I had no more than
entered the dark shadows of the interior than there fell upon my
ears the tones of a familiar voice, in prayer.
"Perry!" I cried. "Dear old Perry! Thank the Lord you are safe."
"David! Can it be possible that you escaped?" And the old man
stumbled toward me and threw his arms about me.
He had seen me fall before the dyryth, and then he had been seized
by a number of the ape-creatures and borne through the tree tops
to their village. His captors had been as inquisitive as to his
strange clothing as had mine, with the same result. As we looked
at each other we could not help but laugh.
"With a tail, David," remarked Perry, "you would make a very handsome
ape."
"Maybe we can borrow a couple," I rejoined. "They seem to be quite
the thing this season. I wonder what the creatures intend doing
with us, Perry. They don't seem really savage. What do you
suppose they can be? You were about to tell me where we are when
that great hairy frigate bore down upon us--have you really any
idea at all?"
"Yes, David," he replied, "I know precisely where we are. We have
made a magnificent discovery, my boy! We have proved that the
earth is hollow. We have passed entirely through its crust to the
inner world."
"Perry, you are mad!"
"Not at all, David. For two hundred and fifty miles our prospector
bore us through the crust beneath our outer world. At that point
it reached the center of gravity of the five-hundred-mile-thick
crust.
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