"What a strange, a horrible idea!" I exclaimed.
"The world is proud of its Newtons now," said Rhodes. "But was it proud of them when they came? Whenever I see a man going into ecstasy over the wonders of the beauties and the glories of the human mind, I think of these words, written by the Philosopher of Ferney: 'When we reflect that Newton,! Locke, Clarke and Leibnitz would have been persecuted in France, imprisoned at Rome, and burned at Lisbon, what are we to think of human reason?'"
"Alas, poor, poor humans," said I, "you are only vile Yahoos!"
Milton Rhodes smiled wanly.
"Don't misunderstand me, Bill. The mind of man is a fearful thing, but it is wonderful too, as wonderful as it is dreadful—and the more wonderful, perhaps, than it intrinsically is because of the very grossness and sordidness that it has to conquer. We are prone, some of us, to think the record of the intellect a shabby one; but, after all, the record is not, all things considered, so bad as it may seem at a first glance. It might have been better; but we should rejoice that it is not worse, that the mind, the hope of the world, has made even the slight advance that it has. Mind is on his way at last! And, with Science on his right hand and Invention on his left, he can not fail to conquer the ape and the tiger—to win to a future brighter even than the most beautiful of our brightest dreams."
"Well," said I, turning and seating myself on one of the steps, up which steps perhaps many victims had been dragged to sacrifice, "this is a fine time truly and a fine place indeed in which to discuss man and the glorious destiny that may await him, in view of the fact that some spot in these cursed caverns may soon be our tomb.
"And," I added, "there come the Dromans."
Never shall I forget that look of awe and horror upon their white faces when at last they stood there in a huddled group before, almost under, the great dragon. Rhodes had seated himself beside me, and it was obvious that this temerity on our part was a source of astonishment to the Dromans. What dread powers they feared the monster might possess, I can only conjecture; but I do know that we could never have induced even Drorathusa herself to thus, on the very steps of his altar, hazard the wrath of an offended deity.
Chapter 28
I Abandon Hope
At last Milton and I arose and proceeded to examine carefully this chamber of earven horrors. By the altar, another passage was discovered. Like the great chamber itself and the passage by which we had entered, this tunnel had been hewn out of the living rock by the hand of man. It was some sixty feet in length and conducted us into a small but most remarkable grotto—or, rather, a series of grottoes. We advanced, however, but little way there; a few minutes, and we were again in the hall of the dragon.
We continued, and finished, our examination of the place. Another passage was discovered, in the roof and leading to we knew not where. Then there were those stone horrors ranged along either wall; but I shall not attempt to describe those nightmare monstrosities, some of which, by the way, had two heads.[1]
- ↑ "The Chevalier d'Angos, a learned astronomer, carefully observed, for several days, a lizard with two heads, and assured himself that this lizard had two wills independent of each other, and possessing nearly equal power over the body, which was in one. When a piece of bread was presented to the animal, in such a manner that it could see it with one head only, that head wished to go toward the bread, while the other head wished the body to remain still."—Voltaire.
