The Englishman was at once troubled over the fate of Johnston and elated over having won Bernardino's regard. Thoughtfully he strolled away from the bathers into a great picture-gallery. Here hung on the walls and stood on pedestals some of the rarest works of art he had ever seen. He passed through this room and was entering a shady retreat where plants, flowers and umbrageous trees grew thickly, when he heard a step behind him and the rustling of a silken skirt against the plants.
It was Bernardino.
"We can be unobserved here," she said, taking off her thick veil and arranging her luxuriant hair. "I hasten back. The king thinks, so my maid tells me, that I am asleep in my chamber. He is busy with an audience of police from a neighboring town and will not think of us."She sat down on a sofa upholstered in leather, and he took a seat beside her. "I am glad that we can talk alone," he said, "for Ihave much to ask you. First, tell me where we are,--where this strange country is on the map of the world.""It is a long story," she replied, "and it would greatly incense the king if he should find out that I had told you, for one of his chief pleasures is to note the surprise and admiration of new-comers over what they see here. But if you will promise to gratify his vanity in this particular I will try to explain it all.""I promise, and you can depend on my not getting you into trouble," replied Thorndyke. "I never was so puzzled in my life, with that sullen sky overhead, the wonderful changing sunlight, and the remarkable atmosphere. I am both bewildered and entranced.
Every moment I see something new and startling. Where are we?""Far beneath the ocean and the surface of the earth. I only know what the king has let fall in my hearing in his conferences with his men of science and inventors; but I shall try to make you understand how it all came about.""It was a long time ago, two hundred years back, I suppose, that one of my ancestors discovered a little isolated island in the Atlantic Ocean. He was forced in a storm to land there with his ship and crew to make some repairs in his vessel. In wandering about over the island he discovered a narrow entrance to a cave, and, with two or three of his men, he began to explore it. When they had gone for a mile or two down into the interior of the cavern, which seemed to lead straight down toward the centre of the earth, they began to find small pieces of gold. The further they went the more they found, till at last the very cavern walls seemed lined with it.
"They were at first wildly excited over their sudden good fortune and were about to load their ship with it and return to Europe at once, but the better judgment of my ancestor prevailed. He explained that, if the world were informed of the discovery of such an inexhaustible mine of gold, that the value of the precious metal would decline till it would be worth little more than some grosser metal, and that if they would only keep their secret to themselves they could in time control the finances of the world.
So, acting on this suggestion, they only dug out a few thousand pounds and took part of it to Europe and part of it to America and turned it into money.
"Then, to curtail my story, they elected my ancestor as ruler, and, with ships loaded with every available convenience that inexhaustible wealth could procure and a colony of carefully chosen men, they returned to the island.
"After the men and their families had settled in the great roomy mouth of the cavern my ancestor supplied himself with several strong men and food and lights, and sought to explore the entire cavern.
"To their astonishment they found that it was practically endless.
When they had gone down about sixty or seventy miles below the sea level they found themselves on a vast, undulating plain, the soil of which was dark and rich, with the black roof of the cavern arching overhead like the bottom of a great inverted bowl. And when they had travelled about ten days and reached the other side my ancestor calculated that the cave must be over one hundred miles in diameter and almost circular in shape. But what elated and surprised them most was the remarkable salubrity of the atmosphere. In all parts of the cave it was exactly the same temperature, and they found that they scarcely felt any fatigue from their journey, and that they had little desire to eat the provisions with which they were supplied. Indeed, the very air seemed permeated with a subtle quality that gave them strength and energy of mind and body.
"Finally, when, after a month had passed, and they returned to their anxious friends, these people overwhelmed them with exclamations of surprise over their appearance. And in the light of day the explorers looked at one another in astonishment, for, in the dim light of the lanterns they had carried, they had not noticed the great change that had come over them. They had all become the finest specimens of physical health that could be imagined. Their bodies had filled out; they were remarkably strong; their skins shone with healthful color and their eyes sparkled with intellectual energy, and their minds, even to the humblest burden-carrier, were astonishingly acute and active.
"My ancestor was a remarkable man, and he had hitherto shown much inventive ability; but in that month in the cave he had developed into an intellectual giant. After mature deliberation, he proposed a prodigious scheme to his followers. He explained that, while they might, by using the utmost discretion, hold the financial world in their power by means of their inexhaustible wealth, that the laws and restrictions of different countries prevented men of vast wealth from really enjoying more privileges than men of moderate means. He grew eloquent in speaking of the underground atmosphere, and proposed that they light the great cavern from end to end and make it an ideal place where they could live as it suited them.
