They got to the top just as Lucy-Ann felt that her arms would not hold on to the ladder any longer. As Jack said, there was a dim light there. He climbed off on to a rocky floor, and the girls followed. They all lay panting for a few minutes, unable even to look round and see where they were.
Jack recovered first. He sat up and gazed round him. He was in a little chamber, lighted by a dim lamp. Big stone jugs full of what looked like water stood at the back, with mugs near by. Jack’s eyes gleamed. Just what they wanted after their terrible climb! He fetched a jug and three mugs and the three of them drank deeply of the ice-cold water.
“Now I feel better,” said Jack, with a sigh. He put back the jug and mugs. There was nothing else to see in the room at all. At the far end was an open passage-way, leading into the heart of the mountain.
Jack went to it. Lucy-Ann called softly to him. “Jack! Aren’t you coming back? You said you’d only go to the top and look!”
“Well, I’m looking,” said Jack. “There’s a narrow passage here. Come and see. I wonder where it leads to.”
The girls went to see. Jack wandered along a little way and the girls followed, not liking to be left alone. They came to another dim lamp, set on a rocky shelf in the passage wall. Jack went on and on, following the winding passage, coming to lamp after lamp that lighted the way.
“Come back now,” whispered Lucy-Ann, pulling at his sleeve. “We’ve gone far enough.”
But Jack felt that he couldn’t possibly go back now. Why, he might meet Philip round the next corner! So on he went.
They came to a forking of the passage, which suddenly divided into three. The children stopped, wondering where the three passages led to. They all looked exactly the same to them.
And then, out of one passage capered somebody they knew very well indeed. It was Snowy!
The kid was as delighted to see them as they were to see him. He butted them all, rubbed his nose into their hands, and bleated joyfully. Jack felt pleased.
“We’ll follow Snowy,” he said to the girls. “He’ll lead us to Philip!”
So they let the little kid dance in front of them, leading the way. He led them down the passage, into a vast, hall-like cave, into another passage, and then, to their great surprise, they came to a most amazing place.
It was like a vast laboratory, a work-room set in the heart of the mountain. It lay below them, and they had to lean over a little gallery to look at it.
“What is it?” whispered Lucy-Ann, awed at the amount of queer things there. There was no enormous machinery — only a vast network of gleaming wires, great glass jars standing together, crystal boxes in which sparks and flames shot up and down, and rows upon rows of silently spinning wheels that shone queerly as they spun. The wires ran from these all over the place.
In the middle of the work-room shone a curious lamp. It had many sides, and it glowed first one colour and then another. Sometimes it was so dazzling that the children could hardly look at it. Sometimes it died down to a faint red, green or blue glow. It seemed alive — a monster eye that watched over everything in that secret laboratory.
The children gazed, fascinated. There was nobody there at all. Everything seemed to work on its own, never stopping. The wheels spun round, the wires gleamed, and nothing made any noise beyond a very quiet humming.
And then — and then there began that faint, far-off rumbling they knew so well. Far below the laboratory, deep deep down, came a stirring and a groaning, as something happened in the depths of the mountain. Then, as had happened before, the mountain quivered a little, and shook, as if something tremendous had happened deep underground.
The great lamp in the middle suddenly grew bright, so bright that the children crouched back afraid. It grew crimson, the brightest crimson they had ever seen in their lives. It began to belch out tiny puffs of crimson smoke.
Jack began to choke. He pushed the girls back into the passage, and they breathed the fresher air there in relief. Snowy, frightened, crouched against them.
“That’s the smoke we saw coming out of a hole in the side of the mountain,” whispered Jack. “There must be a chimney-pipe built from that lamp, right away up the mountain to that hole, where the smoke can escape.”
“What’s going on, do you think?” asked Dinah, in awe. “What’s all that wire for, and the crystal boxes and things?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” said Jack. “But it’s plain that it’s something very secret, or they’d never do all this here, in this lonely, inaccessible place.”
“Atom bombs or something, do you think?” asked Lucy-Ann, with a shiver.
“Oh, no — you want enormous buildings for that,” said Jack. “No — it’s something queer and unusual, I should think. Let’s go back and peep.”
They went back, but everything was just as it had been, the wheels spinning silently, the crystal boxes sparking and flaming up and down inside, the great lamp watching like an eye, now crimson, now blue, now green, now orange.
“Let’s go round the gallery and see where it goes to,” whispered Jack. “I feel as if I’m in some sort of Aladdin’s cave now — the Slave of the Ring might appear at any moment!”
They wandered on and came to another extraordinary place. It was really only a high-roofed cave — but it was made into a great, sumptuous hall, with flights of steps leading up to what looked like a throne. Beautiful hangings hung down the Avails from the roof, which glittered with shining lamps shaped like stars.
The floor was laid with a golden carpet, and ranged on each side were beautiful chairs. The children stared in astonishment.
“Whatever’s all this?” whispered Dinah. “Does some king live here? The king of the mountain!”
Chapter 17
PHILIP AGAIN
“IT’S queer there’s nobody about at all,” said Jack, staring round at the silent hall. “Not a soul to be seen! I wonder where everyone is. All those wheels and wires and things whirring away busily by themselves, with nobody to see to them — and now this great empty place, with its throne and gorgeous hangings!”
“Jack!” said Dinah, pulling at his sleeve. “Can’t we find Philip now and rescue him? We’ve only got to go back through those long passages and down the rope-ladder! Snowy will take us to Philip, and we can take him safely to the entrance of the mountain.”
“Yes. That’s a good idea,” said Jack. He fondled the little white kid by his side. “Where’s Philip?” he whispered, and gave Snowy a push. “You show us, Snowy.”
Snowy butted Jack gently. He didn’t seem to know what the boy meant. Jack gave it up after a bit. “We’ll wait and see if Snowy goes off by himself,” he said. “If he does, we’ll follow him.”
So they waited. Snowy soon became restive and set off down the big hall past the great throne. The children followed cautiously, keeping by the walls, as far in the shadows as possible. Snowy disappeared through some deep red curtains. The children peeped through them. On the other side was what looked like a small library. Books lined the walls. The children looked at the titles curiously. They hardly understood what any of them meant. Most of them were in foreign languages, and all of them looked very learned and difficult.
“Scientific books,” said Jack. “Come on. Snowy has gone through that opening.”
They followed him. He saw that they were coming and waited for them. They hoped he was taking them to Philip!
He was! He led them upwards through a curiously rounded tunnel-like passage, lit at intervals by the same kind of dim lamps they had seen in the first passages. It was weird going along in the half-dark, not able to see very far in front or behind. Snowy trotted in front like a little white ghost.
They passed big openings filled with what looked like stores of some kind. Boxes, chests, packages of all kinds were there, flung in higgledy-piggledy.
Jack paused to examine some. They had foreign labels on most of them. One had been opened, showing tins of food.
“Look,” said Jack, “it’s what I said. They have their food brought here — by the helicopter, I expect. I wonder what in the world they’re up to.”
They came to some steps hewn out of the rock itself. These led upwards rather steeply in a spiral. Snowy bounded up lightly, but the others panted as they went up and up, twisting and turning with the spiral of the stairway.