CHAPTER III

_Ten Miles Underground_

"What I was going to say when we were interrupted, was, 'Can you beat

it?'" Jimmy Dodd observed, with admirable sang-froid.

They were still seated on the red grass, gazing about them at what

looked like an illimitable plain, and upward into depths of darkness. It

was warm, and the light, furnished by what appeared to be luminous

vegetation, was about that of twilight.

On every side were clumps of trees and shrubs, which formed centers of

phosphorescent illumination, but for the most part the land was open,

and here and there human figures appeared, moving with head down and

arms hanging earthward.

"No, I'm damned if I can," said Tommy. "What happened to you after we

crashed?"

"Why, first thing I knew, I found myself riding on the back of a fossil

beetle, apparently one of the _curculionidae_," said Dodd.

"Never, mind being so precise, Jimmy. Let's call it a beetle. Go on."

"They set me down inside the hole and seemed to be investigating me,

the whole swarm of them. Of course, I thought I was dead, and come to

my just reward, especially when I saw those beaks. Then one of them

began tickling my face with its antenna, and I drew up my fur collar.

They didn't seem to like the feel of the fur, and after a while the

whole gang started hustling me back again, like a nest of ants carrying

something they don't want outside their hill. And then you bobbed up."

"Well, my opinion is you saved your life by pulling up your collar,"

said Tommy. "Looks to me as if it's a case of the survival of the

fittest, said fittest being the insect, and the human race taking second

place. You know what the humans here live on, don't you?"

"No, what?"

"Shrimps as big as poodles. If you'd seen that girl and the old man

getting outside them, you'd realize that there seems to be a food

shortage in this part of the world. Say, where in thunder are we,

Jimmy?"

"Haven't you guessed yet, Travers?" asked Dodd, a spice of malice in his

voice.

"I suppose this is some sort of big hole on the site of the south pole,

with warm vapors coming up. Maybe a great fissure in the earth, or

something."

* * * * *

Jimmy Dodd's grin, seen in the half-light, was rather disconcerting.

"How far do you think we dropped just now?" Dodd asked.

"Why, I'd say several hundred yards," replied Tommy. "What's your

estimate?"

"Just about ten miles," answered Dodd.

"What? You're still crazy! Why, we slowed up!"

"Yeah," grinned Dodd, "we slowed up. We're inside the crust of the

world. That's the long and short of it. The earth we've known is just a

shell over our heads."

"Yeah? Walking head downward, are we? Then why don't we drop to the

center of the earth, you damn fool?"

"Because, my dear fellow, you can swing a pailful of water round your

head without spilling any of it. In other words, our old friend,

centrifugal force. The speed with which the earth is rotating, keeps us

on our feet, head downward. To be precise, the center of the earth's

gravity lies in the middle of the hollow sphere, of course, but the

counteraction of centrifugal force throws it outward to the middle of

the ten-mile crust. That's why we slowed down after we were half-way

through. We were moving against gravity."

"And what's up there, or down there, or whatever you call it?" asked

Tommy, pointing to what ought to have been the sky.

"Nothing. It's the center of the tennis ball, though I imagine it's

pretty near a vacuum when you get up a mile or so, owing to the speed of

the earth's rotation, which forces the heat into the shell."

"You mean to say you actually believe that stuff you've been handing

me?" asked Tommy, after a pause. "Then how did human beings get here,

and those damn beetles? And why's the grass red?"

* * * * *

"The grass is red because there's no sunlight to produce chlorophyll.

The inhabitants of the deep sea are red or black, almost invariably. In

the case of the humans, they've become bleached. My belief is that that

man and woman we saw, and those"--he pointed to the vague forms of human

beings, who moved across the grass, gathering something--"are survivors

of the primitive race that still exists as the Australians. Undoubtedly

one of the branches of the human stock originated in antarctica at a

time when it enjoyed a tropical temperature, and was the land bridge

between Australia and South America."

"And the--beetles?" asked Tommy.

"Ah, they go back to the days when nature was in a more grandiose

mood!" replied the archaeologist enthusiastically. "That's the most

wonderful discovery of the ages. The world will go crazy over them when

we bring back the first living specimens to the zoological parks of the

great cities.

"But," Dodd went on, speaking with still more enthusiasm, "of course,

this is only the beginning, Tommy. There are ten million species of

insects, according to Riley, and it is inevitable that there must be

hundreds of thousands of other survivals from the age of the great

saurians, perhaps even some of the saurians themselves. Who knows but

that we may discover the ancestor of the extinct monotremes, the

rhynchocephalia, the pterodactyls, hatch a brood of aepyornis eggs--"

"And," said Tommy tartly, "how are we going to get them back, apart from

the little problem of getting out of here ourselves?"

"Don't let's worry about that now," answered Dodd. "It will take ten

years of the hardest kind of labor even to begin a classification of the

inhabitants of this inner world. I could sit down for ever, and--"

But Jimmy Dodd rose to his feet as a pair of antenna whipped round his

neck and jerked him bodily upward.

* * * * *

One of the monster beetles was standing upright behind them, and by its

gestures it evidently meant that Dodd and Tommy were to join the crowd

of humans in the offing. As Dodd turned upon it with an indignant show

of fists, one of the antennae whipped off his fur coat and stung him

painfully with the bristle-like attachment at the end.

It was a painful moment when Dodd and Tommy realized that they were

powerless against the monstrous beetles. Tommy tried the uppercut with

which he had knocked out the deceased monster, but the quick jerks of

the present beetle's head were infinitely faster than the movements of

his fists, while the antenna had a whiplike quality about them that

speedily convinced him that discretion was the card to play.

Under the threat of the curling antenna, Tommy and Dodd moved in the

direction of the slowly circulating humans. Numerous tiny rodents, which

evidently kept the red grass short, scampered away under their feet. The

beetles made no further effort to force them on, but now they could see

that a number of the monsters were stationed at intervals around a wide

circle, keeping the humans in a single body.

"Good Lord!" ejaculated Tommy, stopping. "See what they're doing, Dodd?

They're herding us, like cowboys herd steers. Look at that!"

* * * * *

One of the herd, a male with a long beard, suddenly broke from the herd,

bawling, and flung himself upon a beetle guard. The antenna shot forth,

coiled around his neck, and hurled him a dozen feet to the ground, where

he lay stunned for a moment before arising and rejoining his companions.

"But what are they looking for?" demanded Dodd.

Tommy had not heard him. He had stopped in front of one of the luminous

trees and was plucking a fruit from it.

"Jimmy, ever see an apple before?" he asked. "If this isn't an apple,

I'll eat my head."

It certainly was an apple, and one of the largest and juiciest that

Tommy had ever tasted. It was the reddest apple he had ever seen, and

would have won the first prize at any agricultural fair.

"And look at this!" shouted Tommy, plucking an enormous luminous peach

from another tree.

They began munching slowly, then, seeing one of the beetle guards

approaching them, they moved into the midst of the crowd.

"Did you notice anything strange about those fruit trees?" inquired

Dodd, as he munched. "I'll swear they were monocotyledonous, which,

after all, is what one would expect. Still, to think that the

monocotyledons evolved the familiar drupes, or stone fruits, on a

parallel line to the dicotyledons is--amazing!"

A box on the ear like the kick of a mule's hoof jerked the last word

from his lips as he went sprawling. He got up, to see the girl standing

before him, intense disgust and anger on her face.

She snatched the fruits from the hands of the two Americans and hurled

them away. It was evident from her manner that she considered such diet

in the highest degree unclean and disgusting; also that she considered

herself charged with the duty of superintending Tommy's and Dodd's

education, but especially Dodd's.

* * * * *

Taking him by the arm, she propelled him into the midst of the groping

humans. She released him, stooped, and suddenly stood up, a shrimp about

eighteen inches long in her hand.

Towering over Dodd by six inches, she took his face in her hands and

began caressing him; then, seizing his jaws in her strong fingers, she

pried them apart, and popped the tail end of the shrimp into his mouth.

Dodd let out a yelp, and spat out the love-gift, to be rewarded with

another box on the ear by the young Amazon, while Tommy stood by,

convulsed with laughter, and yet in considerable trepidation, for fear

of being forced to share Dodd's fate.

For the girl was again holding out the tail end of the crustacean, and

Jim Dodd's jaws were slowly and reluctantly approaching it.

But suddenly there came an intervention as the strident rasping of

beetle legs was heard in the distance. Panic seized the human herd,

grovelling for shrimps in the sandy soil with its tufts of red grasses.

Milling in an uneasy mob, they cowered under the lashes of the antenna

of the beetle guards, which sacrificed their backs through their hair

garments whenever any of them tried to bolt.

Nearer and nearer came the beetles, louder and more penetrating the

shriek of their rasping legs. Now the swarm came into sight, rank after

rank of the shell-clad monsters, leaping fifteen feet at a bound with

perfect precision, until they had formed a solid phalanx all around the

humans.

* * * * *

Tommy heard sighs of despair, he heard muttering, and then he realized,

with deep thankfulness, that these human beings, degraded though they

were, had a speech of their own.

In the middle of the front line appeared a beetle a foot taller than the

rest. That it was either a king or queen was evident from the respect

paid it by the rest of the swarm. At its every movement a bodyguard of

beetles moved in unison, forming themselves in a group before it and on

either side.

There would have been something ludicrous about these movements, but for

the impression of horror that the swarm made upon Tommy and Jim Dodd.

Hitherto both had supposed that the hideous insects acted by blind

instinct, but now there could no longer be any doubt that they were

possessed of an organized intelligence.

* * * * *

The strident sounds grew louder. Already Tommy was beginning to discover

certain variations in them. It was dawning upon him that they formed a

language--and a perfectly intelligible one. For, as the note changed

about a half-semitone, two of the monsters left the side of their ruler

and reached the two men with three successive leaps.

Their movements left no doubt in either Tommy's or Dodd's mind what was

required. The two strode hastily toward the assemblage, and stopped as

the antenna of their guards came down in menacing fashion.

It was light enough for Tommy to see the face of the ruler of the

hellish swarm. And it required all his powers of will to keep from

collapsing from sheer horror at what he saw.

For, despite the close-fitting shell, the face of the beetle king was

the face of a man--a white man!

Jim Dodd's shriek rang out above the shrilling of the beetle-legs,

"Bram! It's you, it's you! My God, it's you, Bram!"