CHAPTER XXII. CLEWE'S THEORY
Seated in the car, which was steadily ascending the great shaft, RolandClewe took no notice of anything about him. He did not look at thebrilliantly lighted interior of the shaft, he paid no attention to hisinstruments, he did not consult his watch, nor glance at the dial whichindicated the distance he had travelled. Several times the telephonebell rang, and Bryce inquired how he was getting along; but thesequestions he answered as briefly as possible, and sat looking down athis knees and seeing nothing.
When he was half-way up, he suddenly became conscious that he was veryhungry. He hurriedly ate some sandwiches and drank some water, and then,again, he gave himself up entirely to mental labor. When, at last, thenoise of machinery above him and the sound of voices aroused him fromhis abstraction, the car emerged upon the surface of the earth, Clewehastily slid back the door and stepped out. At that instant he felthimself encircled by a pair of arms. Bryce was near by, and there wereother men by the engines, but the owner of those arms thought nothing ofthis.
"Margaret!" cried Clewe, "how came you here?"
"I have been here all the time," she exclaimed; "or, at least, nearlyall the time." And as she spoke she drew back and looked at him, hereyes full of happy tears. "Mr. Bryce telegraphed to me the instanthe knew you were going down, and I was here before you had descendedhalf-way."
"What!" he cried. "And all those messages came from you?"
"Nearly all," she answered. "But tell me, Roland--tell me; have you beensuccessful? What have you discovered?"
"I am successful," he answered. "I have discovered everything!"
Mr. Bryce came forward.
"I will speak to you all very soon," said Clewe. "I can't tell youanything now. Margaret, let us go. I shall want to talk to you directly,but not until I have been to my office. I will meet you at your house ina very few minutes." And with that he left the building and fairly ranto his office.
A quarter of an hour later Roland entered Margaret's library, where shesat awaiting him. He carefully closed the doors and windows. They satside by side upon the sofa.
"Now, Roland," she said, "I cannot wait one second longer. What is itthat you have discovered?"
"Margaret," said he, "I am afraid you will have to wait a good manyseconds. If I were to tell you directly what I have discovered, youwould not understand it. I am the possessor of wonderful facts, but Ibelieve also that I am the master of a theory more wonderful. The factsI found out when I got to the bottom of the shaft, but the theory Iworked out coming up."
"But give them to me quickly!" she cried. "The facts first--I can waitfor the theory."
"No," he said, "I cannot do it; I must tell you the whole thing asI have it, arranged in my mind. Now, in the first place, you mustunderstand that this earth was once a comet."
"Oh, bother your astronomy, I really can't understand it! What did youfind in the bottom of that hole?"
"You must listen to me," he said. "You cannot comprehend a thing I sayif I do not give it to you in the proper order. There have been a greatmany theories about comets, but there is only one of them in which Ihave placed any belief. You know that as a comet passes around the sun,its tail is always pointed away from the sun, so that no matter howrapidly the head shall be moving in its orbit, the end of the tail--inorder to keep its position--must move with a rapidity impossible toconceive. If this tail were composed of nebulous mist, or anything ofthat sort, it could not keep its position. There is only one theorywhich could account for this position, and that is that the head ofa comet is a lens and the tail is light. The light of the sun passesthrough the lens and streams out into space, forming the tail, whichdoes not follow the comet in the inconceivable manner generallysupposed, but is constantly renewed, always, of course; stretching awayfrom the sun!"
"Oh, dear!" ejaculated Margaret. "I have read that."
"A little patience," he said. "When I arrived at the bottom of theshaft, I found myself in a cleft, I know not how large, made in a vastmass of transparent substance, hard as the hardest rock and transparentas air in the light of my electric lamps. My shell rested securely uponthis substance. I walked upon it. It seemed as if I could see milesbelow me. In my opinion, Margaret, that substance was once the head of acomet."
"What is the substance?" she asked, hastily.
"It is a mass of solid diamond!"
Margaret screamed. She could not say one word.
"Yes," said he, "I believe the whole central portion of the earth isone great diamond. When it was moving about in its orbit as a comet, thelight of the sun streamed through this diamond and spread an enormoustail out into space; after a time this nucleus began to burn."
"Burn!" exclaimed Margaret.
"Yes, the diamond is almost pure carbon; why should it not burn? Itburned and burned and burned. Ashes formed upon it and encircled it;still it burned, and when it was entirely covered with its ashes itceased to be transparent, it ceased to be a comet; it became a planet,and revolved in a different orbit. Still it burned within its coveringof ashes, and these gradually changed to rock, to metal, to everythingthat forms the crust of the earth."
She gazed upon him, entranced.
"Some parts of this great central mass of carbon burn more fiercelythan other parts. Some parts do not burn at all. In volcanic regions thefires rage; where my great shell went down it does not burn at all. Nowyou have my theory. It is crude and rough, for I have tried to give itto you in as few words as possible."
"Oh, Roland," she cried, "it is absurd! Diamond! Why, people will thinkyou are crazy. You must not say such a thing as that to anybody. Itis simply impossible that the greater part of this earth should be anenormous diamond."
"Margaret," he answered, "nothing is impossible. The central portion ofthis earth is composed of something; it might just as well be diamond asanything else. In fact, if you consider the matter, it is more likely tobe, because diamond is a very original substance. As I have said, it isalmost pure carbon. I do not intend to say one word of what I have toldyou to any one--at least, until the matter has been well considered--butI am not afraid of being thought crazy. Margaret, will you look atthese?"
He took from his pocket some shining substances resembling glass. Someof them were flat, some round; the largest was as big as a lemon, otherswere smaller fragments of various sizes.
"These are pieces of the great diamond which were broken when the shellstruck the bottom of the cave in which I found it. I picked them up as Ifelt my way around this shell, when walking upon what seemed to me likesolid air. I thrust them into my pocket, and I would not come to you,Margaret, with this story, until I had gone to my office to find out ifthese fragments were really diamond. I tested them; their substance isdiamond!"
Half dazed, she took the largest piece in her hand.
"Roland," she whispered, "if this is really a diamond, there is nothinglike it known to man!"
"Nothing, indeed," said he.
She sat staring at the great piece of glowing mineral which lay in herhand. Its surface was irregular; it had many faces; the subdued lightfrom the window gave it the appearance of animated water. He felt itnecessary to speak.
"Even these little pieces," he said, "are most valuable jewels."
She still sat silent, looking at the glowing object she held.
"You see, these are not like the stones which are found in ourdiamond-fields," he said. "Those, most likely, were little, unconsumedbits of the original mass, afterwards gradually forced up from theinterior in the same way that many metals and minerals are forced up,and then rounded and dulled by countless ages of grinding and abrasion,due to the action of rocks or water."
"Roland," she cried, excitedly, "this is riches beyond imagination!What is common wealth to what you have discovered? Every living being onearth could--"
"Ah, Margaret," he interrupted, "do not let your thoughts run that way.If my discovery should be put to the use of which you are thinking,it would bring poverty, not wealth, to the wor
ld, and not a diamond onearth would be worth more than a common pebble. Everywhere, in civilizedcountries and in barbaric palaces, people would see their richesvanish before them as if it had been blighted by the touch of an evilmagician."
She trembled. "And these--are they to be valued as common pebbles?"
"Oh no," said he; "so long as that great shaft is mine, these brokenfragments are to us riches far ahead of our wildest imaginations."
"Roland," she cried, "are you going down into that shaft for more ofthem?"
"Never, never, never again," he said. "What we have here is enough forus, and if I were offered all the good that there is in this world,which money cannot buy, I would never go down into that cleft again.There was one moment when I stood in that cave in which an awful terrorshot into my soul which I shall never be able to forget. In the lightof my electric lamps, sent through a vast transparent mass, I could seenothing, but I could feel. I put out my foot and I found it was upon asloping surface. In another instant I might have slid--where? I cannotbear to think of it!"
She threw her arms around him and held him tightly.