Slowly Muswani and the hounds—left to their own devices at the foot of the steps—faded from view. Then the plain itself vanished, seeming to give place to an illimitable black void. And afar off, miles and miles away, a silver haze hovered. It was the uncanny radiance from the fungi jungle. But even this faded at length, and still the rough-hewn ledges rose before the climbers, and their limbs grew weary of the treadmill-like motion. Occasionally an encouraging shout would peal downward from Chenobi, cheering the flagging spirits of his followers.
“Courage!” the king cried at length, “the end is at hand.”
Within a few moments they all stood in the mouth of a narrow tunnel, which stretched before them far into the heart of the cliff.
“Thank heaven that’s over!” muttered Wilson. “My leg’s still too stiff to stand much of that kind of thing.”
“Your wound hasn’t broken out afresh?” Seymour inquired anxiously.
“No,” the engineer returned, “there’s no chance of that now.”
“That’s good,” cried Haverly; “a wounded leg’s kinder awkward to rub along with. Jupiter!”
His sentence ended in a gasp, as a brilliant light flooded the tunnel.
“The sun!” Mervyn cried excitedly; “let us move forward again,” and, suiting the action to the word, he strode on over the slanting floor of the tunnel. But he pulled up again in a moment with a startled “Oh!” as the light, dying out as suddenly as it had come, left him in pitchy darkness.
Seymour burst into a laugh.