"Would it not be better then," he continued, "to go with me, by your own free will, into the unknown future, which you need fear less than a return to the scoffing multitude amid the storms of upper earth? You know that I have not at any time deceived you. I have, as yet, only opened before you a part of one rare page out of the boundless book of nature; you have tasted of the sweets of which few persons in the flesh have sipped, and I now promise you a further store of knowledge that is rich beyond conception, if you wish to continue your journey."
"What if I decide to return?"
"I will retrace my footsteps and liberate you upon the surface of the earth, as I have others, for few persons have courage enough to pass this spot."
"Binding me to an oath of secrecy?"
"No," he answered; "for if you relate these events men will consider you a madman, and the more clearly you attempt to explain the facts that you have witnessed, the less they will listen to you; such has been the fate of others."
"It is, indeed, better for me to go with you," I said musingly; "to that effect my mind is now made up, my course is clear, I am ready."
With a motion so quick in conception, and rapid in execution that I was taken altogether by surprise, with a grasp so powerful that I could not have repelled him, had I expected the movement and tried to protect myself, the strange man, or being beside me, threw his arms around my body. Then, as a part of the same movement, he raised me bodily from the stone, and before I could realize the nature of his intention, sprung from the edge of the cliff into the abyss below, carrying me with him into its depths.
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE INNER CIRCLE, OR THE END OF GRAVITATION.—IN THE BOTTOMLESS GULF.
I recall a whirling sensation, and an involuntary attempt at self-preservation, in which I threw my arms wildly about with a vain endeavor to clutch some form of solid body, which movement naturally ended by a tight clasping of my guide in my arms, and locked together we continued to speed down into the seven thousand miles of vacancy. Instinctively I murmured a prayer of supplication, and awaited the approaching hereafter, which, as I believed, would quickly witness the extinction of my unhappy life, the end of my material existence; but the moments (if time can be so divided when no sun marks the division) multiplied without bodily shock or physical pain of any description; I retained my consciousness.