hty may say, 'Why should you
mere worms of the earth dare to interfere between me and the sentence
I have passed against you and yours? I did not listen to the
entreaties of Lot, and now the Dead Sea covers the ruins of the city.
You men of Bondathal are not better than the men of Gomorrah.' Do you
understand me? I have often sought for the source of the spring
through the narrow winding paths of this cavern. These windings are so
narrow that one must sometimes press through them by mere force, at
other times creep along upon one's stomach. Great abysses yawn under
the feet; a fall down one of these would be fatal; we will have to
cling to the wall as we creep along. Again, we will pass through
stinking sewers, up to our elbows in putrid filth. All these clefts
and fissures have been made some time--God knows when--by an
earthquake which has caused the uprooting of the coal stratum. Now it
is quite possible that this last explosion has closed again many of
these clefts and opened others. If it has happened, as I surmise, that
the aperture has been shut which communicated between the pit beneath
us and the one above--if this has taken place, then we have a tank
full of water over our heads. If we, in our search through the bowels
of the earth, come upon this aperture, and accidentally break the
smallest hole, not the size of a pin's point, the water in the basin
over our heads will burst through and annihilate us; if we hear it
roaring we are already lost. But, on the other hand, it may be that
the explosion caused a rent in the upper cleft, and if so the water
has rushed through it to the lower basin under our feet. What we have
to do, whether we die in the search or not, is to find out where the
water is."

"I have no idea what you mean; all I know is that I am ready to go
with you."

"Then go home and take leave of your family, as if you were going a
long journey. Go to your priest and make your peace with God. Then
come back, and tell no one where we are going."

Ivan now made his own preparations. From this adventure he might never
return. He made his will. He bequeathed his mine to his workmen, his
money to Paul's family. This was an act of justice. If the old man
were killed, it was in a measure his, Ivan's, doing.

When this was all done he went out and took his leave of light and air
before going into the blackness of everlasting night. It was well
under the free air of heaven. The sky might be bluer elsewh