"Check, pal! We let you get a half hour's start. Then me and Syd pile the other divisions of native soldiers into the boats and row slowly toward Lanka, making as much of a fuss as we can. That'll attract their attention, make 'em split up their forces, and relieve some of the pressure on old Vibby-what's-his-name."
"Right! And don't attempt a landing. Stay out of bow-range until you get some sort of signal from us. We'll try to clear a landing-port for you. Well—" Ramey took a deep breath, glanced at Kohrisan—"I guess we're set. Give the command, Captain."
And with the voluble little jungle-creature beside them, chattering, guiding, he and the ape-captain led the way into the underground passage.
Had Ramey Winters been in exploring, rather than expeditionary, mood he would have found much to marvel at during the ensuing march.
Kohrisan had not exaggerated when he had called his Burrower brethren magnificent artificers. This tunnel, Ramey Winters was forced to concede, was as great an accomplishment as any ever wrought by supposedly superior Man. For a short space it dipped downward into the earth, out under the lake-shallows, on a gentle cline. Then it straightened, became a passage smooth and straight and true as if bored by a gigantic drill.
It did not provide quite enough head-room for Ramey and Lake. Six-footers each, they soon found their shoulders aching under the strain of walking with heads lowered beneath an arched roofway built to accommodate dwarfish figures. But this was the only inadequacy of the tunnel. In every other respect it was perfect. Its floor was smooth and dry. Its walls were hewn to glassy perfection, and by the light of the torches the wayfarers bore shone with a strange, azure glow.
How this wonder had been wrought was a question that perplexed Ramey, but his one effort to learn met with scant success. Kohrisan could not tell him, and the Burrower would not. Incessant chatterer the ape was, but he refused to tell this secret of his clan. So Ramey shelved the problem for the time being, resolving that at some later date he would try again.[13]
Gate To Hell Puzzle Solved By Scientists
Lucerne, Switzerland (AP.)—Five Lucerne mountaineers have cleared up the mystery of the "Hellenloch," or "Gate to Hell," a cavernous hole in the Niederbauenalp.