In a moment, I followed. She was headed into one of the small tunnels that led a few yards upward to the open plateau. I lost sight of her for a time; but when I was out upon the upper level I saw her again. She moved along the rocks cautiously but swiftly and came to the edge of a cliff that fronted the distant void of the abyss. I stood watching. It was dark enough, so that she could see comfortably. The clouds hung low over the plateau. The rounded rock spires, caked with ooze and slime, were dark sentinels in the gloom. The further distance was solid black; but in a moment moonlight broke through, edging the naked black rocks with a green-white glow. In a hollow down the precipitous slope, a tangled rotting mass of sea vegetation lay slumped and limp in a dark pool of water which was trapped in a basin of the rock. And miles away and a thousand feet below where I stood, the moonlight slanted down through the clouds in a great white shaft and fell upon a giant caldron of inky water, painting it with white fire. Against the moonlight Nereid flung a protecting hand to her eyes. She sat on a rock. The clouds closed over us; the scene was dark when I reached her. “Nereid!” She started, alarmed. Then relaxed. “Oh, it is you, Jeff.” I sat beside her. “What are you doing up here?” She hesitated, but she answered softly: “I am very glad you came. I was frightened, to be up here alone. But I thought I wanted to be alone. Polly is coming! I have reached her--I am sure of it.” “Polly!” “Yes. With help for us. This morning I reached her.” She put a timid hand on my arm. “You, Jeff my friend--you know I am trying my best. I think I reached her this morning. And later, a few hours ago, I think she understood me again. She is coming--” If only she were! My heart was beating fast. “But not alone, Nereid? She isn’t coming alone?” “No. With others. I think she laughed when she told me there would be others.” * * * * * “But you don’t know where we are--how could you tell her where to come?” I stood up. Polly, with a searching party, here in this abyss--“But Nereid, we must show some light.” I stared up at the impenetrable dark mist hanging in a low ceiling above us. Nereid stood with me. She said anxiously: “Do you think there is a chance? I tried to describe these cliffs, this level top, the cave mouths. It was two hours ago, I think, when she said she was starting. Jeff, would she be that near here? Could any one fly from your cities nearest here in a few hours?” Polly, down here on one of the mountain-tops which had been a South Sea island? It was possible. And the Marshall group, I thought, ought to be within a thousand miles to the east, and the Carolines not much more than half that to the south. Mountain ranges towering above the clouds of these desolate Lowlands. Was Polly on her way down from them to seek us? “Nereid, we must show a light as a guide.”