Page:Clement Fezandié - Through the Earth.djvu/232

212 the microphone they were afterward increased to their normal volume.

Accordingly, when our hero put his ear to the instrument he could plainly hear all that was passing around him. He listened with an anxiety that may be readily conceived, and his face paled a little when through the instrument was borne to his ears an ominous rumbling and grumbling like the muttering of distant thunder. There was no mistaking the significance of that sound: it meant that some mighty internal commotion was taking place at the center of the earth, and that it portended danger to him. And as he listened the sound became louder and louder, until he seemed to be in the very midst of a battle, with heavy pieces of artillery thundering on all sides.

To depict our hero's feelings as he listened to these ominous sounds would not be easy. A hundred conflicting thoughts rushed through his mind; but he felt the need of prompt decision, and resolved above all things that he must reach the walls of the car in order to be ready for action when the time came.

"If I only had Dr. Giles here to advise me what to do," he exclaimed, "there might be some hope left; but thrown as I am entirely upon my own