Nevertheless Epworth insisted on pressing onward. Finally they came to a mountain that ran up into a sharp peak. This mountain reflected many and varied coruscations, indicating that it was a large heap of colored stones. The heat here was almost unbearable but Epworth persisted in his advance until the three stood on a high peak with a blazing light all around them. Epworth was the first one to climb to the top of this peak.
“There, Moawha, is the mass of fire that makes the light and heat for your world.”
He turned, and lifted the little queen in his arms. What she saw caused her to cover her eyes with her hands and scream.
A great ball of blazing fire, bigger than anything Epworth had ever seen, shot down at them from out of the sky. Its heat was scorching, burning, blistering. Just a few moments under that blazing glare, and their clothing would be scorched, their flesh would be a mass of blisters, and they would fall down never to rise, yet this was their only way out!
“We can’t go out here,” Joan remarked quietly, as she pulled her brother back so that he was protected from the blazing sun by the top of the mountain. “This is just the beginning. There may be miles and miles of heated interior before we can get out of the hole to outer space.”
“Then we will have the same heat until we get to a point where the movements of the moon bring about the fourteen days of night.” Billy’s voice was mournful. “It looks to me that we are inside of the moon for keeps.”
Epworth led them down the mountain side to a spot where they were given the shadows of the hill in a way that brought a little relief from the terrible blaze. When he stopped he glanced at Joan’s hat. It was a combination of light straw and cloth, held away from her head by four slender slits of leather in such a way that the air percolated through her hair.
Taking the hat in his hand he studied it for several moments.
“I have an idea,” he said quietly. “Let’s go back to the Land of the Selinites, and work it out.”
Blindly his companions followed him, and for two weeks Epworth worked with the best scientists of the Land.