Before I had waited long enough to grow impatient, I heard him call:
"Why, I can see you!"
The voice came not from the direction of the opening into which he had crawled, but from near the fire-place.
"Where are you?" I called back.
"Over here," said he, "come towards me."
Advancing towards the voice and peering into the dimness, where the light dispersed from the entrance made the darkness of the cavern just a little less dark than blackness, I saw him standing on the sill, as it were, of the opening up in the wall, beyond the fire-place as one approached from the entrance, and above the vertical wall of rock.
He had found a passage just big enough to crawl through leading from the aperture up to this species of gallery-alcove. The passage curved and was not much over twenty yards long. He pulled me up to the gallery and we crawled back together out of the aperture by which he had entered the passage. The whole passage was dry, unlike the floor of the cave.
"I tell you what we ought to do," said Agathemer, "let us go outside and gather armfuls of small leafy boughs and twigs. These we can throw up into that gallery-opening and make a fine bed there where it is dry. Then we can get a good safe sleep, and we need a long sound sleep."
We did as he suggested till we had leaves enough for a good bed. Then we ate, sparingly, for we had not much food in our wallets. After eating we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and went to sleep; Agathemer with his wallet beside him and his head on his arm, I with my wallet under my head.
I wakened with a hand over my mouth and with Agathemer's voice in my ear saying: