Bill Scanlan coming across and sitting beside me.
“Say, Bo, that jolt of brandy saved my life,” said he. “But where are we, anyhow?”
“I know no more than you do.”
“Well, I am ready to hit the hay,” he said, sleepily, as he turned to his bed. “Say, that wine was fine. Thank God, Volstead never got down here.” They were the last words I heard as I sank into the most profound sleep that I can ever recall.
Chapter 3
When I came to myself I could not at first imagine where I was. The events of the previous day were like some blurred nightmare, and I could not believe that I had to accept them as facts. I looked round in bewilderment at the large, bare, windowless room with drab-coloured walls, at the lines of quivering purplish light which flowed along the cornices, at the scattered articles of furniture, and finally at the two other beds, from one of which came the high-pitched, strident snore which I had learned aboard the Stratford, to associate with Maracot. It was too grotesque to be true, and it was only when I fingered my bed cover and observed the curious woven material, the dried fibres of some sea plant, from which it was made, that I was able to realize this inconceivabl eadventure which had befallen us. I was still pondering it when there came a loud explosion of laughter, and Bill Scanlan sat up in bed.
“Mornin”, Bo!” he cried, amid his chuckles, on seeing that I was awake.
“You seem in good spirits,” said I, rather testily. “I can’t see that we have much to laugh about.”
“Well, I had a grouch on me, the same as you, when first I woke up,” he answered. “Then came a real cute idea, and it was that that made me laugh.”
“I could do with a laugh myself,” said I. “What’s the idea?”
“Well, Bo, I thought how durned funny it would have been if we had all tied ourselves on to that deep-sea line. I allow with those glass dinguses we could have kept breathing all right. Then when old man Howie looked over the side there would have been the whole bunch of us comin” up at him through the water. He would have figured that he had hooked us, sure. Gee, what a spiel!”
Our united laughter woke the Doctor, who sat up in bed with the same amazed expression upon his face which had previously been upon my own. I forgot our troubles as I listened in amusement to his disjointed comments, which alternated between ecstatic joy at the prospect of such a field of study, and profound sorrow that he could never hope to convey his results to his scientific confreres of the earth. Finally he got back to the actual needs of the moment.
“It is nine o’clock,” he said, looking at his watch. We all registered the same hour, but there was nothing to show if it was night or morning.
“We must keep our own calendar,” said Maracot; “we descended upon October 3rd. We reached this place on the evening of the same day. How long have we slept?”
“My gosh, it may have been a month,” said Scanlan, “I’ve not been so deep since Mickey Scott got me on the point in the six round try-out at the Works.”
We dressed and washed, for every civilized convenience was at hand. The door, however, was fastened, and it was clear that we were prisoners for the time. In spite of the apparent absence of any ventilation, the atmosphere kept perfectly sweet, and we found that this was due to a current of air which came through small holes in the wall. There was some source of central heating, too, for though no stove was visible, the temperature was pleasantly warm. Presently I observed a knob upon one of the walls, and pressed it. This was, as I expected, a bell, for the door instantly opened, and a small, dark man, dressed in a yellow robe, appeared in the aperture. He looked at us inquiringly, with large brown, kindly eyes.
“We are hungry,” said Maracot; “can you get us some food?”
The man shook his head and smiled. It was clear that the words were incomprehensible to him.
Scanlan tried his luck with a flow of American slang, which was received with the same blank smile. When, however, I opened my mouth and thrust my finger into it, our visitor nodded vigorously and hurried away.
Ten minutes later the door opened and two of the yellow attendants appeared, rolling a small table before them. Had we been at the Biltmore Hotel we could not have had better fare. There were coffee, hot milk, rolls, delicious flat fish, and honey. For half an hour we were far too busy to discuss what we ate or whence it was obtained. At the end of that time the two servants appeared once more, rolled out the tray, and closed the door carefully behind them.
“I’m fair black and blue with pinching myself,” said Scanlan. “Is this a pipe dream or what? Say, Doc, you got us down here, and I guess it is up to you to tell us just how you size it all up.”
The Doctor shook his head.
“It is like a dream to me also, but it is a glorious dream! What a story for the world if we could but get it to them!”
“One thing is clear,” said I, “there was certainly truth in this legend of Atlantis, and some of the folk have in a marvellous way managed to carry on.”
“Well, even if they carried on,” cried Bill Scanlan, scratching his bullet head, “I am darned if I can understand how they could get air and fresh water and the rest. Maybe if that queer duck with the beard that we saw last night comes to give us a once-over he will put us wise to it.”
“How can he do that when we have no common language?”
“Well, we shall use our own observation,” said Maracot. “One thing I can already understand. I learned it from the honey at breakfast. That was clearly synthetic honey, such as we have already learned to make upon the earth. But if synthetic honey, why not synthetic coffee, or flour? The molecules of the elements are like bricks, and these bricks lie all around us. We have only to learn how to pull out certain bricks — sometimes just a single brick — in order to make a fresh substance. Sugar becomes starch, or either becomes alcohol, just by a shifting of the bricks. What is it that shifts them? Heat. Electricity. Other things perhaps of which we know nothing. Some of them will shift themselves, and radium becomes lead or uranium becomes radium without our touching them.”
“You think, then, that they have an advanced chemistry?”
“I’m sure of it. After all there is no elemental brick which is not ready to their hands. Hydrogen and oxygen come readily from the sea water. There are nitrogen and carbon in those masses of sea vegetation, and there are phosphorus and calcium in the bathybic deposit. With skilful management and adequate knowledge, what is there which could not be produced?”
The Doctor had launched upon a chemical lecture when the door opened and Manda entered, giving us a friendly greeting. There came with him the same old gentleman of venerable appearance whom we had met the night before. He may have had a reputation for learning, for he tried several sentences, which were probably different languages, upon us, but all were equally unintelligible. Then he shrugged his shoulders and spoke to Manda, who gave an order to the two yellow-clad servants, still waiting at the door. They vanished, but returned presently with a curious screen, supported by two side posts. It was exactly like one of our cinema screens, but it was coated with some sparkling material which glittered and shimmered in the light. This was placed against one of the walls. The old man then paced out very carefully a certain distance, and marked it upon the floor. Standing at this point he turned to Maracot and touched his forehead, pointing to the screen.
“Clean dippy,” said Scanlan. “Bats in the belfry.”
Maracot shook his head to show that we were nonplussed. So was the old man for a moment. An idea struck him, however, and he pointed to his own figure. Then he turned towards the screen, fixed his eyes upon it, and seemed to concentrate his attention. In an instant a reflection of himself appeared on the screen before us. Then he pointed to us, and a moment later our own little group took the place of his image. It was not particularly like us. Scanlan looked like a comic Chinaman and Maracot like a decayed corpse, but it was clearly meant to be ourselves as we appeared in the eyes of the operator.
“It’s a reflection of thought,” I cried.
“Exactly,” said Maracot. “This is certainly a most marvellous invention, and yet it is but a combination of such telepathy and television as we dimly comprehend upon earth.”
“I never thought I’d live to see myself on the movies, if that cheese-faced Chink is really meant for me,” said
