The indicator showed that he had gone down fourteen and one-eighth miles. Clewe turned and sat stiffly in his seat. He glanced down and saw beneath him only an illuminated hole, fading away at the bottom. Then he turned to speak to Bryce, but to his surprise, he could think of nothing to say. After that he lighted another cigar and sat quietly.
Some minutes passed—he did not know how many—and he looked down through the gratings in the floor of the car. The electric light streamed downward through a deep [v]crevice, which did not now fade away into nothingness, but ended in something dark and glittering. Then, as he came nearer and nearer to this glittering thing, Clewe saw that it was his automatic shell, lying on its side; only a part of it was visible through the opening of the shaft which he was descending. In an instant, as it seemed to him, the car emerged from the shaft, and he seemed to be hanging in the air—at least there was nothing he could see except that great shell, lying some forty feet below him. But it was impossible that the shell should be lying on the air! He rang to stop the car.
“Anything the matter?” cried Bryce.
“Nothing at all,” Clewe replied. “It’s all right; I am near the bottom.“
In a state of the highest nervous excitement, Clewe gazed about him. He was no longer in a shaft; but where was he? Look around on what side he would, he saw nothing but the light going out from his lamps, light which seemed to extend indefinitely all about him. There appeared to be no limit to his vision in any direction. Then he leaned over the side of his car and looked downward. There lay the great shell directly under him, although under it and around it, extending as far beneath it as it extended in every other direction, shone the light from his own lamp. Nevertheless, that great shell, weighing many tons, lay as if it rested upon the solid ground!
After a few moments, Clewe shut his eyes; they pained him. Something seemed to be coming into them like a fine frost in a winter wind. Then he called to Bryce to let the car descend very slowly. It went down, down, gradually approaching the great shell. When the bottom of the car was within two feet of it, Clewe rang to stop. He looked down at the complicated machine he had worked upon so long, with something like a feeling of affection. This he knew; it was his own. Gazing upon its familiar form, he felt that he had a companion in this region of unreality.
Pushing back the sliding door of the car, Clewe sat upon the bottom and cautiously put out his feet and legs, lowering them until they touched the shell. It was firm and solid. Although he knew it must be so, the immovability of the great mass of iron gave him a sudden shock of mysterious fear. How could it be immovable when there was nothing under it—when it rested on air?
But he must get out of that car, he must explore, he must find out. There certainly could be no danger so long as he clung to the shell.
He cautiously got out of the car and let himself down upon the shell. It was not a pleasant surface to stand on, being uneven, with great spiral ribs, and Clewe sat down upon it, clinging to it with his hands. Presently he leaned over to one side and looked beneath him. The shadows of that shell went down, down, down into space, until it made him sick to look at them. He drew back quickly, clutched the shell with his arms, and shut his eyes. He felt as if he were about to drop with it into a measureless depth of atmosphere.
