Part 6 (2/2)

The gully was an unmistakable landmark--open at one end, forty feet long, with the other end terminating in a blind wall which now loomed above us.

”A pit is here--a hole. I cannot tell just how large it will look when we are in this size.”

We found it and stood over it--a foot-wide circular hole extending downward. Alan knelt and shoved his hand and arm into it, but Glora sprang at him.

”Don't do that!”

”Why not? How deep is it?”

She retorted sharply, ”The Doctor Polter is ahead of us. How far away in size, who knows? Do you want to crush him, and crush that young girl with him?”

Alan's jaw dropped. ”Good Lord!”

We stood with the little pit before us, and another of the pellets ready.

”Now!” said Glora.

Again we took the drug, a somewhat larger pellet this time. The familiar sensations began. Everywhere the rocks were creeping with a slow inexorable movement, the landscape expanding around us. The gully walls drew back and upward. In a moment they were cliff walls and we were in a broad valley.

We had been standing close together. We had not moved, except to s.h.i.+ft our feet as the expanding ground drew them apart. I became aware that Alan and Glora were a distance from me. Glora called:

”Come, George! We're going down--quickly now.”

We ran to the pit. It had expanded to a great round hole some six feet wide and equally as deep. Glora let herself down, peered anxiously beneath her, and dropped. Alan and I followed. We jammed the pit; but as we stood there, the walls were receding and lifting.

I had remarked Glora's downward glance, and shuddered. Suppose, in some slightly smaller size, Babs had been among these rocks!

The pit widened steadily. The movement was far swifter now. We stood presently in a great circular valley. It seemed fully a mile in diameter, with huge encircling walls like a crater rim towering thousands of feet into the air. We ran along the base of one expanding wall, following Glora.

I noticed now that overhead the turgid murk had turned into the blue of distance. A sky. It was faintly sky-blue, and seemed hazy, almost as though clouds were forming. It had been cold when we started. The exertion had kept us fairly comfortable; But now I realized that it was far warmer. This was different air, more humid, and I thought the smell of moist earth was in it. Rocks and boulders were strewn here on the floor of this giant valley, and I saw occasional pools of water. There had been rain recently!

The realization came with a shock of surprise. This was a new world! A faint, luminous twilight was around us. And then I noticed that the light was not altogether coming from overhead. It seemed inherent to the rocks themselves. They glowed, very faintly luminous, as though phosph.o.r.escent.

We were now well embarked upon this strange journey. We seldom spoke.

Glora was intent upon guiding us. She was trying to make the best possible speed. I realized that it was a case of judgment, as well as physical haste. We had dropped into that six-foot pit. Had we waited a few moments longer, the depth would have been a hundred feet, two hundred, a thousand! It would have involved hours of arduous descent--if we had lingered until we were a trifle smaller!

We took other pellets. We traveled perhaps an hour more. There were many instances of Glora's skill. We squeezed into a gully and waited until it widened; we leapt over expanding caverns; we slid down a smooth yellowish slide of rocks, and saw it behind and over us, rising to become a great spreading ramp extending upward into the blue of the sky.

Now, up there, little sailing white clouds were visible. And down where we stood it was deep twilight, queerly silvery with the dim light from the luminous rocks, as though some hidden moon were s.h.i.+ning.

Strange, new world! I suddenly envisaged the full strangeness of it.

Around me were spreading miles of barren, naked landscape. I gazed off to where, across the rugged plateau we were traversing, there was a range of hills. Behind and above them were mountains; serrated tiers; higher and more distant. An infinite spread of landscape! And, as we dwindled, still other vast reaches opened before us. I gazed overhead.

Was it--compared to my stature now--a thousand miles, perhaps even a million miles up to where we had been two or three hours ago? I thought so.

Then suddenly I caught the other viewpoint. This was all only an inch of golden quartz--if one were large enough to see it that way!

Alan had been trying to memorize the main topographical features of our route. It was not as difficult as it seemed at first. We were always far larger than normal in comparison to our environment, and the main distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristics of the landscape were obvious--the blind gully, with the round pit, for instance, or the ramp slide.

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