Their size reminded us of some of the archaic penguins depicted in the
Old Ones' sculptures, and it did not take us long to conclude that
they were descended from the same stock--undoubtedly surviving through
a retreat to some warmer inner region whose perpetual blackness had
destroyed their pigmentation and atrophied their eyes to mere useless
slits. That their present habitat was the vast abyss we sought, was not for a
moment to be doubted; and this evidence of the gulf's continued warmth
and habitability filled us with the most curious and subtly perturbing
fancies. We wondered, too, what had caused these three birds to venture out
of their usual domain. The state and silence of the great dead city
made it clear that it had at no time been a habitual seasonal rookery,
whilst the manifest indifference of the trio to our presence made it
seem odd that any passing party of those others should have startled
them. Was it possible that those others had taken some aggressive notion or
tried to increase their meat supply? We doubted whether that pungent
odor which the dogs had hated could cause an equal antipathy in these
penguins; since their ancestors had obviously lived on excellent terms
with the Old Ones--an amicable relationship which must have survived in
the abyss below as long as any of the Old Ones remained. Regretting--in a flare-up of the old spirit of pure science--that we
could not photograph these anomalous creatures, we shortly left them
to their squawking and pushed on toward the abyss whose openness was
now so positively proved to us, and whose exact direction occasional
penguin tracks made clear. *       *       *       *       *

Not long afterward a steep descent in a long, low, doorless, and
peculiarly sculptureless corridor led us to believe that we were
approaching the tunnel mouth at last. We had passed two more penguins. Then the corridor ended in a prodigious open space which made us
gasp involuntarily--a perfect inverted hemisphere, obviously deep
underground, fully a hundred feet in diameter and fifty feet high, with
low archways opening around all parts of the circumference but one, and
that one yawning cavernously with a black, arched aperture which broke
the symmetry of the vault to a height of nearly fifteen feet. It was
the entrance to the great abyss. In this vast hemisphere, whose concave roof was impressively though
decadently carved to a likeness of the primordial celestial dome, a few
albino penguins waddled--aliens there, but indifferent and unseeing. The black tunnel yawned indefinitely off at a steep, descending grade,
its aperture adorned with grotesquely chiseled jambs and lintel. From that cryptical mouth we fancied a current of slightly warmer air
and perhaps even a suspicion of vapor proceeded; and we wondered what
living entities other than penguins the limitless void below, and the
contiguous honeycombings of the land and the titan mountains, might
conceal. We wondered, too, whether the trace of mountaintop smoke at first
suspected by poor Lake, as well as the odd haze we had ourselves
perceived around the rampart-crowned peak, might not be caused by
the tortuous-channeled rising of some such vapor from the unfathomed
regions of earth's core. Entering the tunnel, we saw that its outline was--at least at the
start--about fifteen feet each way--sides, floor, and arched roof
composed of the usual megalithic masonry. The sides were sparsely
decorated with cartouches of conventional designs in a later, decadent
style; and all the construction and carving were marvellously
well-preserved. The floor was quite clear, except for a slight detritus bearing
outgoing penguin tracks and the inward tracks of those others. The
farther one advanced, the warmer it became; so that we were soon
unbuttoning our heavy garments. We wondered whether there were any
actually igneous manifestations below, and whether the waters of that
sunless sea were hot. After a short distance the masonry gave place to solid rock, though
the tunnel kept the same proportions and presented the same aspect of
carved regularity. Occasionally its varying grade became so steep that
grooves were cut in the floor. Several times we noted the mouths of small lateral galleries not
recorded in our diagrams; none of them such as to complicate the
problem of our return, and all of them welcome as possible refuges in
case we met unwelcome entities on their way back from the abyss. The nameless scent of such things was very distinct. Doubtless it
was suicidally foolish to venture into that tunnel under the known
conditions, but the lure of the unplumbed is stronger in certain
persons than most suspect--indeed, it was just such a lure which had
brought us to this unearthly polar waste in the first place. We saw several penguins as we passed along, and speculated on the
distance we would have to traverse. The carvings had led us to expect
a steep downhill walk of about a mile to the abyss, but our previous
wanderings had shown us that matters of scale were not wholly to be
depended on. After about a quarter of a mile that nameless scent became greatly
accentuated, and we kept very careful track of the various lateral
openings we passed. There was no visible vapor as at the mouth, but
this was doubtless due to the lack of contrasting cooler air. The
temperature was rapidly ascending, and we were not surprised to come
upon a careless heap of material shudderingly familiar to us. It was
composed of furs and tent cloths taken from Lake's camp, and we did
not pause to study the bizarre forms into which the fabrics had been
slashed. Slightly beyond this point we noticed a decided increase in the size
and number of the side galleries, and concluded that the densely
honeycombed region beneath the higher foothills must now have been
reached. The nameless scent was now curiously mixed with another and scarcely
less offensive odor--of what nature we could not guess, though we
thought of decaying organisms and perhaps unknown subterrane fungi. Then came a startling expansion of the tunnel for which the
carvings had not prepared us--a broadening and rising into a lofty,
natural-looking elliptical cavern with a level floor, some seventy-five
feet long and fifty broad, and with many immense side passages leading
away into cryptical darkness. *       *       *       *       *

Though this cavern was natural in appearance, an inspection with both
torches suggested that it had been formed by the artificial destruction
of several walls between adjacent honeycombings. The walls were
rough, and the high, vaulted roof was thick with stalactites; but the
solid rock floor had been smoothed off, and was free from all débris,
detritus, or even dust to a positively abnormal extent. Except for the avenue through which we had come, this was true of
the floors of all the great galleries opening off from it; and the
singularity of the condition was such as to set us vainly puzzling.