Steampunk Prime_ A Vintage Steampunk Reader - Mike Ashley [45]
“Not at all a pleasant prospect, I admit, my dear Brenda,” said the Professor; “but, after all, I don’t think you would be hurt much. You see, you would be dead in a very few seconds, and then think of the glory of having the whole world for your tomb.”
“I don’t like the idea,” she replied. “A commonplace crematorium and a crystal urn afterwards will satisfy me completely. But don’t you think we’d better stop and explore?”
“I certainly think Brenda’s right,” said Princeps. “If the tunnel is there, and the big sledge dragged us over into it — well, we needn’t talk about that. I think we’d better do a little exploring, as she says.”
The sledges were stopped, and the tilting-line of the great kite pulled so as to empty it of wind. It came gently to the earth, and then, rather to their surprise, disappeared completely.
“By Jove!” Said Princeps. “I shouldn’t be surprised if the tunnel is there, and the kite has fallen in. Brenda, I think it’s just as well you spoke when you did. Fancy tobogganing into a hole like that at ten or fifteen miles an hour!”
“If that is the case,” said the Professor, quietly ignoring the hideous suggestion, “the Axial Tunnel must be rather larger than I expected. I did not expect to arrive at the edge till late this afternoon.”
When the sledges were stopped, they put on their snowshoes and followed the line of the kite-cable for about a mile and a half until they came to the edge of what appeared to be an ice-cliff. The cable hung over this, hanging down into a dusk which quickly deepened into utter darkness. They hauled upon it and found that there were only a few yards over the cliff, and presently they landed the great kite.
“I wonder if it really is the tunnel?” Said Brenda, taking a step forward.
“Whatever it is, it’s too deep for you to fall into with any comfort,” said her husband, dragging her back almost roughly.
Almost at the same moment a mass of ice and snow on which they had been standing a few minutes before, hauling up the cable of the kite, broke away and disappeared into the void. They listened with all their ears, but no sound came back. The huge block had vanished in silence into nothingness, into a void which apparently had no bottom; for even if it had fallen a thousand feet, an echo would have come back to them up the wall.
“It is the tunnel,” said Brenda, after a few moments’ silence, during which they looked at each other with something like awe in their eyes. “Thank you, Arthur, I don’t think I should have liked to have gone down, too. But, uncle,” she went on, “if this is the tunnel, and that thing has gone on before us, won’t it stop and come back when it gets near the North Pole? Suppose we were to meet it after we have passed the centre. A collision just there wouldn’t be very pleasant, would it?”
“My dear Brenda,” he replied, “there is really no fear of anything of that sort. You see, there is atmosphere in the tunnel, and long before it reached the centre, friction will have melted the ice and dissipated the water into vapour.”
“Of course. How silly of me not to have thought of that before! I suppose a piece of iron thrown over there would be melted to vapour, just as the meteorites are. Well now, If we’ve found the tunnel, hadn’t we better go back and get ready to go through it?”
“We shall have to wait for the moon, I suppose,” said Princeps, as they turned away towards the sledges.
“Yes,” said the Professor. “We shall have plenty of moonlight to work by in about fifty-six hours. Meanwhile we can take a rest and do as Brenda says.”
It was just fifty hours later when the moon, almost at the full, rose over the eastern edge of the snow-wall, casting a flood of white light over the dim, ghostly land of the World’s End. As it rose higher and higher, they saw that the sloping plain ended in a vast semicircle of cliff, beyond which there was nothing. They went down towards it and looked beyond and across, but the curving ice-walls