“We need,” returned Harry, short and grim. “Who’s to know, if we don’t, that he found his way down?”
“What does it matter if he did or didn’t? This shows plains enough that he saw us come out.”
“But it doesn’t show that he knows what we know.”
“Harry!”
He was pulling at the dead stuff as I shook out his name. A great pad of it came bodily away in his hands, revealing a savage gap behind—a hole torn and trodden beyond anything that we had made.
“Harry!” I whispered again. “Supposing—supposing he should be down there now!”
Nothing would persuade or deter him. He broke from me, and was in while I spoke; and I had in decency to follow.
Now, if more proof were needed, here it was in the black rent at our feet. It was flagrantly enlarged from our memory of it by the forced passage of a huger body. It offered no difficulty of descent, and Harry let himself down into it cautiously, but without hesitation.
“Wait,” he muttered, as he disappeared, “while I light up.”
He had brought matches and candles with him; but he paused a moment to listen before he fetched them out.