"I should say, 'The name of the Lord be blessed.'"
"Are your sons grown to man's estate?"
"My grandson is able to keep himself."
"Would you be ready to accompany me on a dangerous expedition—one where the chances are we might never return?"
"I think I have run that chance before now."
"You must understand, Paul, the whole risk before you agree. We are going to look for the water that has left the tank. It is a matter of life and death to every one of us, and, therefore, I think God will help us; but it may not be so. The Almighty may say, 'Why should you mere worms of the earth dare to interfere between me and the sentence I have passed against you and yours? I did not listen to the entreaties of Lot, and now the Dead Sea covers the ruins of the city. You men of Bondathal are not better than the men of Gomorrah.' Do you understand me? I have often sought for the source of the spring through the narrow winding paths of this cavern. These windings are so narrow that one must sometimes press through them by mere force, at other times creep along upon one's stomach. Great abysses yawn under the feet; a fall down one of these would be fatal; we will have to cling to the wall as we creep along. Again, we will pass through stinking sewers, up to our elbows in putrid filth. All these clefts and fissures have been made some time—God knows when—by an earthquake which has caused the uprooting of the coal stratum. Now it is quite possible that this last explosion has closed again many of these clefts and opened others. If it has happened, as I surmise, that the aperture has been shut which communicated between the pit beneath us and the one above—if this has taken place, then we have a tank full of water over our heads. If we, in our search through the bowels of the earth, come upon this aperture, and accidentally break the smallest hole, not the size of a pin's point, the water in the basin over our heads will burst through and annihilate us; if we hear it roaring we are already lost. But, on the other hand, it may be that the explosion caused a rent in the upper cleft, and if so the water has rushed through it to the lower basin under our feet. What we have to do, whether we die in the search or not, is to find out where the water is."
"I have no idea what you mean; all I know is that I am ready to go with you."
"Then go home and take leave of your family, as if you were going a long journey. Go to your priest and make your peace with God. Then come back, and tell no one where we are going."
Ivan now made his own preparations. From this adventure he might never return. He made his will. He bequeathed his mine to his workmen, his money to Paul's family. This was an act of justice. If the old man were killed, it was in a measure his, Ivan's, doing.
When this was all done he went out and took his leave of light and air before going into the blackness of everlasting night. It was well under the free air of heaven. The sky might be bluer elsewhere, the grass greener; still, it was not eternal darkness.