CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Creature in the Rocks

Joe’s active imagination went right to work. “Prison!” he said, his eyes wide. “There must be a race of underground people—like the Morlocks in The Time Machine—people who have never seen the sun. They must have sneaked up on him and captured him, and now he’s languishing in one of their dungeons.”

Danny cocked his head, eyeing the screen of the C-ray. “Looks more to me as if he’s just calmly collecting rock samples,” he said.

“He’s trying to chop his way out,” Joe persisted.

“It’s a great hypothesis, Joe,” said the Professor, “but I think Danny’s more likely to be right. What we take for bars are just some kind of rock formation—perhaps stalagmites of a slightly different composition than the others.”

Danny had been studying the machine. “Well, now we know where he is,” he said. “The depth setting is on fifty feet. It’s about thirty feet from here to the wall of the cave. So he’s another twenty feet beyond. I’ll bet it’s just the next tunnel.” He jumped up. “I’m going to see.”

The Professor raised a hand and said, “Now, don’t go charging off in all directions at once.”

“I won’t,” Danny laughed. “Anyway, this is easy. All I have to do is follow the passage back to the glittering cavern, and then take the next tunnel to the right as I come out. He should be about the same distance down that one. Joe can come with me to see that I don’t get into trouble.”

“That’s a good idea,” Joe said. “But who’s going to keep me from getting into trouble?”

“If you boys promise to be very careful, you may go,” said the Professor. “But don’t go chasing off on your own explorations. Don’t take any branch tunnels. For goodness’ sake, don’t you go getting lost.”

“We’ll be careful,” said Danny. “Come on, Joe.”

Together, they climbed the gravel slope. The rope was still hanging where they had left it, and they had no trouble getting back to the top of the little cliff. They plunged into the tunnel, Danny in front with the flashlight, and went as quickly as they could until they came out once more in the big cavern with its “Altar” and its sparkling walls. Danny at once turned to his right. There, between two thick folds of rippled green stone was one of the smaller openings they had noticed before.

“Too bad you can’t see footprints in the rock,” said Joe.

“Yes, but I’ll bet anything this is the way he went,” Danny answered.

They entered, stooping. The floor of this passage was uneven and jagged, and it sloped steeply downward. It was, in fact, more like a deep fissure than a tunnel, as if an earthquake had moved and split the rock and opened a narrow way down to the depths.

“How far shall we go?” Joe asked. “Maybe this isn’t the way at all. How are we going to tell?”

“Hard to say.” Danny climbed over a sharp knife-edge, holding the light above his head to keep it from banging against the stone. “Can’t judge distance in this one because it isn’t flat, like the other. Let’s go on for a while, and then worry about it if nothing turns up.”

But as it happened, they didn’t have too far to go. A few moments later, Joe, who had paused to wait for Danny to climb down out of his way, spotted a yellow glow on the walls ahead. An instant later, they could both hear, quite clearly, the clink and tap of a hammer.

They slid down a last sloping slab and found themselves in a chamber whose dull gray and brown walls were in sharp contrast to the big cavern they had just left. Dr. Tresselt was on his knees examining some bits of stone by the light of his lantern, which stood on a point of rock nearby.

“Dr. Tresselt!” said Danny. “We’ve found you!”

The geologist glanced at them over his shoulder. “Urn?” he said, in an abstracted tone. “Were you lost?”

Danny laughed. “No, sir. But you are.”

“I am?” The geologist raised his eyebrows. “I don’t feel lost. I know where I am.”

Then, slowly, as the meaning of Danny’s words penetrated, his expression changed. “Oh, dear,” he said. “I am sorry. I assure you, I didn’t mean to wander off. But you see, I noticed those same red streaks at the entrance to this passageway, and I just couldn’t resist investigating. The further I went, the more clay I found. Look about you—! This chamber is not limestone like the others, but was hollowed out of petrified mud. I have found the fossils of several fresh-water mollusks, too. See?”

He held out what looked like small, dark pebbles.

Danny said, “But where’s the cage?”

“What?” said Dr. Tresselt. “What are you talking about? You’re in the cave.”

“But where are the bars?”

“Why should there be bars in a cave?”

“Not cave, Dr. Tresselt,” said Joe. “Cage. C-a-g-e.”

“Cage? This isn’t a cage. Why do you keep calling it one?”

“We saw it on the C-ray screen,” Danny said. “Just as plain as could be. Big curving bars, and you were inside them.”

“Well, I’m not,” Dr. Tresselt said. “I’m afraid my friend Euclid expects too much from that invention of his. What you saw was probably a defect of some sort—something wrong with the machine.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the C-ray,” said Danny, firmly. “We saw one of those fossil shellfish you’ve found, stuck in the stone. But it’s certainly very funny that there isn’t anything here that would look like bars.” He flashed his lamp all about the small chamber. “Anyway, let’s join the others. We’ll have to decide what to do, now that the Professor has hurt his ankle.”

“How did that happen?” asked Dr. Tresselt, gathering up his things.

“He slipped on some gravel and twisted his leg. Maybe you’ll have some idea how to get him back up the cliff.”

They hurried back up the steep passage and were soon standing once more on the top of the cliff. Dr. Tresselt was agile and used to climbing, and he went down the sheer face like a mountaineer. Joe followed, and then Danny untied the rope and let it fall so that they could use it if necessary.

Professor Bullfinch waved, as they picked their way down the gravelly slope. “We’ve been expecting you,” he said. “We watched you boys find Dr. Tresselt, on the C-ray screen.”

“Do you mean to say that that thing works?” Dr. Tresselt said.

“Perfectly. How do you think we found you? We saw you through the wall of the chamber. By the way, what was that rock formation that looks like a cage?”

“A cage? Danny said something about that,” said the geologist. “There was no such formation where I was. Let me see that apparatus.” He squatted down and stared at the screen of the C-ray. He whistled softly between his teeth, and said, “Is there any way of moving the picture from side to side?”

“Oh, yes. We watched you as you climbed back up the passageway. This is the scanning dial. Turn this button to one side or the other.”

Dr. Tresselt did so. “What about focus?” he asked.

Professor Bullfinch showed him what to do. For a few moments he sat absorbed, moving first one knob, then the other. On the screen, a strange shape grew, its outlines clear and dark. It looked like a fan, with a large hole below it like an eye, then a curved eagle’s beak, and two spiky horns jutting forward.

“Congratulations, Euclid!” Dr. Tresselt said, in a voice that trembled with excitement. “Your C-ray is more than a success. Look at that! Doesn’t it look familiar?”

The Professor stared. Then, almost in a whisper, he said, “It does indeed. A fossil skull. The skull of a dinosaur!”