“I had a horrible dream,” he said shuddering. “I thought that we were in the sun and over the capital city when it fell down. I thought the fall was awful, and that all Alpha was aflame. Then the fires went out. Everything was black, and the whole world rang with cries of terrified people. Ugh! I don't want to dream so again; I'd rather not sleep at all. But hush! what is that?”
Far away, as if in the centre of the earth, they heard a low monotonous rumbling. They listened breathlessly. Every moment the sound increased. They could feel the ground trembling as if shaken by an earthquake.
“It is the coming sun,” said Branasko. “We must get nearer the tunnel and see what can be done. It would be useless to try to go back now.”
Stealing along in the shadow of the cliffs to keep from being seen by the workmen on the plateau above, they climbed over a rocky incline and saw in the side of a towering cliff, a great black hole. It was the mouth of the tunnel. Into it ran eight wide tracks of railway and six mammoth cables each twenty or thirty feet in diameter.
“The sun cannot be far away now,” remarked the Alphian.
“Is it not lighted?”
“I presume not; I think it comes through in darkness. The light is saved for its passage over Alpha.”
“Would it not be as safe for us to attempt to walk through the tunnel to the palace of the king?”
“Never; it would be over fifty miles in utter darkness. There may be a thousand trestles and bridges over frightful chasms: for the most part, I have heard the tunnel is a natural channel or a succession of caverns united by tunnels. The other is the safer way, though it certainly is risky enough.”
Louder and nearer grew the rumbling noise, and a faint light began to shine from the tunnel and flash on the cliff opposite.