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Updated: May 2, 2025
"I can't get down there!" shouted Johnston, to make himself heard above a sudden increase in the roaring in the chasm, "there is no way." "Wait a moment!" came from the Alphian. "This ledge seems to incline upward." Johnston stood perfectly motionless, afraid to move from the ledge either to right or to left, and heard Branasko's footsteps along the rock beneath.
"Good," cried the Alphian, trying to catch his breath, which Johnston had knocked out of him by the fall. "You did better than I; you are lighter." "Where shall we go now?" asked Johnston, regaining his feet and feeling of his legs and arms to see if he had broken any bones. "Down this winding path to the place where I saw that light. I want to understand it. But you must first eat this fish.
"My God! what have I done?" gasped the American in alarm. "Settled our fate, I have no doubt," muttered the Alphian from the darkness. Johnston had recoiled from the whirling wheel, and now cautiously groped back to it, and attempted to turn it. It would not move. "It has caught some way," he groaned under his breath.
After they had walked about the room for some minutes, the Alphian pointed to a half-open door and a staircase at one side of the room. "I think it leads to some sort of observatory on top," he said. "I have heard that when the royal family makes this voyage they are fond of looking out from it. Suppose we see." Johnston acquiesced, and Branasko opened the door.
"There are two of us and one of him," grimly replied the brawny Alphian. Johnston shuddered. "Let's not commit murder in any emergency," he said. "It would not be murder; every man has a right to save his own life." Nothing more was said just then, for the footsteps were growing nearer. The man was descending.
"The Lake of Flame!" echoed the American, "What is that?" "It is where all of the dead of Alpha is cast by the black 'vultures of death." Johnston said nothing, for it was difficult to keep up with the Alphian, who was bounding over rocks and dangerous fissures toward the red glow in the distance. At every step the atmosphere got warmer, and they detected a slight gaseous odor in the air.
Johnston was too much puzzled to formulate a reply, and he simply waited for the Alphian to continue. "Let's go on," said Branasko; and in his tone and hesitating manner Johnston detected the first appearance of superstitious fear that he had seen in the brawny Alphian. As Thorndyke watched the flying machine that was bearing his friend away a genuine feeling of pity went over him. Poor Johnston!
At certain points the hot wind dashed upon them as furiously as the whirling mist in 'The Cave of Winds' at Niagara Falls. Once Johnston's foot slipped and he fell, but was drawn back to safety by the strong arm of the Alphian. "Be careful; hold to the cliff's face," warned Branasko indifferently, and he moved onward as if nothing unusual had occurred.
"But it has been so for a century," he panted; "hundreds have been unjustly buried alive here. The king thinks it is not murder because they die of starvation. I have stumbled over the bones of giants here in the dark lands, and have met dying men that are stronger than the king's athletes." "What, are there others here?" gasped the American. The Alphian was silent in astonishment.
Slowly and majestically it swept over the rocky earth, followed by the crowd, till it reached a great hole and sank into it. "Gone into the tunnel," said the Alphian, as the crowd disappeared behind the cliff. "What are we to do now?" asked Johnston. "We certainly can't go through with the sun." "Wait till the next trip," grimly replied Branasko.
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