“‘Damn these tremors anyway!’ I said, ‘If that one has succeeded in scaring off Noskat and Shan I won’t be surprised.’
“We peered down and saw them on the ice near the tents. They were on their knees, gesticulating in terror up toward us and the mountain. They made frantic motions for us to return.
“We shook our heads and Travis gestured sharply to them, ordering them to remain where they were. Their terror subsided a little, and he turned to us.
‘“They’ll stay there, I think—they’re more afraid to go back to the ship without us than to stay. But we’d best not stay up here too long ourselves.’
“Skeel had turned and was staring into the opening in the mountain’s side, at whose edge we stood. ‘Lord, look at this!’ he exclaimed.
“We looked and were petrified with astonishment. The opening in which we stood was the mouth of a round tunnel that slanted straight back and downward into the mountain’s mighty mass.
“This tunnel was thirty feet in diameter and ran inward toward the mountain’s centre in a slight downward grade, as straight as though it had been gouged by a huge punch.
“There was no ice in the tunnel, though a steady current of air rushed down it. We examined the black rock of its walls quickly, then again with mounting excitement. It was a geologist’s nightmare. This mountain’s rock was stratumless, a smooth black rock that might have come from earth’s innermost mass!
“‘I’ll say we’ve found something here!’ cried Travis excitedly. ‘Why, this rock is pre-igneous even—it’s a kind of rock geology’s not even heard of!’
“‘But this opening, this tunnel leading down into the mountain?’ I asked. ‘What could have formed it?’
“‘God knows, Landon. But the other openings we saw in the mountain’s ice-sides must be the mouths of similar tunnels! And they must lead down to some central opening or space, for there are air-currents in this one!’
“Travis unhooked from his belt his flat metal electric torch and sent its ray down the dark tunnel’s length. The quivering little beam wavered down through the next few hundred feet of the tunnel but showed only the same smooth, black rock sides.
“‘The only way we’ll find out what this tunnel leads to down there is to follow it and see,’ said Travis. ‘Come on, you two.’
“We started down the tunnel. Its grade was not steep enough to make it perilous, though its floor, like its sides, was so smooth as to make footing difficult. We had a hard time to keep our footing when, a moment or so later, there came another tremor that swayed the mountain so that the tunnel’s floor seemed to pitch beneath us.
“By then we were too excited over the geological strangeness of the tunnel and the black rock and the whole mountain to mind the tremor. We pressed on, Travis’s quivering beam preceding us, with the circle of white light that was the tunnel’s mouth dwindling and disappearing behind and above us. We paid no more attention to another tremor that shook us a few moments later, or to still another that followed that one closely.
“Within a quarter of an hour we had followed the tunnel downward for a half-mile and had found that it curved slightly now instead of running straight as heretofore, but led still in a general direction down toward the mountain’s centre. By then, too, the tremors and quakings of the mountain and earth around it had become practically continuous.
“The tunnel’s walls were swaying unceasingly around us, not violently but noticeably, and the sound of these continued earth-movements was now a tremendous monotone of rumblings and mutterings from far beneath. The strangeness of these continued tremors penetrated through even our excitement and we stopped in the tunnel’s curve we were passing through, Travis flashing his beam ahead and behind.
“‘Damn queer, all these tremors at once!’ he exclaimed. ‘They seem to be getting worse, too.’
“‘I’m beginning to think this whole mountain is queer,’ Skeel said. ‘Tell me, have you two felt anything?’
“We stared at him. We had experienced with increasing strength a sensation so strange that neither Travis nor I had mentioned it. It was a sense of a tangible and powerful force that flooded out over and through us from ahead, a tingling force that had a strange effect upon my will.
“I cannot describe that effect better than by saying that the farther down into the tunnel we went, the more did my own will and personality seem shared or usurped by some will or force utterly alien and different. In other words, that as I went on I was not only Clark Landon but something or a part of something vast and strange, whose will partly replaced Clark Landon’s will in me.
“‘I’ve felt it, yes,’ I told Skeel. ‘But I didn’t know you had. You too, Travis?’
“Travis nodded puzzledly. ‘I’ve felt it also. There must be some centre of radioactive or electrical force down in this mountain and the closer we get to it the more it affects us.’
“‘But what about the tremors?’ Skeel asked. ‘Can we go on in the face of them and this other thing?’
“‘The devil with the tremors,’ said Travis impatiently. ‘There’s something tremendous down inside this mountain and I say we go on, tremors or no tremors.’
“‘What do you think, Landon?’ Skeel asked me. I looked doubtfully from him to Travis.
“‘After all, we’ve been in worse tremors than these,’ I said, ‘and I think Travis is right when he says there must be something tremendous down in this mountain.’
“‘I think there is, myself,’ said Skeel, ‘and I think that with these tremors it’s warning us back!’
“‘Oh, rot!’ said Travis. ‘Are you going to start that silly notion of Noskat’s about earth’s brain being down here?’
“‘No, I’m with you two if you want to go on,’ Skeel said.
“‘Then on it is!’ I said. ‘We can’t go a great deal farther, anyway, for we can’t spend too long a time down here.’
“We resumed our interrupted progress. The tunnel curved on downward, toward the mountain’s heart. The currents of air still rushed down it unceasingly, making me wonder, as we went on, whether what thing of force was down here somehow drew or attracted those air-currents, through this and the other tunnels leading up to the mountain’s sides.
“The tremors were somewhat more violent and it was evident that the whole mountain must be shaking. We moved on without commenting on them, though. It was hard work to keep our footing on the smooth, swaying floor of the tunnel and we were thrown continually against its sides, sometimes with force. But we held to our downward progress, drawn by the mystery we were now sure this mountain held.
“For the strange force that beat upon us from ahead with increasing strength as we went on could only be mysterious and unheard of to our science, so strange it seemed. The sensation as of the impact of a colossal will was stronger and stronger. Can you imagine a will so mighty that mere nearness to it makes one feel its power as tangible force? That is what this alien force inside the mountain felt like to us.
“Skeel’s face was becoming grave and even Travis seemed troubled as we went doubtfully on. The tremors by then had become really terrible, great roarings and shakings that swayed the tunnel’s walls about us. But now so strange was everything, so dazing that vast, enigmatic force that beat stronger upon us from ahead, that we paid small attention.
“We rounded another long curve in the downward-slanting tunnel and saw ghostly, glowing light ahead in it, heard a soft roar of steady sound over the grinding crash of shifting rock. Like puppets drawn by forces outside us, we pressed onward toward the light. As we neared it the impact of strange forces from ahead was almost stunning. There came a great last tremor that almost flung us from our feet. But even Skeel did not mind it, since in the moment it came we had reached the glowing light, had emerged suddenly from the dark tunnel into a great, glowing-lit space.