I stared in amazement. 'You propose to alter it?'
'I propose to let the earth know that there is at least one person, George Edward Challenger, who calls for attention – who, indeed, insists upon attention. It is certainly the first intimation it has ever had of the sort.'
'And how, sir, will you do this?'
'Ah, there we get down to business. You have touched the spot. I will again call your attention to this interesting little creature which I hold in my hand. It is all nerves and sensibility beneath that protective crust. Is it not evident that if a parasitic animalcule desired to call its attention it would sink a hole in its shell and so stimulate its sensory apparatus?'
'Certainly.'
'Or, again, we will take the case of the homely flea or a mosquito which explores the surface of the human body. We may be unaware of its presence. But presently, when it sinks its proboscis through the skin, which is our crust, we are disagreeably reminded that we are not altogether alone. My plans now will no doubt begin to dawn upon you. Light breaks in the darkness.'
'Good heavens! You propose to sink a shaft through the earth's crust?'
He closed his eyes with ineffable complacency.
'You see before you,' he said, 'the first who will ever pierce that horny hide. I may even put it in the present tense and say who has pierced it.'
'You have done it!'
'With the very efficient aid of Morden and think I may say that I have done it. Several years of constant work which has been carried on night and day, and conducted by every known species of drill, borer, crusher, and explosive, has at last brought us to our goal.'
'You don't mean to say you are through the crust!'
'If your expressions denote bewilderment they may pass. If they denote incredulity-'
'No, sir, nothing of the kind.'
'You will accept my statement without question. We are through the crust. It was exactly fourteen thousand four hundred and forty-two yards thick, or roughly eight miles. In the course of our sinking it may interest you to know that we have exposed a fortune in the matter of coal-beds which would probably in the long run defray the cost of the enterprise. Our chief difficulty has been the springs of water in the lower chalk and Hastings sands, but these we have overcome. The last stage has now been reached – and the last stage is none other than Mr. Peerless Jones. You, sir, represent the mosquito. Your Artesian borer takes the place of the stinging proboscis. The brain has done its work. Exit the thinker. Enter the mechanical one, the peerless one, with his rod of metal. Do I make myself clear?'
'You talk of eight miles!' I cried. 'Are you aware, sir, that five thousand feet is considered nearly the limit for Artesian borings? I am acquainted with one in upper Silesia which is six thousand two hundred feet deep, but it is looked upon as a wonder.'
'You misunderstand me, Mr. Peerless. Either my explanation or your brain is at fault, and I will not insist upon which. I am well aware of the limits of Artesian borings, and it is not likely that I would have spent millions of pounds upon my colossal tunnel if a six-inch boring would have met my needs. All that I ask you is to have a drill ready which shall be as sharp as possible, not more than a hundred feet in length, and operated by an electric motor. An ordinary percussion drill driven home by a weight will meet every requirement.
'Why by an electric motor?'
'I am here, Mr. Jones, to give orders, not reasons. Before we finish it may happen – it may, I say, happen – that your very life may depend upon this drill being started from a distance by electricity. It can, I presume, be done?'
'Certainly it can be done.'
'Then prepare to do it. The matter is not yet ready for your actual presence, but your preparations may now be made. I have nothing more to say.'
'But it is essential,' I expostulated, 'that you should let me know what soil the drill is to penetrate. Sand, or clay, or chalk would each need different treatment.'
'Let us say jelly,' said Challenger. 'Yes, we will for the present suppose that you have to sink your drill into jelly. And now, Mr. Jones, I have matters of some importance to engage my mind, so I will wish you good morning. You can draw up a formal contract with mention of your charges for my Head of Works.'
I bowed and turned, but before I reached the door my curiosity overcame me. He was already writing furiously with a quill pen screeching over the paper, and he looked up angrily at my interruption.
'Well, sir, what now? I had hoped you were gone.
'I only wished to ask you, sir, what the object of so extraordinary an experiment can be?'
'Away, sir, away!' he cried, angrily. 'Raise your mind above the base mercantile and utilitarian needs of commerce. Shake off your paltry standards of business. Science seeks knowledge. Let the knowledge lead us where it will, we still must seek it. To know once for all what we are, why we are, where we are, is that not in itself the greatest of all human aspirations? Away, sir, away!'
His great black head was bowed over his papers once more and blended with his beard. The quill pen screeched more shrilly than ever. So I left him, this extraordinary man, with my head in a whirl at the thought of the strange business in which I now found myself to be his partner.
When I got back to my office I found Ted Malone waiting with a broad grin upon his face to know the result of my interview.
'Well!' he cried. 'None the worse? No case of assault and battery? You must have handled him very tactfully. What do you think of the old boy?'
'The most aggravating, insolent, intolerant, self-opinionated man I have ever met, but –'
'Exactly!' cried Malone. 'We all come to that "but." Of course, he is all you say and a lot more, but one feels that so big a man is not to be measured in our scale, and that we can endure from him what we would not stand from any other living mortal. Is that not so?'
'Well, I don't know him well enough yet to say, but I will admit that if he is not a mere bullying megalomaniac, and if what he says is true, then he certainly is in a class by himself. But is it true?'
'Of course it is true. Challenger always delivers the goods. Now, where are you exactly in the matter? Has he told you about Hengist Down?'
'Yes, in a sketchy sort of way.'
'Well, you may take it from me that the whole thing is colossal colossal in conception and colossal in execution. He hates pressmen, but I am in his confidence, for he knows that I will publish no more than he authorizes. Therefore I have his plans, or some of his plans. He is such a deep old bird that one never is sure if one has really touched bottom. Anyhow, I know enough to assure you that Hengist Down is a practical proposition and nearly completed. My advice to you now is simply to await events, and meanwhile to get your gear all ready. You'll hear soon enough either from him or from me.'
As it happened, it was from Malone himself that I heard. He came round quite early to my office some weeks later, as the bearer of a message.
'I've come from Challenger' said he.
'You are like the pilot fish to the shark.'
'I'm proud to be anything to him. He really is a wonder. He has done it all right. It's your turn now, and then he is ready to ring up the curtain.'
'Well, I can't believe it until I see it, but I have everything ready and loaded on a lorry. I could start it off at any moment.'
'Then do so at once. I've given you a tremendous character for energy and punctuality, so mind you don't let me down. In the meantime, come down with me by rail and I will give you an idea of what has to be done.'
It was a lovely spring morning – May 22nd, to be exact – when we made that fateful journey which brought me on to a stage which is destined to be historical. On the way Malone handed me a note from Challenger which I was to accept as my instructions.
'Sir,' (it ran) –
'Upon arriving at Hengist Down you will put yourself at the disposal of Mr. Barforth, the Chief Engineer, who is in possession of my plans. My young friend, Malone, the bearer of this, is also in touch with me and may protect me from any personal contact. We have now experienced certain phenomena in the shaft at and below the fourteen thousand-foot level which fully bear out my views as to the nature of a planetary body, but some more sensational proof is needed before I can hope to make an impression upon the torpid intelligence of the modern scientific world. That proof you are destined to afford, and they to witness. As you descend in the lifts you will observe, presuming that you have the rare quality of observation, that you pass in succession the secondary chalk beds, the coal measures, some Devonian and Cambrian indications, and finally the granite, through which the greater part of our tunnel is conducted. The bottom is now covered with tarpaulin, which I order you not to tamper with, as any clumsy handling of the sensitive inner cuticle of the earth might bring about premature results. At my instruction, two strong beams have been laid across the shaft twenty feet above the bottom, with a space between them. This space will act as a clip to hold up your Artesian tube. Fifty feet of drill will suffice, twenty of which will project below the beams, so that the point of the drill comes nearly down to the tarpaulin. As you value your life do not let it go further. Thirty feet will then project upwards in the shaft, and when you have released it we may assume that not less than forty feet of drill will bury itself in the earth's substance. As this substance is very soft I find that you will probably need no driving power, and that simply a release of the tube will suffice by its own weight to drive it into the layer which we have uncovered. These instructions would seem to be sufficient for any ordinary intelligence, but I have little doubt that you will need more, which can be referred to me through our young friend, Malone.
'GEORGE EDWARD CHALLENGER.'
It can be imagined that when we arrived at the station of Storrington, near the northern foot of the South Downs, I was in a state of considerable nervous tension. A weather-worn Vauxhall thirty landaulette was awaiting us, and bumped us for six or seven miles over by-paths and lanes which, in spite of their natural seclusion, were deeply rutted and showed every sign of heavy traffic. A broken lorry lying in the grass at one point showed that others had found it rough going as well as we. Once a huge piece of machinery which seemed to be the valves and piston of a hydraulic pump projected itself, all rusted, from a clump of furze.
'That's Challenger's doing,' said Malone, grinning.
'Said it was one-tenth of an inch out of estimate, so he simply chucked it by the wayside.'
'With a lawsuit to follow, no doubt.'
'A lawsuit! My dear chap, we should have a court of our own. We have enough to keep a judge busy for a year. Government too. The old devil cares for no one. Rex v. George Challenger and George Challenger v. Rex. A nice devil's dance the two will have from one court to another. Well, here we are. All right, Jenkins, you can let us in!'
A huge man with a notable cauliflower ear was peering into the car, a scowl of suspicion upon his face. He relaxed and saluted as he recognized my companion.
'All right, Mr. Malone. I thought it was the American Associated Press.'
'Oh, they are on the track, are they?'
'They to-day, and The Times yesterday. Oh, they are buzzing round proper. Look at that!' He indicated a distant dot upon the sky-line. 'See that glint ! That's the telescope of the Chicago Daily News. Yes, they are fair after us now. I've seen 'em in rows, same as the crows, along the Beacon yonder.'
'Poor old Press gang!' said Malone, as we entered a gate in a formidable barbed wire fence. 'I am one of them myself, and I know how it feels.
At this moment we heard a plaintive bleat behind us of 'Malone! Ted Malone!' It came from a fat little man who had just arrived upon a motor-bike and was at present struggling in the Herculean grasp of the gatekeeper.
'Here, let me go!' he sputtered. 'Keep your hands off! Malone, call off this gorilla of yours.'
'Let him go, Jenkins! He's a friend of mine!' cried Malone. 'Well, old bean, what is it? What are you after in these parts? Fleet Street is your stamping ground – not the wilds of Sussex.'
'You know what I am after perfectly well,' said our visitor. 'I've got the assignment to write a story about Hengist Down and I can't go home without the copy.'
'Sorry, Roy, but you can't get anything here. You'll have to stay on that side of the wire. If you want more you must go and see Professor Challenger and get his leave.'
'I've been,' said the journalist, ruefully. 'I went this morning.'
'Well, what did he say?'
'He said he would put me through the window.'
Malone laughed.
'And what did you say?'
'I said, "What's wrong with the door?" and I skipped through it just to show there was nothing wrong with it. It was no time for argument. I just went. What with that bearded Assyrian bull in London, and this Thug down here, who has ruined my clean celluloid, you seem to be keeping queer company, Ted Malone.'
'I can't help you, Roy; I would if I could. They say in Fleet Street that you have never been beaten, but you are up against it this time. Get back to the office, and if you just wait a few days I'll give you the news as soon as the old man allows.'
'No chance of getting in?'
'Not an earthly.'
'Money no object?'
'You should know better than to say that.'
'They tell me it's a short cut to New Zealand.' 'It will be a short cut to the hospital if you butt in here, Roy. Good-bye, now. We have some work to do of our own.
'That's Roy Perkins, the war correspondent,' said Malone as we walked across the compound. 'We've broken his record, for he is supposed to be undefeatable. It's his fat, little innocent face that carries him through everything. We were on the same staff once. Now there' – he pointed to a cluster of pleasant red-roofed bungalows – 'are the quarters of the men. They are a splendid lot of picked workers who are paid far above ordinary rates. They have to be bachelors and teetotallers, and under oath of secrecy. I don't think there has been any leakage up to now. That field is their football ground and the detached house is their library and recreation room. The old man is some organizer, I can assure you. This is Mr. Barforth, the head engineer-in-charge.'
A long, thin, melancholy man with deep lines of anxiety upon his face had appeared before us. 'I expect you are the Artesian engineer,' said he, in a gloomy voice. 'I was told to expect you. I am glad you've come, for I don't mind telling you that the responsibility of this thing is getting on my nerves. We work away, and I never know if it's a gush of chalk water, or a seam of coal, or a squirt of petroleum, or maybe a touch of hell fire that is coming next. We've been spared the last up to now, but you may make the connection for all I know.'
'Is it so hot down there?'
'Well, it's hot. There's no denying it. And yet maybe it is not hotter than the barometric pressure and the confined space might account for. Of course, the ventilation is awful. We pump the air down, but two-hour shifts are the most the men can do – and they are willing lads too. The Professor was down yesterday, and he was very pleased with it all. You had best join us at lunch, and then you will see it for yourself.'
After a hurried and frugal meal we were introduced with loving assiduity upon the part of the manager to the contents of his engine-house, and to the miscellaneous scrapheap of disused implements with which the grass was littered. On one side was a huge dismantled Arrol hydraulic shovel, with which the first excavations had been rapidly made. Beside it was a great engine which worked a continuous steel rope on which the skips were fastened which drew up the debris by successive stages from the bottom of the shaft. In the power-house were several Escher Wyss turbines of great horse-power running at one hundred and forty revolutions a minute and governing hydraulic accumulators which evolved a pressure of fourteen hundred pounds per square inch, passing in three-inch pipes down the shaft and operating four rock drills with hollow cutters of the Brandt type. Abutting upon the engine-house was the electric house supplying power for a very large lighting instalment, and next to that again was an extra turbine of two hundred horse-power, which drove a ten-foot fan forcing air down a twelve-inch pipe to the bottom of the workings. All these wonders were shown with many technical explanations by their proud operator, who was well on his way to boring me stiff, as I may in turn have done my reader. There came a welcome interruption, however, when I heard the roar of wheels and rejoiced to see my Leyland three-tonner come rolling and heaving over the grass, heaped up with tools and sections of tubing, and bearing my foreman, Peters, and a very grimy assistant in front. The two of them set to work at once to unload my stuff and to carry it in. Leaving them at their work, the manager, with Malone and myself, approached the shaft.