red
carelessly, leaving me wondering what on earth she meant.

We came to the statue and the sepulchre beneath without trouble, for the
glint of her hair, and I may add of Tommy's back, were quite sufficient
to guide us through the gloom. The crystal coffins were still there, for
Bastin flashed his torch and we saw them, but the boxes of radium had
gone.

"Let that light die," she said to Bastin. "Humphrey, give me your right
hand and give your left to Bickley. Let Bastin cling to him and fear
nothing."

We passed to the end of the tomb and stood against what appeared to be a
rock wall, all close together, as she directed.

"Fear nothing," she said again, but next second I was never more full
of fear in my life, for we were whirling downwards at a speed that would
have made an American elevator attendant turn pale.

"Don't choke me," I heard Bickley say to Bastin, and the latter's
murmured reply of:

"I never could bear these moving staircases and tubelifts. They always
make me feel sick."

I admit that for my part I also felt rather sick and clung tightly to
the hand of the Glittering Lady. She, however, placed her other hand
upon my shoulder, saying in a low voice:

"Did I not tell you to have no fear?"

Then I felt comforted, for somehow I knew that it was not her desire
to harm and much less to destroy me. Also Tommy was seated quite at his
ease with his head resting against my leg, and his absence of alarm was
reassuring. The only stoic of the party was Bickley. I have no doubt
that he was quite as frightened as we were, but rather than show it he
would have died.

"I presume this machinery is pneumatic," he began when suddenly and
without shock, we arrived at the end of our journey. How far we had
fallen I am sure I do not know, but I should judge from the awful speed
at which we travelled, that it must have been several thousand feet,
probably four or five.

"Everything seems steady now," remarked Bastin, "so I suppose this
luggage lift has stopped. The odd thing is that I can't see anything
of it. There ought to be a shaft, but we seem to be standing on a level
floor."

"The odd thing is," said Bickley, "that we can see at all. Where the
devil does the light come from thousands of feet underground?"

"I don't know," answered Bastin, "unless there is natural gas here, as I
am told there is at a town called Medicine Hat in Canada."

"Natural gas be blowed," said Bickley. "It is more like moonlig