Great Stone of Sardis

by Frank Richard Stockton

  CHAPTER XIV. A REGION OF NOTHINGNESS

  In the office of the Works at Sardis, side by side at the table onwhich stood the telegraph instrument, Margaret Raleigh and Roland Clewe,receiving the daily reports from the Dipsey, had found themselves insuch sympathy and harmony with the party they had sent out on thisexpedition that they too, in fancy, had slowly groped their way underthe grim overhanging ice out into the open polar sea. They too had stoodon the deck of the vessel which had risen like a spectre out of thewaters, and in the cold, clear atmosphere had gazed about them at thishitherto unknown part of the world. They had thrilled with enthusiasticexcitement when the ring on the deck of the Dipsey was placed over theactual location of the pole; they had been filled with anger when theyheard of the conduct of Rovinski; and their souls had swelled with anoble love of country and pride in their own achievements when theyheard that they, by their representative, had made the north pole apart of their native land. They had listened, scarcely breathing, to thestirring account of the anchoring of the great buoy to one end of theearth's axis, and they had exclaimed in amazement at the announcementthat in the lonely waters of the pole whales were still to be found,when they were totally unknown in every other portion of the earth.

  But now the stirring events in the arctic regions which had so heldand enthralled them day by day had, after a time, ceased. Mr. Gibbswas engaged in making experiments, observations, and explorations,the result of which he would embody in carefully prepared reports, andSammy's daily message promised to be rather monotonous. Roland Clewefelt the great importance of a thorough exploration and examinationof the polar sea. The vessel he had sent out had reached this hithertoinaccessible region, but it was not at all certain that another voyage,even of the same kind, would be successful. Consequently he advisedthose in charge of the expedition not to attempt to return until theresults of their work were as complete as possible. Should the arcticnight overtake them before they left the polar sea, this would notinterfere with their return in the same manner in which they had gonenorth, for in a submarine voyage artificial light would be necessaryat any season. So, for a tune, Roland and Margaret withdrew in a greatmeasure their thoughts from the vicinity of the pole, and devotedthemselves to their work at home.

  When Roland Clewe had penetrated with his Artesian ray as deeply intothe earth beneath him as the photic power of his instrument would admit,he had applied all the available force of his establishment--the menworking in relays day and night--to the manufacture of the instrumentswhich should give increased power to the penetrating light, which hehoped would make visible to him the interior structure of the earth, upto this time as unknown to man as had been the regions of the poles.

  Roland had devoted a great deal of time to the arrangement of a systemof reflectors, by which he hoped to make it possible to look down intothe cylinder of light produced by the Artesian ray without projectingany portion of the body of the observer into the ray. This had been doneprincipally to provide against the possibility of a shock to Margaret,such as he received when he beheld a man with the upper part of his bodytotally invisible, and a section of the other portion laid bare to theeye of a person standing in front of it. But his success had not beensatisfactory. It was quite different to look directly down into thatmagical perforation at his feet, instead of studying the reflection ofthe same, indistinctly and uncertainly revealed by a system of mirrors.

  Consequently the plan of reflectors was discarded, and Roland determinedthat the right thing to do was to take Margaret into his confidence andexplain to her why he and she should not stand together and look downthe course of the Artesian ray. She scolded him for not telling her allthis before, and a permanent screen was erected around the spot onwhich the ray was intended to work, formed of Venetian blinds with fixedslats, so that the person inside could readily talk and consult withothers outside without being seen by them.

  As might well be supposed, this work with the "photic borer," as Clewenow called his instrument, was of absorbing interest. For a day or twoafter it was again put into operation Margaret and Roland could scarcelytear themselves away from it long enough for necessary sleep and meals,and several persons connected with the Works were frequently permittedto witness its wonderful operations.

  Down, down descended that cylinder of light, until it had passed throughall the known geological strata in that part of New Jersey, and hadreached subterranean depths known to Clewe only by comparison andtheory.

  The apparent excavation had extended itself down so far that the diskat the bottom, although so brightly illuminated, was no longer clearlyvisible to the naked eye, and was rapidly decreasing in size on accountof the perspective. But the telescopes which Clewe had provided easilyovercame this difficulty. He was sure that it would be impossiblefor his light to penetrate to a depth which could not be made clearlyvisible by his telescopes.

  It was a wonderful and weird sensation which came over those who stood,glass in hand, and gazed down the track of the Artesian ray. Far, farbelow them they saw that illuminated disk which revealed the characterof the stratum which the light had reached. And yet they could not seethe telescope which they held in their hands; they could not see theirhands; they knew that their heads and shoulders were invisible. Allobservers except Clewe kept well back from the edge of the frightfulhole of light down which they peered; and once, when the weight of thetelescope which she held had caused Margaret to make an involuntary stepforward, she gave a fearful scream, for she was sure she was going tofall into the bowels of the earth. Clewe, who stood always near by, withhis hand upon the lever which controlled the ray, instantly shut offthe light; and although Margaret was thus convinced that she stood uponcommonplace ground, she came from within the screen, and did not forsome time recover from the nervous shock occasioned by this accident ofthe imagination.

  Clewe himself took great pleasure in making experiments connected withthe relation of the observer to the action of the Artesian ray. Forinstance, he found that when standing and gazing down into the greatphotic perforation below him, he could see into it quite as well when heshut his eyes as when they were open; the light passing through his headmade his eyelids invisible. He stood in the very centre of the circle oflight and looked down through himself.

  That this application of light which he had discovered would be of thegreatest possible service in surgery, Roland Clewe well knew. By totallyeliminating from view any portion of the human body so as to expose asection of said body which it was desirable to examine, the interiorstructure of a patient could be studied as easily as the exterior, anda surgeon would be able to dissect a living being as easily as if thesubject were a corpse. But Clewe did not now wish to make public theextraordinary adaptations of his discovery to the uses of the medicalman and the surgeon. He was intent upon discovering, as far as waspossible, the internal structure of the earth on which he dwelt, andhe did not wish to interfere at present with this great and absorbingobject by distracting his mind with any other application of hisArtesian ray.

  It is not intended to describe in detail the various stages of theprogress of the Artesian ray into the subterranean regions. Sometimesit revealed strata colored red, yellow, or green by the presence ofiron ore; sometimes it showed for a short distance a glittering disk,produced by the action of the light upon a deep-sunken reservoir ofwater; then it passed on, hour by hour, down, down into the eternalrocks.

  When the Artesian ray had begun to work its way through the rocks,Margaret became less interested in observing its progress. Nothing newpresented itself; it was one continual stony disk which she saw whenshe looked down into the shaft of light beneath her. Observation wasbecoming more and more difficult even to Roland Clewe, and at last hewas obliged to set up a large telescope on a stand, and mount a ladderin order to use it.

  Day after day the Artesian ray went downward, always revealing rock,rock, rock. The appliances for increased electric energy were workingwell, and Clewe was entirely satisfied with the operation of his photicbo
rer.

  One morning he came hurriedly to Margaret at her house, and announcedwith glistening eyes that his ray had now gone to a greater degree intothe earth than man had ever yet reached.

  "What have you found?" she asked, excitedly. "Rock, rock, rock," heanswered. "This little State of ours rests upon a firm foundation."

  Although Roland Clewe found his observations rather monotonous work, hewas regular and constant at his post, and gave little opportunity to hissteadily progressing cylinder of light to reach and pass unseen anythingwhich might be of interest.

  It was nearly a week after he had announced to Margaret that he had seendeeper into the earth than any man before him that he mounted his ladderto take his final observation for the night. When he looked through histelescope his eye was dazzled by a light which obliged him suddenly toclose it and lift his head. At first he thought that he had reached thefabulous region of eternal fire, but this he knew to be absurd; and,besides, the light was not that of fire or heated substances. It waspale, colorless; and although dazzling at first, he found, when verycautiously he applied his eye again to the telescope, that it was notblinding. In fact, he could look at it as steadily as he could upon aclear sky.

  But, gaze as he would, he could see nothing--nothing but light; subdued,soft, beautiful light. He knew the ray was passing steadily downward,for the mechanism was working with its accustomed regularity, but itrevealed to him nothing at all. He could not understand it; his brainwas dazed. He thought there might be something the matter with hiseyesight. He got down from the ladder and hurriedly sent for Margaret,and when she came he begged her to look through the telescope and tellhim what she saw. She went inside the screen, ascended the ladder, andlooked down.

  "It isn't anything," she called out presently. "It looks like lighterair; it can't be that. Perhaps there is something the matter with yourtelescope."

  Clewe had thought of that, and as soon as she came out he examined theinstrument, but the lenses were all right. There was nothing the matterwith the telescope.

  That night Roland Clewe spent in the lens-house, almost constantly atthe telescope, but nothing did he see but a disk of soft, white light.

  "The world can't be hollow!" he said to Margaret the next morning. "Itcan't be filled with air, or nothing, and my ray would not illuminateair or nothing. I cannot understand it. If you did not see what I see, Ishould think I was going crazy."

  "Don't talk that way," exclaimed Margaret. "This may be some cavitywhich the ray will soon pass through, and then we shall come to the goodold familiar rock again."

  But Clewe could not be consoled in this way. He could see no reason whyhis ray acting upon the emptiness of a cavern should produce the effecthe beheld. Moreover, if the ray had revealed a cavern of considerableextent he could not expect that it could now pass through it, for thelimit of its operations was almost reached. His electric cumulatorswould cease to act in a few hours more. The ray had now descended morethan fourteen miles--its limit was fifteen.

  Margaret was greatly troubled because of the effect of this result ofthe light borer upon Roland. His disappointment was very great, and itshowed itself in his face. His Artesian ray had gone down to a distancegreater than had been sometimes estimated as the thickness of theearth's crust, and the result was of no value. Roland did not believethat the earth had a crust. He had no faith in the old-fashioned ideathat the great central portion was a mass of molten matter, but he couldnot drive from his mind the conviction that his light had passed throughthe solid portion of the earth, and had emerged into something which wasnot solid, which was not liquid, which was in fact nothing.

  All his labors had come to this: he had discovered that the variousstrata near the earth's surface rested upon a vast bed of rock, and thatthis bed of rock rested upon nothing. Of course it was not impossiblethat the arrangement of the substances which make up this globe waspeculiar at this point, and that there was a great cavern fourteen milesbelow him; but why should such a cavern be filled with a light differentfrom that which would be shown by his Artesian ray when shining upon anyother substances, open air or solid matter?

  He could go no deeper down--at least at present. If he could make aninstrument of increased power, it would require many months to do it.

  "But I will do it," said he to Margaret. "If this is a cavern, and ifit has a bottom, I will reach it. I will go on and see what there isbeyond. On such a discovery as I have made one can pass no conclusionwhatever. If I cannot go farther, I need not have gone down at all."

  "No," said Margaret, "I don't want you to go on--at least at present;you must wait. The earth will wait, and I want you to be in a conditionto be able to wait also. You must now stop this work altogether. Stopdoing anything; stop thinking about it. After a time--say early inwinter--we can recommence operations with the Artesian ray; that is, ifwe think well to do so. You should stop this and take up something else.You have several enterprises which are very important and ought to becarried on. Take up one of them, and think no more for a few months ofthe nothingness which is fourteen miles below us."

  It was not difficult for Roland Clewe to convince himself that this wasvery good advice. He resolved to shut up his lens-house entirely fora time, and think no more of the great work he had done within it, butapply himself to something which he had long neglected, and which wouldbe a distraction and a recreation to his disappointed mind.