"Jonathan, will you stop complaining about sandwiches?" Rose was buckling on a heavy leather vest reinforced with strips of metal.
"It seems to be all I ever get." I strapped on a shin guard. "Sandwiches, endless sandwiches. What I would not give for a nice grilled Dover sole."
"I shall take you both out to the Criterion for a late supper, if we return," Burton said with what, I assume, passed for humor amongst explorers.
We were on the first level of those blasted cellars again, in the very room in which we had survived the onslaught the night before. This time, however, we were ready.
Well, they were ready. All I was ready for was a glass or two of brandy and a good long sleep. What I was definitely not ready for was a descent into the opening out of which had erupted all those walking dead men.
Foolishness, I called it. Dangerous, deadly foolishness.
An adventure, Rose had replied.
A necessity, Burton pointed out.
At least this time, we were armed and armored, and we were not alone. Along with Rose, Burton, Thaddeus—a host in himself—and I were five of the Institute's guards, including the inestimable Perkins.
When this insanity had first been proposed to me, I thought it a joke.
I could see now that it was far from anything laughable.
Rose eyed me, her head cocked to one side. She was dressed in heavy canvas coveralls with leather armor strapped over it, as were we all. She looked fetching. We looked foolish, especially as we all were positively bristling with knives and pistols.
"Explain to me one last time, Rose, why you think this is a good idea?" I asked, and if the faintest bit of whine crept through my manly tones, who can blame me?
Rose finished buckling a strap around Thaddeus's and turned to me.
"My dear Jonathan, London has been searched, high and low, for Speke. Nothing. And by low I do mean the sewers, so don't interrupt. We have nothing to go upon, and he simply must be found. So our best, in fact our only alternative, is to follow the trail from last night."
Follow the trail, said she, as if we were all English Natty Bumpos or some such. And do recall, following this particular trail meant digging out the hole which Burton had so cleverly closed up with a pair of exploding grenades, then climbing down into stygian darkness, underground, to find god knew what.
Honestly, I sometimes wonder if I have done the right thing by giving my heart to Lady Rose Blakeney-Barrington.
"Now, do you have your Ruhmkorff lantern strapped on securely?" Rose asked, breaking into my despairing thoughts.
I looked at her with every intention of crying off from this expedition. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. She smiled at me. Once again, I was lost.
"I do. I say, my dear girl, didn't these things used to be much larger?" I asked as I eyed the twin to my lantern which Thaddeus was tossing in one hand as if dandling a kitten.
"Well, I did make a few improvements to Herr Ruhmkorff's initial design," Rose said. "I hope he won't mind when he comes back from his expedition to Iceland."
"Why is he there?" asked Burton as he slid yet another knife into his belt.
"Oh, something that dear Professor Otto Lidenbrock found. They're off with a few others to test an hypothesis." Rose eyed Thaddeus and then turned to me. "Jonathan, where is your helmet?"
"Must I?"
"You must." She seized the leather monstrosity, jammed it on my head and strapped it securely under my chin. "Now, all ready?"
Some murmurs of agreement, none of them sounding too cheerful.
"Rose?" I asked. "Won't these—words fail me—won't these outfits interfere with our digging?"
"Digging, Jonathan? Whatever do you mean?"
"Well, not to put too fine a point on it, Burton did blow a great deal of dirt back into the hole, did he not?"
"All dug out, my dear boy," Rose said. "Unlike some people who sleep all day, others get early starts."
"We put a crew of navvies on it this morning," Burton said. "Seconded them from the Underground project. Did an excellent job, too."
I walked over to the hole and peered down into blackness. Rope ladders swung from tripods which stretched over the edges of the hole. I was glad the debris from the night before had been cleared away along with the dirt. One does hate to begin a journey by kicking away bits of bodies.
"What's at the bottom? I assume someone has gone down it to see if it's safe?" I asked without any real hope of any such thing.
"Of course," Rose assured me as she held out her arms to be strapped into some sort of winch device.
"I believe I shall go first, if you don't mind, Lady Rose," Burton said. "I'll await you all at the bottom."
"And if you meet up with some sort of…disturbance?" I asked, secretly hoping he would. After all, who was responsible for dashing off to darkest Africa with a madman, if not Burton himself?
"I shall whistle like this." He put two fingers in his mouth and most piercing shriek imaginable cut into my ear drums.
"Ah," I said. "That should do it as a warning. It should also alert anyone—or anything—within a hundred-yard radius that we are there." And I meant it to sting, by George!
In far less time than I'd hoped, we were all strapped into ropes and lowered, one by one, into that blessed hole. Thankfully, Perkins and his compatriots went first and made a secure ring about us when we arrived at the bottom.
Rose was last down, complaining vociferously about the indignity of being so. When she arrived and we'd disentangled her from her harness, everyone cranked up their Ruhmkorff coils and we could see we were in some sort of intersection. To right and left stretched tunnels which were obviously manmade, with smooth walls lined with brick. Before and behind us stretched rocky tunnels, but they were smooth as well, as if water flowing through them for millennia had worn them away.
"What are these tunnels?" asked Thaddeus, shining the beam of his lantern down onto the floor. "Look like they're from river beds, some of these rocks do." He kicked one and it rolled away. Indeed, it was nearly round.
"That's what we suspect, Thaddeus," Rose said. "There are a number of old rivers which flow beneath the streets of London. The Fleet ditch, for one. This may well be the course of another, unnamed and unseen for centuries. Perhaps the Romans knew of it."
"I care little if the Romans knew of it or not," I interrupted. "My main concern is, will the water be coming back through any time soon?"
Rose knelt down and felt the ground. "Quite dry, and has been for some time. Perhaps the spring which fed it dried up or was rerouted to some other purpose. I suspect a flood is the least of our worries."
That is my Rose. Always a cheerful, positive outlook.
"So, which way do we go?" I asked. "I for one am quite ready to be done with this entire affair. And if it takes hiking through Roman tunnels looking like mummies, then let us commence."
"I think our route is clearly marked," Burton said, pointing his lantern at the tunnel before us.
I took a closer look. Indeed. Quite clearly marked. With the detritus of desiccated bodies, almost as if we had fleshy breadcrumbs to follow as had poor Hansel and Gretel.