men. That two lives will be snuffed out is nothing to the world

calamity that entombs in the bowels of the earth the discoveries

that I have made and proved in the successful construction of the

thing that is now carrying us farther and farther toward the eternal

central fires."

I am frank to admit that for myself I was much more concerned with

our own immediate future than with any problematic loss which the

world might be about to suffer. The world was at least ignorant

of its bereavement, while to me it was a real and terrible actuality.

"What can we do?" I asked, hiding my perturbation beneath the mask

of a low and level voice.

"We may stop here, and die of asphyxiation when our atmosphere tanks

are empty," replied Perry, "or we may continue on with the slight

hope that we may later sufficiently deflect the prospector from

the vertical to carry us along the arc of a great circle which must

eventually return us to the surface. If we succeed in so doing

before we reach the higher internal temperature we may even yet

survive. There would seem to me to be about one chance in several

million that we shall succeed--otherwise we shall die more quickly

but no more surely than as though we sat supinely waiting for the

torture of a slow and horrible death."

I glanced at the thermometer. It registered 110 degrees. While

we were talking the mighty iron mole had bored its way over a mile

into the rock of the earth's crust.

"Let us continue on, then," I replied. "It should soon be over at

this rate. You never intimated that the speed of this thing would

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