“I take you from these,” said Narva, pointing in the direction of the villagers.
“Why should we go from them?” asked Leighton.
“They kill you,” was the laconic reply.
“What bloodthirsty people they all are!” exclaimed Andrew.
But Narva’s calm statement of what was to be expected proved decisive. There remained the doubt as to her sincerity. The timorous Mrs. Quayle scented a diabolical plot in the whole affair, and her fears were shared by some of the others. Only Una would brook no delay.
“We want to get out of the cave,” she said, addressing Narva. “We have lost the way—you will guide us?”
“Something you do first,” retorted Narva; “then you go free.”
The suggestion that they were still, in a sense, prisoners, and that some kind of service was expected of them before they could regain their freedom, was not pleasant. What was it that they could do for so singular a person as this, who gave the impression of having planned to meet them in this very spot? Narva took a witch’s privilege to speak in riddles. No amount of questioning could get her to explain what she meant. The answer to everything was always “follow me”—and as she pointed to the valley whenever she said this, they gathered that the direction they were expected to take was practically that which they had been pursuing ever since they left the Condor Gate. As this would inevitably bring them among the villagers—who, they had just been told, were prepared to “kill them”—they could not understand Narva’s plan at all. There being no choice left them, however, they yielded and went with her.
The path leading into the valley was abrupt and dangerous. Narva, striding ahead, was unimpeded by obstacles that left the others breathless and panic-stricken. They wanted to turn back before they had gone very far—but this would have been quite as difficult to accomplish as to go on.
At this point, apparently, the geological construction of the cave had undergone some radical changes. Convulsions, undoubtedly of volcanic origin, had rent the solid walls of granite in two, leaving irregular chasms, of uncertain depth, to be traversed before the smooth floor of the valley could be reached. These chasms, where their width demanded it, were spanned by swaying bridges of rope—or liana—and wood that proved a sore trial to the weaker members of the party, delaying their progress to an extent that seriously strained Narva’s patience. The old Indian was especially put out by Mrs. Quayle, whom she contemptuously called “baby,” and whose pathetic helplessness astride a plank over a yawning cavern aroused in her the nearest approach to laughter she had shown.