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arch of interlocking machinery, and so came into a vast deep gangway
that ran athwart the bottom of the pit. This gangway, wide and vacant,
and yet relatively narrow, conspired with everything about it to enhance
Redwood's sense of his own littleness. It became, as it were, an
excavated gorge. High overhead, separated from him by cliffs of
darkness, the searchlights wheeled and blazed, and the shining shapes
went to and fro. Giant voices called to one another above there, calling
the Giants together to the Council of War, to hear the terms that
Caterham had sent. The gangway still inclined downward towards black
vastnesses, towards shadows and mysteries and inconceivable things, into
which Redwood went slowly with reluctant footsteps and Cossar with a
confident stride....
Redwood's thoughts were busy. The two men passed into the completest
darkness, and Cossar took his companion's wrist. They went now slowly
perforce.
Redwood was moved to speak. "All this," he said, "is strange."
"Big," said Cossar.
"Strange. And strange that it should be strange to me--I, who am, in a
sense, the beginning of it all. It's--"
He stopped, wrestling with his elusive meaning, and threw an unseen
gesture at the cliff.
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