But the light, though brighter, was not the light of the sun. Jack could tell, by the echoes of the trickling waters and of the murmur of voices, that he was still underground. The strange green light shone from around a nearby bend in the cavern, and glinted curiously off parts of the walls.
Before doing anything else, Jack slipped back into the water, swam back through the sump, retrieved his boots and clothes, and then returned to the glowing cavern. He got dressed and then crept toward the light on hands and knees, trying but failing to control a violent shiver. The glint he’d noticed earlier turned out to come from a patch of clear crystals, the size of fingers, growing out of a wall-diamonds! He had entered into some place of fabulous riches. The walls were fuzzy with gems. Perhaps the light was green because it was shining through a giant emerald?
Then he came round a bend and was nearly struck blind by a smooth disk of brilliant green light, flat on the floor of a roundish chamber. As his eyes adjusted he could see that a circle of persons-or of something- stood around the edge, dressed in outlandish and bizarre costumes.
In the center stood a figure in a long robe, a hood drawn over his head, enclosing his face in shadow, though the light shone upwards against chin and cheek-bones to give him a death’s-head appearance, and it glinted in his eyes.
A voice spoke out in French-Eliza’s voice! She was angry, distressed-the others turned towards her. This was Hell, or Hell’s side entrance, and the demons had captured Eliza-or perhaps she was dead- dead because of Jack’s failure to return with medicine-and she was at this moment being inducted-
Jack plunged forth, drawing his sword, but when he set foot on the green disk it gave way beneath him and he burst through it-suddenly he was swimming in green light. But there was solid rock underneath. He jumped back up, knee-deep in the stuff, and hollered, “Let her go, ye demons! Take me instead!”
They all screamed and ran away, including Eliza.
Jack looked down to find his clothes saturated with green light.
The hooded figure was the only one left. He sloshed calmly up out of the pool, opened a dark-lantern, took out a burning match, and went round igniting some torchieres stuck into the ground all around. Their light was infinitely brighter, and made the green light vanish. Jack was standing in a brown puddle and his clothes were all wet.
Enoch pulled the hood back from his head and said, “What was really magnificent about that entrance, Jack, was that, until the moment you rose up out of the pool all covered in phosphorus, you were invisible-you just seemed to materialize, weapon in hand, with that Dwarf-cap, shouting in a language no one understands. Have you considered a career in the theatre?”
Jack was still too puzzled to take umbrage at this. “Who, or what, were those-?”
“Wealthy gentlefolk who, until just moments ago, were thinking of buying Kuxen from Doctor Leibniz.”
“But-their freakish attire, their bizarre appearance-?”
“The latest fashions from Paris.”
“Eliza sounded distressed.”
“She was interrogating the Doctor-demanding to know just what this conjuror’s trick, as she called it, had to do with the viability of the mine.”
“But why even bother with mining silver, when the walls of this cavern are encrusted with diamonds?”
“Quartz.”
“What is the glowing stuff anyway, and while I’m on that subject, what does it have to do with the mine?”
“Phosphorus, and nothing. Come, Jack, let’s get you out of those wet clothes before you burst into flame.” Enoch began leading Jack down a side-passage. Along the way they passed a large item of machinery that was making loud booming and sucking noises as it pumped water out of the mine. Here Enoch prevailed on Jack to strip and bathe.
Enoch said, “I don’t suppose that this story shall ever be told in the same admiring way as the Strasbourg Plague House Takeover and the Bohemian Carp Feast.”
“What!? How did you know about those?”
“I travel. I talk to Vagabonds. Word gets around. You might be interested to know that your achievements have been compiled into a picaresque novel entitled L’Emmerdeur, which has already been burnt in Paris and bootlegged in Amsterdam.”
“Stab me!” Jack for the first time began to think that Enoch’s friendly behavior toward him might be well-meaning, and not just an extremely subtle form of mockery. Enoch shouldered a six-inch-thick door open and led Jack into a windowless crypt, a vaulted room with a large table in the middle, candles, and a stove, which happened to look exactly like the sort of place Dwarves would inhabit. They sat down and started smoking and drinking. Presently the Doctor came in and joined them. Far from being outraged, he seemed relieved, as if he’d never wanted to be in the mining business anyway. Enoch gave the Doctor a significant look, which Jack was fairly sure meant I warned you not to involve Vagabonds, and the Doctor nodded.
“What are the, er, investors doing?” Jack asked.
“Standing up above in the sunlight-the females trying to outdo each other in swooning, the males engaging in a learned dispute as to whether you were an enraged Dwarf come to chase us away from his hoard, or a demon from Hell come to seize us.”
“And Eliza? Not swooning I assume.”
“She is too busy receiving the compliments, and credentials, of the others, who are all dumbfounded by her acumen.”
“Ah, then it’s possible she won’t kill me.”
“Far from it, Jack, the girl is blushing, she is radiant, and not in a dipped-in-phosphorus sense.”
“Why?”
“Because, Jack, you volunteered to be taken down into eternal torment in place of her. This is the absolute minimum (unless I’m mistaken) that any female requires from her man.”
“So that’s what they’re all after,” Jack mused.
Eliza backed through the door, unable to use her arms, which were hugging a bundle of letters of introduction, visiting-cards, bills of exchange, scraps with scrawled addresses, and small purses a-clink with miscellaneous coinage. “We’ve missed you, Jack,” she said, “where’ve you been?”
“Running an errand-meeting some locals-partaking of their rich traditions,” Jack said. “Can we get out of Germany now, please?”
Trade, like Religion, is what every Body talks of, but few understand: The very Term is dubious, and in its ordinary Acceptation, not sufficiently explain’d.
-DANIELDEFOE,A Plan of the English Commerce
“IF NOTHING HAPPENS INAMSTERDAM,save that everything going into it, turns round and comes straight back out-“
“Then there must be nothing else there, ” Eliza finished.
Neither one of them had ever been to Amsterdam-yet. But the amount of stuff moving toward that city, and away from it, on the roads and canals of the Netherlands, was so vast that it made Leipzig seem like a smattering of poor actors in the background of a play, moving back and forth with a few paltry bundles to create the impression of commerce. Jack had not seen such bunching-together of people and goods since the onslaught on Vienna. But that had only happened once, and this was continuous. And he knew by reputation that what came in and out of Amsterdam over land, compared to what was carried on ships, was a runny nose compared to a river.