es top-high. Diminish pressure--diminish speed. The
curve of this--dashboard--here sends the wind shooting up over our
heads--like a windshield. What's behind you?"

I flashed the light back. The mechanism on which we were ended in
another wall exactly similar to that over which O'Keefe crouched.

"Well, we can't fall out, anyway," he laughed. "Wish to hell I knew
where the brakes were! Look out!"

We dropped dizzily down an abrupt, seemingly endless slope; fell--fell
as into an abyss--then shot abruptly out of the blackness into a
throbbing green radiance. O'Keefe's fingers must have pressed down
upon the controls, for we leaped forward almost with the speed of
light. I caught a glimpse of luminous immensities on the verge of
which we flew; of depths inconceivable, and flitting through the
incredible spaces--gigantic shadows as of the wings of Israfel, which
are so wide, say the Arabs, the world can cower under them like a
nestling--and then--again the living blackness!

"What was that?" This from Larry, with the nearest approach to awe
that he had yet shown.

"Trolldom!" croaked the voice of Olaf.

"Chert!" This from Marakinoff. "What a space!"

"Have you considered, Dr. Goodwin," he went on after a pause, "a
curious thing? We know, or, at least, is it not that nine out of ten
astronomers believe, that the moon was hurled out of this same region
we now call the Pacific when the earth was yet like molasses; almost
molten, I should say. And is it not curious that that which comes from
the Moon Chamber needs the moon-rays to bring it forth; is it not? And
is it not significant again that the stone depends upon the moon for
operating? Da! And last--such a space in mother earth as we just
glimpsed, how else could it have been torn but by some gigantic
birth--like that of the moon? Da! I do not put forward these as
statements of fact--no! But as suggestions--"

I started; there was so much that this might explain--an unknown
element that responded to the moon-rays in opening the moon door; the
blue Pool with its weird radioactivity, and the force within it that
reacted to the same light stream--

It was not inconceivable that a film had drawn over the world wound, a
film of earth-flesh which drew itself over that colossal abyss after
our planet had borne its satellite--that world womb did not close
when her shining child sprang forth--it was possible; and all that we
know of earth depth is four miles of her e