While Billy was mounting Epworth’s shoulders, Joan placed Moawha’s arms around her waist and supported her on the bar of the bicycle power.
“All ready,” she called in a whisper. “Let us run together.”
“Circle around in a wide circle until I can find my second flashlight,” Epworth suggested. “And——”
He was interrupted by a rush of crickets that began to swarm around him. But he made no mistake. Finding an opening he ran forward and jumped into the air, and began to work his pedals vigorously.
The glider went forward but did not rise. When he put his feet down to make another start he could not touch ground.
He had jumped off into a bottomless crater, and instead of going up, weighted with Billy, he was going down.
“Julian! Julian!” he heard a faint voice call. “Where are you? We are falling, falling.”
With a dexterous movement Epworth whirled the glider in the direction of Joan’s voice. Presently he saw her, and gave devout thanks for the crater lamps. True she was red; the plane was red; the whole wide open space was red; but he could see her.
“The explanation is simple,” he explained as he drew near her fluttering plane. “Keep the glider on an even keel; never let it turn over. With the weight of the girl you cannot fly but you can make a parachute out of the glider and descend slowly. Take it easy. That is the best we can do at present.”
He did not tell her that his heart was blue with dark forebodings; that he believed that they would never again see the sun or get out of the awful darkness that encompassed them.
The only hope that he could hold out to himself was that they were wearing a peculiar head gear that enabled them to see what was going on around them notwithstanding the darkness. It was little to build hope upon but he grasped it, and determined that he would go down into this strange, terrible world with as much courage as possible.
On and on, fluttering side by side, the two gliders descended, circling hour after hour with sufficient motor power to keep them from tumbling into a crack up, but continuing steadily downward—slowly but surely. There was no possible escape. They would go on downward forever or fall through the moon.
Through the mysterious cavern lamps which Moawha had taken from the heads of the pigmies who attacked them in the cave they could see quite plainly although everything appeared very strange. For a long time Epworth watched the red planes of Joan’s glider anxiously but finally ascertaining that she was following him closely and imitating his movements he turned to Billy.