In the dim light there were thick tangles of tree roots all about him; some half buried and some exposed and trailing off down into the gloomy depths. And above him he could see the walls of the crack he’s jumped down, narrowed like a scar against the distant night-sky.
At his feet lay the hidden depths of the pitch-black chasm that Mary must have fallen into. And who knew how wide or deep that was? Once again, Roger would have to use his brains. But what he was really using was his courage. He shone the weak light of his torch along the rocky ledge, but other than the ledge and the tree’s roots, there was nothing more to be seen.
“Can you hear me Mary, are you down there?” he shouted, but still no answer came.
He sat on the ledge to get his breath back and to ponder his predicament. Then without any warning, the wall of erf and the rock, and roots behind him started to madly shiver and shake. The rock wall seemed to be having convulsions, and he felt very near to having them too.
But, by some uncanny power of premonition, he threw himself off to one side, just as the tip of a Giant Erf-worm came boring through, erupting from the rock-face behind him.
It looked just like an ordinary Erf-worm except it was at least a hundred times as big and was glowing a faint blue. It was obviously much tougher than the ones he was familiar with. This worm could bore through solid rock, not just soil. He realized this was obviously a Giant Rock-Worm of the Under-Erf!
“Hmm, well, whatever else, it’s still definitely a Megadrile, a variety of Erfworm of the family of Megascolecidae,” he thought, being his old clever-clogs self again.
Roger lay as still and as quiet as he could, while it slithered on by him and disappeared down into a crack in the rock ledge several feet from where he lay. It hadn’t tried to hurt him and in fact, hadn’t paid him any attention whatsoever. But it had served one purpose though. Roger now knew there were very strange and unknown creatures down here in the realm of the ‘Under-Erf’; and in the future some of them might not be so negligent of his existence!
After that horrible thought, and once his heart had stopped racing, he again yelled out as loud as he could for Mary, still hoping to hear her; but again, no answer came. He was now getting very worried about her indeed and had to stifle another wave of fear and panic.
He shone his flickering torch into the murky depths below, but as expected, it revealed nothing new; just a smoky void of impenetrable blackness. He then very cautiously peered over the edge and once more did the traditional and time-honored thing all heroes do when they’re confronted by an unfathomable drop beneath them. He took a second penny from his pocket, and peering intently over the ledge, dropped it into the inky, black chasm below.
Once again, he was amazed to find that by doing so, he was not in fact on the edge of an endless chasm at all; but was instead at the top of a fairly, smooth slope of rock, that slanted away into the dark, seemingly at a steady angle. He could clearly hear the coin and disturbed pebbles skittering down the slope below him; He grabbed another handful of pebbles and threw these as well, just to make sure, and they also skittered down the hidden slope.
He then made some quick mathematical calculations in his head and taking time, velocity, mass and distance into account, he determined that there was indeed a slope at his feet, and it was at about a Thirty Degree angle, at the most. He sighed with relief. This meant that, if he was very careful, he could slowly and surely slide his way down into its dark dismal depths, and without tumbling to his untimely death.
“Sometimes Practical Mathematics is a real pain in the abacus!” he told himself ironically out loud, finding his own voice strangely reassuring down here in the darkness. But it made him think of Mary again. The only voice he’d heard so far had been his own. And it was Mary’s voice that he most desperately wanted to hear more than anything.
“Still not a single peep from her yet,” he thought, “but at least it’s not a bottomless pit she’s been swallowed up by; she must have rolled down the slope and then, gulp! Survived somehow!” He frowned, again now talking aloud to himself, trying to work out what to do. “O.K. first things first, let’s get down this slope and then we’ll deal with whatever we need to deal with then, right, Roger? Right!”
Roger was very, very scared; and yes, some of it was the smoky darkness and his horror of heights and the ever-threatening danger, but what he was secretly most scared about was:
“Wh-wha-what if she’s dead?”
He could hardly bear to even think such a thing.
There were several wisps of grey smoke still rising up from the gloom. This was making breathing more difficult but other than that, there was nothing else to see or hear down there.
Then, suddenly, there was another shuddering Erf tremor. And parts of the ledge he was on began to crack and crumble and chunks of rock came clattering down from above.
Then a large cloud of grey, billowing smoke came up the slope from below, causing him to cough and his eyes to stream, momentarily blinding him; even though he was all but blind already, in the close claustrophobic gloom of the pit.
He quickly fumbled for one of his hankies from his pocket and tied it around his mouth.
Then, as his spluttering and wheezing subsided, he heard it; just very, very faintly, and sounding a long, long way off below him. He could hear a distant cry for help followed by several weak coughs. Then all was silent again. He listened intently; but once again, there was nothing to be heard.
All was just silence, smoke and darkness, as before.
But Roger knew what he had heard, even so faintly. It had been Mary, he was sure of it.
“That’s her!” he thought, with great relief. “Oh, thank Galileo for that, she’s alive!”
Then another gust of smoke billowed up into his face, causing him once again to choke and so give his own rendition of a coughing smoker rendering him temporarily unable to call back down to her and let her know he was on the way. But he wiped at the soot from his face, with yet another of his hankies, and then lay flat on his stomach, and leaned over the ledge. He held his breath, and listened for any sound, just to be absolutely sure that it was her.
“Roger. He-e-e-elp meeeee! Can you hear meee?” he heard he call once again.
“Yep, that is definitely her!” he thought, then smiling grimly to himself, ruefully added, “But that’s a bit silly really; after all, who else is it likely to be down here?”
Roger leaned out from the ledge and yelled as loud as he could, down into the darkness.
“I can hear you, Mary. I’m coming, hold on, I’m coming!” Then gathering the very last shreds of his courage, told himself, “Well, Roger, this is it I s’pose; although it’s not exactly scientifically exploring the depths of the unknown that I’d expected, but, well, needs must!”
With that, he hoisted himself over the side of the rock-shelf and sat knees under his chin, at the very top of the powdery grey slope that disappeared scarily below his feet, down into the billowing blackness of the unknown beyond.
Mary’s Knight Irritant and rescuer was at last on his way!
Roger gingerly began his slow, ungainly bum-shuffle downwards. But once again, after a short while, the slope suddenly and violently lurched and buckled beneath him. It was just as if some long, dirty carpet had been caught tightly in the hands of an invisible Giantess doing her housework and given it a thoroughly good bashing and beating.