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front car was the work of my friend, who was willing to give me mymoney's worth of thrill, and that the porter was aware of this, I stowedaway my bags and started to get ready for bed. I had no sooner taken offmy coat than the door was opened and an old fellow with a mass of silverhair peered in at me.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I understand you have engaged this caralone?"
"Yes."
"I can get no other accommodations tonight. You have an extra berthhere and I must get to Paris tomorrow. I will pay you well--"
I smiled.
"Take it. I was beginning to feel lonesome, anyway."
He bowed gravely and ordered the porter to bring in his things. Idecided he was a musician. Only artists go in for such lovely hair. Buthe undressed in dignified silence, not casting so much as another glancein my direction, while on my part I also forgot his presence when,looking through the port-hole, I realized that the train had begun tomove. Soon the drone of the propelling engines began to make itselfheard. Then the train began to dip down and the steel sides of theentrance became too high for me to see over. My friend of the silverhair had already turned off the light, and now I knew by the darknessthat we had entered the Tube. For some time I lay awake thinking of"Dutch" and the ultimate failure of his life's dream, as he had outlinedit to me, and then I sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.
I was awakened by a terrible shock that hurled me up against the side ofthe compartment. A dull, red glow poured through the port-hole, lightingup the interior with a weird, bloody reflection. I crept painfully up tothe port-hole and looked out. The strangest sight that man has everlooked upon met my eyes. The side of the wall had blown out into agigantic cavern, and with it the rest of the cars had rolled down thebluff a tangled, twisted mass of steel. My car had almost passed by, andnow it still stuck in the tube, even though the last port-hole throughwhich I peered seemed to be suspended in air. But it was not the wreckedcars from which rose such wails of despair and agony that held myattention, but the cavern itself. For it was not really a cave, but avast underground city whose wide, marble streets stretched away to aninferno of flame and lava. By the terrible light was lit up a greatwhite palace with its gold-tipped scrolls, and closer to me, the goldentemple of the Sun, with its tiers of lustrous yellow stairs--stairs wornby the feet of many generations.
Above the stairs towered the great statue of a man on horseback. He wasdressed in a sort of tunic, and in his uplifted arm he carried a scrollas if for the people to read. His face was turned toward me, and Imarveled even in that wild moment that the unknown sculptor could havecaught such an expression of appeal. I can see the high intellectualbrow as if it were before me at this moment--the level, sympathetic eyesand the firm chin.
* * * * *
Then something moving caught my eyes, and I swear I saw a child--aliving child coming from the burning city--running madly, breathlesslyfrom a wave of glowing lava that threatened to engulf him at any moment.In spite of all the ridicule that has been showered upon me, I stilldeclare that the child did not come from the wreckage and that he wore atunic similar to the one of the statue and not the torn bit of anightgown or sheet.
He was some distance from me, but I could plainly see his expression ofwild distraction as he began to climb those gleaming stairs. Strangelylustrous in the weird light, was that worn stairway of gold--gold, theancient metal of the Sun. With the slowness of one about to faint hedragged himself up, while his breath seemed to be torn from his throatin agonizing gasps. Behind him, the glowing liquid splashed against thesteps and the yellow metal of the Sun began to drip into its fierycauldron.
The child reached the leg of the horse and clung there.
... Then suddenly the whole scene began to shake as if I had beenlooking at a mirage, while just behind my car I had a flashing glimpsein that lurid light of an emerald-green deluge bursting in like a darksky of solid water, and in that split-second before a crushing blow uponmy back, even through that tangle of bedclothes, knocked me intounconsciousness, I seemed to hear again the hopeless note in the voiceof my friend as he said:
"--an earthquake fault."
After what seemed to me aeons of strange, buzzing noises and peculiarlights, I at last made out the objects around me as those of a hospital.Men with serious faces were watching me. I have since been told that Ibabbled incoherently about "saving the little fellow" and other equallyincomprehensible murmurings. From them I learned that the train theother way was washed out, a tangled mass of wreckage just like my car,both terminus stations wrecked utterly, and no one found alive exceptmyself. So, although I am to be a hopeless cripple, yet I am not sorrythat the skill and untiring patience of the great English surgeon, Dr.Thompson, managed to nurse back the feeble spark of my life through allthose weeks that I hung on the borderland; for if he had not, the worldnever would have known.
As it is, I wonder over the events of that night as if it had not beenan experience at all--but a wild weird dream. Even the gentleman withthe mass of silver hair is a mystery, for he was never identified, andyet in my mind's recesses I can still hear his cultured voice askingabout the extra berth, and mentioning his pressing mission to Paris. Andsomehow, he gives the last touch of strangeness to the events of thatfatal night, and in my mind, he becomes a part of it no less than thechild on the stairs, the burning inferno that lit the background, andthe great statue of that unknown hero who held out his scroll for amoment in that lurid light, like a symbol from the sunken City of theDead.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was first published in _Amazing Stories_ November 1929 and was produced from _Amazing Stories_ May 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
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"I beg your pardon, sir, but I understand you have engaged this caralone?"
"Yes."
"I can get no other accommodations tonight. You have an extra berthhere and I must get to Paris tomorrow. I will pay you well--"
I smiled.
"Take it. I was beginning to feel lonesome, anyway."
He bowed gravely and ordered the porter to bring in his things. Idecided he was a musician. Only artists go in for such lovely hair. Buthe undressed in dignified silence, not casting so much as another glancein my direction, while on my part I also forgot his presence when,looking through the port-hole, I realized that the train had begun tomove. Soon the drone of the propelling engines began to make itselfheard. Then the train began to dip down and the steel sides of theentrance became too high for me to see over. My friend of the silverhair had already turned off the light, and now I knew by the darknessthat we had entered the Tube. For some time I lay awake thinking of"Dutch" and the ultimate failure of his life's dream, as he had outlinedit to me, and then I sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.
I was awakened by a terrible shock that hurled me up against the side ofthe compartment. A dull, red glow poured through the port-hole, lightingup the interior with a weird, bloody reflection. I crept painfully up tothe port-hole and looked out. The strangest sight that man has everlooked upon met my eyes. The side of the wall had blown out into agigantic cavern, and with it the rest of the cars had rolled down thebluff a tangled, twisted mass of steel. My car had almost passed by, andnow it still stuck in the tube, even though the last port-hole throughwhich I peered seemed to be suspended in air. But it was not the wreckedcars from which rose such wails of despair and agony that held myattention, but the cavern itself. For it was not really a cave, but avast underground city whose wide, marble streets stretched away to aninferno of flame and lava. By the terrible light was lit up a greatwhite palace with its gold-tipped scrolls, and closer to me, the goldentemple of the Sun, with its tiers of lustrous yellow stairs--stairs wornby the feet of many generations.
Above the stairs towered the great statue of a man on horseback. He wasdressed in a sort of tunic, and in his uplifted arm he carried a scrollas if for the people to read. His face was turned toward me, and Imarveled even in that wild moment that the unknown sculptor could havecaught such an expression of appeal. I can see the high intellectualbrow as if it were before me at this moment--the level, sympathetic eyesand the firm chin.
* * * * *
Then something moving caught my eyes, and I swear I saw a child--aliving child coming from the burning city--running madly, breathlesslyfrom a wave of glowing lava that threatened to engulf him at any moment.In spite of all the ridicule that has been showered upon me, I stilldeclare that the child did not come from the wreckage and that he wore atunic similar to the one of the statue and not the torn bit of anightgown or sheet.
He was some distance from me, but I could plainly see his expression ofwild distraction as he began to climb those gleaming stairs. Strangelylustrous in the weird light, was that worn stairway of gold--gold, theancient metal of the Sun. With the slowness of one about to faint hedragged himself up, while his breath seemed to be torn from his throatin agonizing gasps. Behind him, the glowing liquid splashed against thesteps and the yellow metal of the Sun began to drip into its fierycauldron.
The child reached the leg of the horse and clung there.
... Then suddenly the whole scene began to shake as if I had beenlooking at a mirage, while just behind my car I had a flashing glimpsein that lurid light of an emerald-green deluge bursting in like a darksky of solid water, and in that split-second before a crushing blow uponmy back, even through that tangle of bedclothes, knocked me intounconsciousness, I seemed to hear again the hopeless note in the voiceof my friend as he said:
"--an earthquake fault."
After what seemed to me aeons of strange, buzzing noises and peculiarlights, I at last made out the objects around me as those of a hospital.Men with serious faces were watching me. I have since been told that Ibabbled incoherently about "saving the little fellow" and other equallyincomprehensible murmurings. From them I learned that the train theother way was washed out, a tangled mass of wreckage just like my car,both terminus stations wrecked utterly, and no one found alive exceptmyself. So, although I am to be a hopeless cripple, yet I am not sorrythat the skill and untiring patience of the great English surgeon, Dr.Thompson, managed to nurse back the feeble spark of my life through allthose weeks that I hung on the borderland; for if he had not, the worldnever would have known.
As it is, I wonder over the events of that night as if it had not beenan experience at all--but a wild weird dream. Even the gentleman withthe mass of silver hair is a mystery, for he was never identified, andyet in my mind's recesses I can still hear his cultured voice askingabout the extra berth, and mentioning his pressing mission to Paris. Andsomehow, he gives the last touch of strangeness to the events of thatfatal night, and in my mind, he becomes a part of it no less than thechild on the stairs, the burning inferno that lit the background, andthe great statue of that unknown hero who held out his scroll for amoment in that lurid light, like a symbol from the sunken City of theDead.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was first published in _Amazing Stories_ November 1929 and was produced from _Amazing Stories_ May 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Thank you for reading books on Archive.BookFrom.Net
Share this book with friends
The Undersea Tube