to do all that Roland Clewe had planned. A great deal of the necessary work was done in his own establishment, and much machinery besides was sent from New York. When all was ready many experiments were made with the electric lights and camera, and photographs of inexpressible value and interest were taken at various points on the sides of this wonderful perpendicular tunnel.

At last Clewe was prepared to photograph the lower portion of the shaft. With a peculiar camera and a powerful light five photographs were taken of the very bottom of the great shaft, four in horizontal directions and one immediately below the camera. When these photographs were printed by the improved methods then in vogue, Clewe seized the pictures and examined them with eager haste. For some moments he stood silent, his eyes fixed upon the photographs as if there was nothing else in this world; but all he saw on each was an irregular patch of light. He thrust the prints aside, and in a loud, sharp voice he gave orders to bring the great telescope and set it up above the hole. The light was still at the bottom, and the instant the telescope was in position Clewe mounted the stepladder and directed the instrument downward. In a few moments he gave an exclamation, and then he came down from the ladder so rapidly that he barely missed falling. He went into his office and sent for Margaret. When she came he showed her the photographs.

“See!” he said. “What I have found is nothing; even a camera shows nothing, and when I look down through the glass I see nothing. It is just what the Artesian ray showed me; it is nothing at all!”

“I should think,” said she, speaking very slowly, “that if your sounding-lead had gone down into nothing, it would have continued to go down indefinitely. What was there to stop it if there is nothing there?”

“Margaret,” said he, “I don't know anything about it. That is the crushing truth. I can find out nothing at all. When I look down through the earth by means of the Artesian ray I reach a certain depth and then I see a void; when I look down through a perfectly open passage to the same depth, I still see a void.”