he thought it likely that man's handiwork
had only turned Nature's to account.

The fissure had probably been there from the beginning of time, or it
might be the result of numberless years of the slow wearing away of a
softer vein of rock, but some man at some time had lighted on it, and
followed it up, and with much labour had smoothed its natural asperities
and used it for his own purposes. And he was keen to learn what those
purposes were.

To any ordinary man, accustomed to the ordinary amplitudes of life, and
freedom to stretch his arms and legs and raise his head and fill his
lungs with fresh air, a passage such as this would have been impossible.
Here and there, indeed, the walls widened somewhat through some fault in
the rook, bur for the most part his elbows grazed the sides each time he
moved them.

Even he, used as he was to such conditions, began at last to feel them
oppressive. The whole mighty bulk of L'Etat seemed above and about him,
malignantly intent on crushing him out of existence.

He knew that was only fancy. He had experienced it many times before.
But the nightmare feeling was there, and it needed all his will at times
to keep him from a panic attempt at retreat, when the insensate
rock-walls seemed absolutely settling down on him, and breathing was
none too easy.

But going back meant literally going backwards, crawling out toes
foremost; for his elbows scraped the walls and his head the roof, and
turning was out of the question. The men who had made and used that
narrow way had undoubtedly gone with a purpose, and not for pleasure.
And he was bound to learn what that purpose was.

So he set his teeth, and wormed himself slowly along, with pinched face
and tight-shut mouth, and nostrils opened wide to take in all the air
they could and let out as little as possible. And, even at that, he had
to lie still at times, pressed flat against the floor, to let some
fresher air trickle in above him.

But at last he came to what he sought, though no whit of it could he see
when he got there. By the sudden cessation of the pressure on his sides
and head, he was aware of entrance into a larger space, and, with
forethought quickened by the exigences of his passage, he lay for a
moment to pant more freely and to think.

His body was in the passage. He knew where the passage led out to. What
lay ahead he could not tell.

If it was a chamber, as he expected, there might quite possibly be other
pas