“We’ll have to work fast, fellows,” he told them. “This isn’t going to last long.”
And so they went ahead in real earnest, thrilled and fascinated by the discovery that there was not one tunnel, or two, in this remarkable cave, but a whole network of them, leading bewilderingly one into another.
In their excitement the Radio Boys temporarily forgot that it was much easier to get in than it would be to find their way out again. All that seemed to matter at the time was to find to what point these fascinating tunnels led. They had been using up matches at an appalling rate of speed.
Then suddenly the torch in Bob’s hand flickered and went out
“More matches,” he called impatiently. “Herb, it’s your turn.”
A minute of dead silence while Herb fumbled wildly in his pockets. Then faintly through the pitch blackness his voice came to them.
“I—haven’t any. I must have lost them.”
CHAPTER XVI
SWALLOWED UP BY THE DARKNESS
At first the full measure of the calamity did not come home to the boys. It was irritating, of course, to find themselves in the dark with no possible way of making a light. The blackness was so intense that they could not even see a hand before the face.
Herb turned, stumbled over something and almost lost his balance.