“I doubted from the first,” he replied, in a calm voice, “because the sound was not natural to me. We are lost, as you can see for yourself; but we will not give up nor keep idle. It is better to push ahead, if we do get wrong.”
“Hello! see there!” exclaimed Harry, the next moment. “There is something of a different order.”
Both saw at the same instant a small, dim point of light, that looked like the shining of a pale star through mist or vapor.
“What can that be?” he asked, as they paused and gazed toward it.
“I can not guess even,” replied Little Rifle; “let us go toward it and see whether we can not find out!”
CHAPTER XIII.
THE HOLE IN THE AIR.
Little Rifle and Harry Northend stood in the cavern, gazing in wonder at the pale, glimmering point of light, neither able to guess what it could mean.
The first supposition that it was a star was dissipated the next instant by the consciousness that such a thing was a physical impossibility, and besides which its appearance was different. It was apparently several inches in diameter, something like a hundred yards distant, and at a point considerably above their heads.
Heeding the terrible warning that they had received, the lads advanced with great circumspection. Harry willingly relinquished the place of leader to his companion, knowing how much more careful and skilled he was in business of this kind, and how much more likely he was to detect its nature.
Not until they were directly beneath the strange appearance did they comprehend what it meant. By that time they found that it was fully a foot in diameter, and that it was something like fifty feet above their heads.