Under Billy's guidance they soon reached the cave entrance, and found it to be a kind of tunnel evidently leading to a large cave, for a red glare of firelight came round an angle, and the sound of many chattering voices was audible.
"Shall we go on?" said Morton in a whisper.
"No, wait a minute," replied Brown; "it strikes me there's another entrance to this place; they must have a lot of fire going, but yet the place is not full of smoke. I can smell the fire, but that's all. I think there must be an opening in the top; let's send Billy up to see."
The face of the cliff was easily climbed, being mostly detached rocks that had fallen down, and very soon Billy came back and reported that "fire come up alonga top".
One after the other the adventurers ascended, and found themselves on a rocky plateau full of fissures and holes, through some of which a bright light was streaming. Approaching this portion carefully on their hands and knees, they soon found a fissure through which they could gaze with safety on one of the strangest scenes ever witnessed in Australia.
The cavern below them was seemingly of some size, and was well lighted by a number of fires, the smoke from which somewhat annoyed the unseen spectators. A far larger number of blacks were assembled than had been visible before, and many of them were armed and painted, being also marked with the red smear and white triangle. One large group was composed of some twenty or thirty young men and women; they were huddled together, apparently much frightened, and had no marks whatever upon their bodies.
Columbus was soon recognized squatting at one of the fires with some of the other old men, and, like all but the group of boys and girls, busily engaged in eating. Morton felt his arm clutched suddenly and tightly, and Brown hoarsely whispered in his ear:
"It is meat they are eating; but what meat?"
Morton was struck with horror as he listened, and the truth flashed across his mind. It was a feast of cannibals they were overlooking. The armed natives had just returned from a foray, and the trembling group in the corner were prisoners destined to death.
An awful feeling of horror came over the whole party as they realized their situation and possible fate. In a wilderness of savage rocks, surrounded by an expanse of desert, almost in the hands of some fifty or sixty fierce cannibals—no wonder the first impulse of each was to slip quietly back the way he had come under cover of the night, and leave the natives to their former obscurity.