“But if you thought I was going to be killed,” I insisted, “why was it that you did not seek safety in flight?”
“If you had been killed I should not have cared to live,” she said simply.
I did not exactly understand her attitude and scarcely knew what reply to make.
“It was very foolish of you,” I said at last, rather blunderingly, “and if we are attacked again you must run and save yourself.”
She looked at me for a moment with a peculiar expression upon her face which I could not interpret and then turned and resumed her way in the direction in which we had been traveling when our journey had been interrupted by the tor-ho. She did not say anything, but I felt that I had offended her and I was sorry. I did not want her falling in love with me, though, and according to earthly standards, her statement that she would rather die than live without me might naturally have been interpreted as a confession of love. The more I thought of it, however, as we moved along in silence, the more possible it seemed to me that her standards might differ widely from mine and that I was only proving myself to be an egotistical ass in assuming that Nah-ee-lah loved me. I wished that I might explain matters to her, but it is one of those things that is rather difficult to explain, and I realized that it might be made much worse if I attempted to do so.
We had been such good friends and our fellowship had been so perfect that the apparently strained silence which existed between us was most depressing. Nah-ee-lah had always been a talkative little person and always gay and cheerful, even under the most trying conditions.
I was rather tired out after my encounter with the tor-ho and should have liked to stop for a rest, but I did not suggest it, neither did Nah-ee-lah, and so we continued on our seemingly interminable way, though, almost exhausted as I was, I dropped some little distance behind my beautiful guide.
She was quite out of sight ahead of me upon the winding trail when suddenly I heard her calling my name aloud. I answered her as, simultaneously, I broke into a run, for I did not know but what she might be in danger, though her voice did not sound at all like it. She was only a short distance ahead and when I came in sight of her I saw her standing at the edge of a mighty crater. She was facing me and she was smiling.
“Oh, Julian,” she cried, “I have found it. I am home and we are safe at last.”
“I am glad, Nah-ee-lah,” I said. “I have been much worried on account of the dangers to which you have been constantly subjected, as well as because of a growing fear that you would never be able to find Laythe.”
“Oh, my!” she exclaimed, “I knew that I would find it. If I had to hunt through every mountain range in Va-nah I would have found it.”
“You are quite sure that this is the crater where lies the entrance to Laythe?” I asked her.
“There is no doubt of it, Julian,” she replied, and she pointed downward over the lip of the crater toward a narrow ledge which lay some twenty feet below and upon which I saw what appeared to be the mouth of a cave opening into the crater.
“But, how are we going to reach it?” I asked.
“It may be difficult,” she replied, “but we will find a way.”
“I hope so, Nah-ee-lah,” I said, “but without a rope or wings I do not see how we are going to accomplish it.”
“In the mouth of the tunnel,” explained Nah-ee-lah, “there are long poles, each of which has a hook at one end. Ages ago there were no other means of ingress or egress to the city and those who came out to hunt or for any other purpose came through this long tunnel from the city, and from the ledge below they raised their poles and placed the hooked ends over the rim of the crater, after which it was a simple matter to clamber up or down the poles as they wished; but it has been long since these tunnels were used by the people of Va-nah, who had no further need of them after the perfection of the flying wings which you saw me using when I was captured by the Va-gas.”
“If they used poles, so may we,” I said, “since there are plenty of young trees growing close to the rim of the crater. The only difficulty will be in felling one of them.”
“We can do that,” said Nah-ee-lah, “if we can find some sharp fragments of stone. It will be slow work, but it can be done,” and she started immediately to hunt for a fragment with a cutting edge. I joined her in the search and it was not long before we had discovered several pieces of obsidian with rather sharp edges. We then started to work upon a young tree about four inches in diameter that grew almost straight for a height of some thirty feet.
Cutting the tree down with our bits of lava glass was tedious work, but finally it was accomplished, and we were both much elated when the tree toppled and fell to the ground. Cutting away the branches occupied almost as long a time, but that, too, was finally accomplished. The next problem which confronted us was that of making the top of the pole secure enough to hold while we descended to the ledge before the mouth of the tunnel. We had no rope and nothing with which to fashion one, other than my garments, which I was loth to destroy, inasmuch as in these higher altitudes it was often cold. Presently, however, I bit upon a plan which, if Nah-ee-lah’s muscles and my nerves withstood the strain it put upon them, bade fair to assure the success of our undertaking. I lowered the larger end of the pole over the side of the crater until the butt rested upon the ledge before the mouth of the tunnel. Then I turned to Nah-ee-lah.
“Lie down flat at full length, Nah-ee-lah,” I directed her, “and hold this pole securely with both hands. You will only have to keep it from toppling to the sides or outward, and to that, I think, your strength is equal. While you hold it, I will descend to the mouth of the tunnel and raise one of the regular hooked poles which you say should be deposited there. If they are not, I believe that I can hold our own pole securely from below while you descend.” She looked over into the vast abyss below and shuddered. “I can hold it at the top,” she said, “if the bottom does not slip from the ledge.”
“That is a chance that I shall have to take,” I replied, “but I will descend very carefully and I think there will be little danger upon that score.”
I could see, upon a more careful examination of the ledge below, that there was some danger of an accident such as she suggested.
Nah-ee-lah took her position as I had directed and lay grasping the pole securely in both hands at the rim of the crater, which was absolutely perpendicular at this point, and I prepared to make the perilous descent.
I can assure you that my sensations were far from pleasurable as I looked over into that awful abyss. The crater itself was some four or five miles in diameter, and as I had every reason to suspect, extended fully two hundred and fifty miles through the lunar crust to the surface of the Moon. It was one of the most impressive moments of my life as I clung balancing upon the edge of that huge orifice, gazing into the silent, mysterious depths below. And then I seized the pole very gently and lowered myself over the edge.
“Courage, Julian!” whispered Nah-ee-lah; “I shall hold very tight.”
“I shall be quite safe, Nah-ee-lah,” I assured her. “I must be safe, for if I am not, how are you to reach the ledge and Laythe?”
As I descended very slowly I tried not to think at all, but to exclude from my mind every consideration of the appalling depths beneath me. I could not have been more than two feet from the ledge when the very thing that we both tried so hard to guard against transpired—a splintered fragment of the pole’s butt crumpled beneath my weight and that slight jar was just sufficient to start the base of my precarious ladder sliding toward the edge of the narrow projection upon which I had rested it, and beyond which lay eternity. Above me I heard a slight scream and then the pole slipped from the ledge and I felt myself falling.