Ivan Semenovich gazed about, but it was impossible to tell whether it was the same cave. In any case, it was a gigantic cavern, too, judging by what he could see in the feeble light. Great boulders and pieces of rock were piled at the place where the gap had been.
“Ivan Semenovich!” he heard Artem calling him. “Ivan Semenovich! Do you hear me? Are you all right? Where are you? Answer me!”
“I’m here! I can hear you, and I can see the light too,” he called back. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll join you in a minute.”
And the geologist smiled in the darkness, his first full smile of relief in a long time, and began walking towards the light of the lamp, climbing over rocks, going around the stalagmites; they were exactly like the ones they had seen in the other cave.
Diana almost swept him off his feet as she shot out from the darkness, jumping at him and licking his face.
“All right, all right, enough of that,” he said disentangling himself from the dog.
As the geologist came closer he saw Artem holding the lamp high in the air: it was tied to the spear — that was why the light reached so far. Now Artem lowered it as there was no need to light the way for the geologist.
Dmitro Borisovich looked very picturesque indeed! With a Scythian helmet on, he was holding his battle-axe in the hands. Good, no one was hurt, everybody was here. But why did they look so despondent, except, of course, for the ever- cheerful Diana?
“What’s wrong, my friends?” the geologist said. “Aren’t you happy we have escaped? We’ve left all the dangers behind — now the priests won’t be able to do us any harm, even with their arrows!”
His attempt at a joke did not make any impression on his friends. They looked as dejected as before.
“All right, what’s the matter?” he said rather sharply. “What has come over you? We have escaped certain death; you should be mad with joy! But you look as though… Dmitro Borisovich, tell me, what’s the matter?”
The archeologist shrugged his shoulders:
“Yes, we’ve escaped from the priests, that’s true. But what are we going to do next, Ivan Semenovich?”
“What do you mean, what are we going to do next?”
“Well, aren’t we sort of sealed off in some cave?” Artem cut in. “We don’t know where to go… if there is anywhere to go.”
“I don’t follow you, Artem,” Ivan Semenovich said with genuine surprise. “We’ve been extraordinarily lucky so far! We had just enough dynamite to delay the attack and then open and close a gap in the crags. We even have a lamp, a thing which none of us thought of carrying around, except you, Artem. If one considers what we’ve been through, it’s almost a miracle! And you whine and say ‘sealed off,’ ‘nowhere to go’! We have not even started looking for the way out!”
Dmitro Borisovich said hesitantly, glancing inquiringly at the geologist:
“Yes… to look for the way out… But which direction are we to choose? It’s impossible to decide which way to go. We don’t know anything about this cavern. So where do we go from here? We can go right or left, this way or that way with the same little chance of hitting on the egress… Or rather with no chance, if you want.”
Quite unexpectedly Ivan Semenovich burst out laughing, his laughter reverberating among the stalagmites.
“My good friends, I don’t recognize you! Is it really you? What’s come over you?” he said after his laughter subsided. “Lida, are you also part of this dejected company? Now, try to remember what we talked about more than once during that tedious funeral journey?”
Lida looked at the man with uncertainty: there were so many subjects they had touched upon!
“Too bad, too bad!” he said with a mock reproach. “And I thought it had made a profound impression on you then. Ah, well, never mind. You’ll soon see what I mean. Now, cheer up! It’s a shame to sulk after we’ve had such a narrow escape! We’re on our way home, and you look so dismayed! We’re as good as back on the surface, in our world…”
“I think it’d be more correct to say that we’re still very much under the surface, in an unexplored cavern,” Dmitro Borisovich said gloomily.
“All right,” the geologist said with a smile. “If you can’t figure out why I’m sure we’ll soon be on our way home, I’ll explain it. Sit down and listen.”
He was the first to sit down on a boulder; then he pulled out his notebook that had only a few pages left.
“You see, my book worked so hard it lost a lot of weight,” he said making another attempt at a joke. “Lida maintained such a lively correspondence with Artem… But there’re still some pages left. It’ll be enough.”
He opened the notebook to a page with a technical drawing that looked like a diagram. His friends stood around him, craning their necks to see it.
“Look at this… Still, I’m surprised at the change in you, Artem! With such an excellent mind as yours — and to miss such an obvious thing! Didn’t I teach to keep your sense of direction, in any situation? All right, tell me, did you notice the direction the Scythians took at the start of their funeral journey?”
“They headed west,” Artem readily replied.
“Did they keep going west?”
“No, they didn’t. They ended up heading north.”
“Good. So you did notice the change of direction, didn’t you? I’m glad. But why didn’t you draw the necessary conclusions from it? Try to do so now.”
Artem’s mind was set working feverishly while his eyes were riveted on the plan before him. What was the catch? But it was Lida who was the first with the answer:
“I remember! You talked about the procession moving in a curve along the cliffs!”
“That’s correct, Lida. But which necessary conclusions do we have to draw from this?”
Now Lida fell to thinking. What conclusions, really?
“Yes, the procession kept moving along the cliffs,” the geologist said. “Good. But it swerved to the right as it moved, changing direction from west to north and then slowly to east, and finally south. That’s what I have here in my plan. Look.”
The line, tracing schematically the progress of the procession, made almost a complete circle on the paper.
“You noticed the change of direction, Artem, but the most important thing you seem to have missed: the procession eventually turned south,” Ivan Semenovich said. “You haven’t guessed what I’m driving at yet, Artem? Think harder!”
Then, in a flash, everything became clear to Artem, and the strange drawing revealed its meaning. Of course! The procession had made almost a complete circle and arrived at…
“Ivan Semenovich!” he cried out. “Ivan Semenovich! I know! It’s so simple I’m ashamed of myself for not guessing earlier!”
“And?”
“We made a circle, moving along the walls of this underground world and came back to where we had started! So it must be the same cave where we were nearly killed by that gas! Damn it, I should have guessed myself! I noticed the direction in which the procession was moving change soon after it had started! Dmitro Borisovich, don’t you remember, we talked about it? We tried to figure out what it would mean for us? Do you remember that?”
Dmitro Borisovich after some hesitation said, nodding his head:
“Yes, I remember some talk about the change in direction; yes, we did talk about that. But I don’t remember us arriving at any conclusions, Artem. No, I positively don’t.”
“But isn’t what I said now correct? Isn’t it, Ivan Semenovich?” Artem said passionately.
“Absolutely,” the geologist said. “We have come back to our stalactite cave, though, of course, not at the same place we entered the Scythian world, but a little further to the north. I would estimate that we would have about a mile to go before we get to the section of the cave with which we are familiar. Of course, my calculations are valid only if my compass is in order. I have relied on it all the time though, but just in case, let’s check it. Artem, do you still have your compass?”