In this way they penetrated a considerable distance, till arriving at a kind of wide underground room, the party rested awhile.
Harry Girdwood now proposed to go and explore the further portion of this subterranean region.
Leaving, therefore, the others resting, he took the box of matches, and entered the further passage.
He soon found a low rugged opening, from which another passage branched off.
Going through this, Harry was almost sent falling on his face through making a false step, for he did not see that this passage lay more than a foot lower than the other.
Then he struck one of his matches, and by its light perceived that this passage was lower, narrower, and more rugged and winding than the rest of the vaults, and seemed to have been hewn out of the earth, rather than built in it.
"Perhaps this leads to a cave," he thought, "inhabited by robbers or wild beasts. In that case I shall come off badly. I ought to have brought Bogey with me; he's ugly enough to frighten any body. Never mind, here goes."
And grasping his cutlass in one hand, and in the other a piece of lighted paper, which he had twisted into the form of a torch, Harry Girdwood marched manfully on.
Grazing his head against a jutting piece of rock reminded him that the passage was growing very small, and it behoved him to stop.
Suddenly Harry stopped.