The Secret People

'But who are these little white men? What are they doing here? Why don't they come out?'

The American shook his head.

'That's out of my line. Gordon has a theory about it. Get him to tell you some time. What's interesting me right now is the dope you gave us. It makes things clearer.'

'I gave you?'

'Sure. The low down on this New Sea stuff. There's been something worrying them, we've seen that, but we couldn't figure out just what it was. Now we've got it.'

'Does it help?'

'Help? Oh, it helps all right. It means when we get drowned down here we won't have to worry any more about getting out.'

Another time Mark put his questions to Gordon with greater success. The archaeologist, though he had been imprisoned longei than Smith, had contrived to keep his mind more supple. Not only had he retained an active interest, save for brief periods of depression, in the whys and wherefores of this subterranean race and its origin, but he possessed some capacity for seeing another's point of view—a quality which could never have been characteristic of the American. Requests for information which Smith met with the assurance that there was 'no hurry' and that Mark would have 'a hell of a long time to find it out in', were treated by Gordon with some appreciation of the newcomer's bewilderment. He enlarged upon Smith's remark that their quarters were a 'kind of jail'.

'We're in prison for safety,' he explained. 'Our safety, and theirs. There are two good ways of making a man keep a secret; one is to stop his mouth, and the other, to stop his heart. Why they choose the former, I can't tell you, they don't seem squeamish • about things like that. Anyhow, this way's just as effective, and it costs them nothing. We've got our own fungus caves, and we grow our own food in them. In fact the only real difference between their position and ours is that they can go out, but don't want to, while we want to, but can't.'

'How many are there in here?'

'It was somewhere about fifteen hundred last time we counted.'

Mark, who had thought from the way the others talked that fifty or a hundred might be a likely estimate, stared. Fifteen hundred-?

'You do mean prisoners?'

'Yes, prisoners. Counting all kinds. You'll see them as soon as you're strong enough to get about a bit.' Gordon spoke for once in a way irritatingly reminiscent of Smith.

'And none have ever escaped?'

'That's what they tell us, but I think they're wrong there. It was probably a devil of a long time ago, but I think it's been done—more than once.'

'Why?'

'Well,' Gordon frowned slightly, 'mind you, this is only a theory. I don't say that the facts might not be explained another way, but I hold that it is a possible explanation. You remember that you saw a fungus forest?'

'Yes?'

'What did it remind you of?'

'I don't quite-'

'Didn't it seem somehow familiar—as if you might have seen it before somewhere?'

Mark fancied he saw what the man was driving at. He remembered how Margaret had remarked on their likeness to toadstools in a story-book picture. Gordon beamed when he heard it.

'And what did she think of the white pygmies?'

'That they looked like gnomes—only they had no beards.'

The other spread his hands in showman style.

'Well, there you are. You did in some degree recognise the situation—it was not entirely unfamiliar to you although you thought it was. And what does that mean?'

Mark, not having the -least idea of what it might or might not mean, remained silent. Gordon continued:

'It means that some suspicion, some faint rumour of such a place has leaked out into the world. All folk-beliefs have a rational beginning somewhere if you can find it. Men didn't invent the tales of gnomes and trolls, nor the idea of giant toadstools. Someone had the tale from a man who had actually seen them—several men, perhaps, for the legends are widespread. In the course of time the stories became garbled, and at the hands of painters our pygmies underwent a transformation, but they were still dwarfs, and in most places were reported as being unfriendly to ordinary men.

'I tell you, our pygmies are the originals. Centuries ago somebody who had been in here did get back to the world and tell them about it.'

Mark looked extremely doubtful.

'But nobody would have believed it—they'd have laughed them down. Just think what they'd say of us if we got out and told them about this without any proof.'

'You're getting your crowd psychology wrong. More primitive people were wiser in some ways than we are. They did not jeer at everything outside the immediate realities. The mass attitude right up to the Middle Ages was to believe until an assertion was disproved (and in some matters that attitude still persists), but the typically modern attitude is to disbelieve until proof is forthcoming. In the old days people believed in the sea-serpent, nowadays they wouldn't believe in a kangaroo without photographs. They can still be hoaxed, of course, but the method has to be different. Besides, think of the peasants of old Europe; why should they be more surprised by hearing of small men who lived underground than by travellers' tales of men with black skins who went naked? One is as credible as the other. The difference is that in the course of time one tale became substantiated, while the other for lack of evidence to support it decayed into what is called folk-lore. Just suppose the blacks had killed every whit;e man they saw, wouldn't their existence have become a myth, just as this people's has? Of course it would.'

Mark, confronted for the first time with one of Gordon's theories, felt that while it was extremely plausible, it was also extremely unconvincing. He avoided expressing his opinion by temporising.

'Then you think no one has escaped for a long time— perhaps several centuries?'

Gordon shrugged his shoulders. 'Impossible to say. They may have done. But, if so, there ought at least to have been rumours—tales among the Arabs. There may be, of course, but it is strange that we've never heard any. The most I can say is that I am convinced that there have been escapes in the past.'

'And if then, why not now?'

'Any of a dozen reasons. They may have found the loophole and blocked it. These may not be the same prison caves. I must confess that the thing which puzzles me most is why they don't kill us as they find us, and have done with it—but then, different races always have their own funny ideas on the subject of killing....'

CHAPTER II

It was with Gordon as guide that Mark made his first trip into the larger caves. The former had seen that further forced inaction would do Mark little good. Gradually returning strength had found its outlet in fretting and worrying. He asked continually and fruitlessly for news of Margaret, and the fact that all three of the men assured him that they had made every possible inquiry without success, did not tend to ease his mind. Even Gordon could make no suggestion.

'I never heard of such a thing before,' he admitted. 'Quite invariably every member of a captured party has been brought here and left to make the best of it, but I assure you she is not in any of our caves—it couldn't be kept quiet. Every newcomer is a centre of interest.'

'That's so,' Smith agreed. 'If it hadn't been that you got treated so rough, we couldn't have kept them off questioning you. Nobody's got her hid away; that's certain.'

'You don't think they—killed her?'

'No, why should they?' Smith spoke heartily; the other two said nothing.