“—But perhaps I weary you with details which are beyond your interest?”
She answered, “No, for I would gladly know more of these things, were there time for the learning, though we must leave them now. For it seems that the more our thoughts exchange, the more nearly do our minds approach to a common point. It may be that we both see truly, though the same things may appear different. Looking from a distant point, I see the outlines of your existence as you cannot easily do. Knowing it more closely, you are aware of dangers and fertilities which I overlook, seeing only the contours of the mountain peaks, and of the depths which divide them.
“But there is one thought in which you may take some comfort. You have told me that your kind, or some of them, will eat their fellow-men when occasion offers. The Dwellers are, at the worst, so entirely incapable of such conduct, that you may reasonably hope that there will be a similar measure of difference between your own treatment of your domestic animals, and that which you will receive from them, should you be captured or surrender to them.”
I replied, “I should be glad to think so; but the fact is that the practice I mentioned is almost entirely confined to men with darker skins than mine. I have, as you observe, a light skin, tinged with pink. All men whose skins are of this kind believe it to be an evidence of every kind of superiority—and how the darker cannibals may treat their domestic animals it is unfortunate that I do not know.”
Her mind replied with a sudden ripple of merriment. “I suppose you jest. But let us turn from these things, and consider what next we shall do, and how quickly. For time is short before I must take decision as to whether I shall return within the limit fixed. Yet much may be done, if we are fortunate, in the space remaining; and, as you said in your anger, the Dwellers are not quick to discover us. Yet I think you err when you make light of our peril. Are there no vermin in your own buildings, which you might disregard for more urgent matters, but which you would destroy very easily at the allotted time, or should occasion arise to do so?”
I said, “Yes, there are; yet some of them have found craft by which they continue, and so must we also. But, first, cannot we learn something more from this book which we have borrowed so easily? For myself, I am determined to seek my friend, till I know of his death, or have found him. He may be near us now, or he may be a thousand miles away, or in depths beyond our imaginations. What can we tell, with so little to guide our guessing? And for you, if we can discover whether we have yet intruded into one of the Sacred Places to which the treaty alludes, it may make a vital difference to the action which you should take for your own security.”
She answered “Let us try,” and we rose, and moved again as quietly as possible into the lighted room. I do not think that this was really necessary, but it gave us a sense of secrecy to interrogate the red globe from the shorter distance, and appeared to reduce the risk that our thoughts would disturb the mind of the sleeper.
IX
The Flame of Life
For a long time we asked questions to which we could obtain no answer, or not such as conveyed any meaning to us.
We tried to learn the extent and depth of the domain of the Dwellers, and the location of the Reservations in which my friend might be confined. But the book was not a geography. Neither was it a first volume. Its records evidently assumed a mass of knowledge which we did not possess.
We made progress of a kind when it occurred to me that it would give us some indication of the probable extent of the subterranean world if we could learn its population.
“How many are there of the nation of the Dwellers?” I queried.
There was no answer.
“How many were there last year?”
No answer came.
“Have you any records of population?”
It seemed as though there were a mental impulse of hesitation, but still no answer came.
“How many children were born last year?” it occurred to me to ask.
The answer was immediate, “It was reported to the Council of Five that three boys had been born in the Great Nursery, and one in the Place of Renunciation.”
“And how many girls?” I replied, in a natural supposition that this information was incomplete, but there was no answer.
I then went back, querying from year to year, getting for each year a similar answer but with a total that increased as the years receded, and with a record of male births only, till, at ten years’ distance, the reply came—
“It was reported to the Council of Five that eight boys had been born in the Great Nursery, and twenty-four boys and one girl in the Place of Twilight.”
I would have asked further, but my companion interposed with reason. “I think that we are learning little. If it can tell how long they live, and how many are their deaths, (for as they are born, I suppose that they may die also), we can then judge how numerous they may be, but from their births only we cannot.” This we tried, but only to be met again with silence, or with baffling answers.
By persistence and variety in the form of queries we obtained allusion to “those of the Great Lethargy,” and to “The Desire of the Darkness,” but nothing more definite.
