jolt when his car stopped at New York, and the second a possible shock if the car struck the side of the carbonite tube.
But the telemeter plainly indicated that the car was at the center of the earth, or four thousand miles away from New York, while other instruments showed that the car occupied a central position in the tube, being no nearer one side than another. Hence neither of the two hypotheses seemed tenable.
These thoughts flashed through William's mind in an instant, as he clung to the straps at the top of the car, which he had managed to clutch after being thrown to the ceiling. Determined to ascertain the truth at all costs, he rapidly made his way to the window at the top of the car, and threw open the metal shutter that guarded the glass pane, his action serving at the same time to automatically turn on a search-light designed to illuminate the tube.
What a sight met his eyes! There, directly above him,—or, more properly speaking, below him, since he had now passed the center of the earth,—he beheld a most startling sight. The carbonite tube was red-hot, and was evidently yielding to a pressure from without! Even as he gazed it
