id creatures which slimed upon the
windows and crawled to their rocky haunts, or fought claw to claw in
the sight of their enemy, man? Desperate as the plight was, I must
stand a minute before the crystal panes and watch that changing
spectacle of the sea's own wonders. The very water was so near that
I thought I had but to stretch out a hand to touch it. The weird,
wild things that crept over the rocks, surely they would enter this
room presently! And Czerny could live here, cheek by jowl with
these fearsome mysteries! Again I say that man knows little of his
fellow-man, of his better nature or his worse.

_The same day. At five o'clock._

We open the lower doors and go down into the galleries. Seven men are
with me and each carries a musket. The quest is not so much for those
shut down in the pit as for the life which they may send up to us.
Doctor Gray has put it in a word, and it is true. The great engine,
which draws the air from the sea's brink and drives it out in
life-giving currents through the corridors of Czerny's house, that
engine alone stands between us and eternity this day. If those below
have kept that engine going until this time, it is for their own
safety's sake. Rob them of food and drink, and what security have we
that they will continue at the task? And yet, the deed be my witness,
it was a perilous journey. No man in our company could say surely how
many of Czerny's crew he would find in the black labyrinth we must
face. No man could speak of the hidden mysteries lurking in passage or
cavern, far from the sea-gate and the sun's light. We were going into
the unknown; and we went with timorous steps, each asking himself,
"Shall I live to see the day again?" each saying to the other, "Stand
close!"

Now, the knocking had ceased when we opened the gates, and we stood for
a little while peering down into that corridor, which I have named
already as the backbone of the lower house. Lighted it was, the lamps
still burning, its barred doors shut, its branching passages suggesting
a hive of rocky nests which might harbour an army of desperadoes. No
sound came up to us from below save the sound of the engine throbbing,
throbbing, as it fanned a breath of life and drove it upwards to us
fresh and sweet upon our faces. Whoever lurked in that abyss feared to
show himself or to cry a truce. We were hedged about by black mystery,
and, rifle in hand, we set out to learn the truth.

There were lamps in the c