ON BOARD THE ARK.
BY ALBERT LEE.
CHAPTER II.
As soon as Tommy recovered his self-possession—or as much of it as he could under these trying circumstances—he opened his eyes and looked about him. He could not see much, for they were apparently racing down a dark, narrow corridor, "like a telegram in a pneumatic tube," he thought. But his eyes gradually grew accustomed to the darkness, and he could see that there were pictures on the walls—battle pictures, and scenes representing all sorts of historical events. He caught a glimpse of Washington crossing the Delaware, and of the battle of Bunker Hill; he saw the taking of the Bastille, and the great London fire. Soon he saw the Spanish Armada and the Crusades, and, later, the burning of Rome, Julius Cæsar crossing the Rubicon, the siege of Carthage, the building of the Parthenon, the destruction of Troy, the fall of Babylon, and afterwards many other things that he could not recognize. They all seemed to whiz past him in a sort of confused blur. He screwed up courage enough finally to call out to the ex-Pirate:
"Wh-wh-wh-at is th-this pl-pla-ce, and how l-long are we g-going to go l-like th-this?"
"Th-th-these are the halls of Time," the ex-Pirate shouted in reply. "We are going back through them as far as the Deluge."
This explanation was not very satisfactory to Tommy, and although up to the present moment he had not had a chance to think of getting scared, he now began to feel slightly alarmed at what had happened. He was about to question the ex-Pirate again, when suddenly there was a great burst of light, and they seemed to shoot out of the tunnel they had been travelling through. Tommy felt the grasp of Father Time's hand loosen, and the next thing he knew he was rolling head over heels on top of a big hay-stack in the middle of a broad sunny field. He pulled himself together as soon as he could, and found the ex-Pirate sitting in the hay beside him with a somewhat bewildered expression on his face.
"I don't think I like that sort of thing very much," remarked Tommy.
"I can't quite say that I do either," said the ex-Pirate, feeling to see if his pistols were still in his sash.