There's blackness, if you like; there's
depth. It's like a cloak of velvet to look into. But you can't
see the bottom--no, not in the daytime. Listen!"
Pritchard sat up. For a few moments neither spoke. A dozen
yards or so off, a scattered group--the rest of the party--were
playing cards around a fire. The green wood crackled, an
occasional murmur of voices, a laugh or an exclamation, came to
their ears, but for the rest, an immense, a wonderful silence, a
silence which seemed to spread far away over that weird, half-
invisible world! Tavernake listened reverently.
"Isn't it marvelous!" he exclaimed. "We haven't seen a human
being except our own party, for three days.
There probably isn't one within hearing of us now. Very likely
no living person has ever set foot in this precise spot."
"Oh, it's big," Pritchard admitted, "it's big and it's restful,
but it isn't satisfying. It does for you for a time because you
started life wrong and you needed a reaction. But for me--ah,
well!" he added, "I hear the call right across these thousands of
miles of forests and valley and swamp. I hear the electric cars
and the clash of the overhead railway, I see the flaring lights
of Broadway and I hear the babel of tongues. I am going back to
it, Tavernake. There's plenty to go on with. We've done more
than carry out our program."
"Back to New York!" Tavernake muttered, disconsolately.
"So you're not ready yet?" Pritchard demanded.
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