miles the temperature had reached 153 degrees. Feverishly I watched

the thermometer. Slowly it rose. Perry had ceased singing and

was at last praying.

Our hopes had received such a deathblow that the gradually

increasing heat seemed to our distorted imaginations much greater

than it really was. For another hour I saw that pitiless column

of mercury rise and rise until at four hundred and ten miles it

stood at 153 degrees. Now it was that we began to hang upon those

readings in almost breathless anxiety.

One hundred and fifty-three degrees had been the maximum temperature

above the ice stratum. Would it stop at this point again, or would

it continue its merciless climb? We knew that there was no hope,

and yet with the persistence of life itself we continued to hope

against practical certainty.

Already the air tanks were at low ebb--there was barely enough of

the precious gases to sustain us for another twelve hours. But

would we be alive to know or care? It seemed incredible.

At four hundred and twenty miles I took another reading.

"Perry!" I shouted. "Perry, man! She's going down! She's going

down! She's 152 degrees again."

"Gad!" he cried. "What can it mean? Can the earth be cold at the

center?"

"I do not know, Perry," I answered; "but thank God, if I am to die

it shall not be by fire--that is all that I have feared. I can

face the thought of any death but that."

Down, down went the mercury until it stood as low as it had seven

miles from the surface of the earth, and then of a sudden the

realization broke upon us that death was very near. Perry was the

<<BackPagesTo menuNext>>