ses began.

While I was staring at this unearthly vista, still unable to think with
any coherence. I heard my name called. I turned to face Stanley and the
Professor.

* * * * *

Both were pale in the rose light, and Stanley limped with the pain of
his bruised leg: but both had recovered from their partial suffocation
as completely as had I.

"We thought perhaps you'd decided to swim back up to the _Rosa_ and
leave us to our fates," said Stanley after we had stopped pumping each
other's arms and had seated ourselves.

"And I thought--well, I didn't think much of anything," I replied. "I
was too busy straining my eyesight over the wonders of this city. Did
you ever see anything like it?"

"We haven't seen it at all, save for a view from the windows," said
Stanley. "All we know of the place is that a while ago we woke up in a
room like this, only much smaller and less lavish. I wonder why you rate
this distinction?"

I described the streets as I had seen them. (It is impossible for me to
think of them as anything but streets; it would seem as though the rock
roof over all would give the appearance of a series of tunnels; but I
had always the impression of airiness and openness.)

"Light and heat are furnished by natural gas," said the Professor when I
remarked on the perfection of these two necessities. "That's what makes
the low roaring noise--the thousands of burning jets. But the presence
of gas here isn't as unusual as the presence of air. Where does that
come from? Through wandering underground mazes, from some cave mouth in
the Fiji Islands to the north? That would indicate that all the earth
around here is honeycombed like a gigantic section of sponge. I
wonder--"

"Have you any idea how we were rescued?" I interrupted, a little
impatient of his abstract scientific ponderings.

"We have," said Stanley. "A woman told us. We woke up to find her
nursing us--gorgeous looking thing--finest woman I've ever seen, and
I've seen a good many--"

"She didn't exactly 'tell' us," remarked the Professor with his thin
smile. Women were only interesting to him as biological studies. "She
drew a diagram that explained it.

"That tunnel, Martin, was like the outer diving chamber of a submarine.
We were hauled in on a big windlass--driven by gas turbines, I think.
Once we were inside, a twenty-yard, counterbalanced wall of rock was
lowered across the entrance. Then the water was drained