“You will lose nothing by care!” he admonished, “and can gain nothing by haste. Take my advice, and feel every step of ground before you put your foot down.”
“Strange we can not see any thing of the water,” remarked Harry; “there ought to be some dim sort of light to show where we entered, for the sound shows that we are close to them.”
He was still walking forward, in his confident way, when Little Rifle seized his arm with such violence as almost to throw him backward to the ground.
“Before you go a step further, strike one of your matches.”
“All right,” replied the lad; “but what’s the use of jerking a fellow’s arm off, when you want to tell him to do a thing?”
After some delay the match was produced and struck, and it showed them a sight that made their blood run cold with terror!
Less than two paces in front of Harry Northend yawned a black abyss, fully twenty feet in width, through whose fathomless depths roared a torrent of water, with a hollow, reverberating sound, as if it were hundreds of feet below.
Another moment, and both would have walked over into eternity.
As the match flickered and fell from the hand of Harry, he gasped and clutched the arm of his comrade, exclaiming, in a horrified whisper:
“What an escape! You saved me again.”