"Thank Heaven!" murmured the professor, withdrawing himself from me. "Are you alive, Mr. Munn?"
"I believe so," I answered. "What has happened to us, professor?"
"We have been flung into some sort of a shelter, it seems to me," he replied.
"But we are not on stable ground," he added. "We are sitting on an object that is descending with us, descending rapidly and—ah, wonder of wonders!"
Abruptly we fell into broad day, surrounded by such sights and sounds that I thought myself dealing with the mysteries of a disordered dream.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MERCURIALS.
Professor Quinn and I were sitting on a large box constructed of metal that was polished to dazzling brilliancy. So far as our purposes were concerned, this box was nothing less than an elevator; we had fallen upon it and it had carried us down into the wonderful interior of the planet.
Now, truly, we were in another world—a world that teemed with life—a smiling and pleasant region underlying a most barren and inhospitable shell. The scoriated exterior of the planet was the husk; here was the kernel.
It was a white world, extending league on league in every direction and roofed with a lofty vault that sparkled as with stars. From every hand came a bee-like hum, proving that we were in a hive of industry and life.