Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 3 (1927-03).djvu/118

 Drorathusa turned her look upon Rhodes and me and pointed down the cavern.

"Narranawnzee," she said.

We understood that and took a drink upon it.

Again Drorathusa pointed.

"Drome," said she.

That too we understood—that is, we thought we knew what she meant by Drome.

It was a few minutes past 7 (p. m.) when we reached the narranawnzee, a fine deep pool without any discoverable inlet or outlet, and there we halted for the night.

In this spot the Dromans had left a food-depot, and right glad were we to see this accession to the larder. There was also a supply of oil.

That evening (I find it convenient to use these inaccurate terms) I fished out my journal and carefully brought it forward, up to the hour, to the very minute. I felt blithe as a lark, and so, indeed, did everybody else, everybody save Drorathusa, and even she was somberly happy. I thought that our troubles were over!

Of a sudden Rhodes slapped down his journal and, to the surprize of the Dromans and, forsooth, to my own, made a dive at an oil-container, which Narkus had just emptied.

"At last—our depth, Bill!" he cried.

And he proceeded to ascertain the boiling point of water, the heat being furnished by Drorathusa's lamp and that of Siris, the older of the young women. Delphis, by the way, was the name of the other, the white-haired girl.

It was a strange, a striking picture truly—Milton Rhodes bending over his improvised hypogemeter, the Dromans looking on with curiosity, perplexity and strange questionings in their looks.

At last Rhodes was satisfied with the result, that it was as near accuracy as the circumstances would permit.

"We are," said he after computing for some moments in his journal, "at a depth of a little more than twelve thousand feet. The exact figures are 12,260 feet—though we can not, of course, claim for our determination any high degree of accuracy. I feel confident, however, that it is near the truth. Call it twelve thousand feet."

"Twelve thousand feet! Below the level of the sea?"

"Yes, Bill; below the level of the sea."

"Great Erebus, I knew that we had descended a long way, but I would never have believed that we had gone down over two miles. Two miles below sea-level. That is a record-smasher."

"Rather," Milton smiled. "Before us, no man (of our sunlit world) had penetrated into the crust of the earth to a greater depth than 3,758 feet below the level of the sea. That is the depth of the mine at St. John del Rey, Minas Geraes, Brazil."

"Two miles—over two miles down!" said I.

"And probably we are only started."

"But the pressure. We can't go down very far into this steadily increasing pressure, increasing in a geometrical ratio whilst the depth increases only in an arithmetical one."

"But," Milton said, "I showed you that there is something wrong with the law."

"Then how do you know that we have reached a depth of twelve thousand feet and over—if the law breaks down?"

"I don't believe that it has broken down yet. It will hold good for this slight descent which we have made. And, of course, if fact is found to