Page:Melbourne and Mars.djvu/71

Rh rumbled and roared with crashing, deafening rock-pounding thunders. Bayonet-shaped streaks of white lightning all the time shooting towards us and passing the car. Steadily on we went, Brand never showing a sign of tremor, and the car going no slower nor quicker, but just straight on and down and down.

Darkness and silence again for about ten minutes, and then Brand says, 'We are at our journey's end for the present, but before leaving the car we must put on our head-pieces; without them we should not live a thousandth part of a second in such a storm as that we have just passed through. You have no need to be afraid as regards breathing; there is six hours store of air in that little knapsack.'

In a few moments we could only look at each other through a glass; we could not hear nor speak.

Brand touched me on the shoulder and gave Grayson some sign, and we looked round and saw that a cage had come from somewhere out of the deep, and we were invited to enter.

Down again and still down. I began to wonder if ever I should get to the surface and breathe the free air and see the sun again.

The cage stopped and Brand got out, and signed for us to follow. This we did, going erect and walking on a firm path. All the drives in the Martial mines are made secure, are well lit, and high enough and wide enough to permit free movement. We followed Brand for about a mile, and as we went we kept meeting little trucks running along a narrow railway. I could see that most of these trucks were laden with some kind of metal, but I did not try to find out what it was at that juncture.

When we had walked about a mile we turned down a side drive and went about two hundred yards further, and there we found several men cutting pieces out of a vast solid mass of bright yellow metal. The mass was all round them. They seemed to be in a chamber with metal walls, and to be just chopping away at the walls to make the room larger. I could then see that they were getting out such a solid mass of copper as has never been seen nor heard of in any of our mining annals before. Brand gave us each a piece, but could not say a word about it, and while we stood there several flashes of fire appeared to come out of the wall. Though men were working at the face they did not even turn away; the insulation of their bodies and tools being perfect there was nothing to fear. Sometimes, however, the mine is filled as with a mass of flame; there is then danger from heat.

Having shown us the working, and given us some idea of the vastness of the mass of pure copper to be out out, Brand led us back to the bottom of the shaft. He rang for a cage and sent word that men were coming up. This appeared to be customary, the cage giving an overhead protection.

Swiftly up we went, and I was not sorry to rise out of those stifling and