ne slowly, but the light from the lamp is becoming less
now. In a few seconds it will go out, and the Groles will come, and our
lives will be over. Perhaps for an instant before we die, we shall know
what the Groles are; or perhaps it happens so quickly we will never know
anything. This may be the better way. Nina trembles in my arms.

We wait in the blackness. The lamp has been out for many minutes but the
Groles have not come.

How can this be? Can the mind conceive that there are no such things as
Groles, that, like so many other things, they are only a lie of the
State?

These last words I write now.

The Groles are coming! We can hear their murmuring sounds through the
passages. We say goodbye to each other.

They are very close now--very--

* * * * *

ALVAREZ COUNTY DAILY RECORD

_Inhabitants of Earth's Interior Come to Alvarez_
by Franklin Williams, Staff Writer

Alvarez, May 9, 2204.--An almost unbelievable event of the greatest
significance not only to Alvarez, or the United States of the Western
Hemisphere, but to the entire world, occurred in our Alvarez County
yesterday. Visitors on the early morning tour through Alvarez Caverns,
came upon an astonishing spectacle. Two men and a young girl of
indescribable strangeness of manner and dress were seated on the floor
of Atom Cave. All were in the last stages of exhaustion and exposure,
and even the little light from the electric hand lamps seemed to blind
them. Fortunately, in the tour was Dr. and Mrs. Ferguson of New
Washington, and Dr. Ferguson, appraising himself rapidly of the
situation, led the trio out of the Caverns and drove them to Alvarez
Hospital. Dr. Ferguson says they seemed completely dazed and unable to
speak. They came with him without resistance.

After an examination by Dr. Stutfeldt of Alvarez Hospital which
completely confirmed Dr. Ferguson's earlier diagnosis, the strange
visitors were put in a darkened room, in which they surprisingly had no
difficulty seeing, and were given simple nourishment.

Late in the evening, after they had slept and rested for many hours,
they were questioned. In the presence of a distinguished group which
included Mayor Whitehead, Professor Lorraine Johnson (a very charming
young lady) of the Alvarez University, J. W. Wilson, Chairman of the
Alvarez Chamber of Commerce, and your reporter, they told an amazing,
but according to Professor Johnson, entirely credible stor