“Which reminds me,” Jack went on, “that if we ever get out of here we’ve got to accomplish the exit by our own exertions.”
“You talk like you had a suggestion to make,” Frank declared.
“I have!” answered Jack. “You see that crevice in the edge of the Punch Bowl, don’t you? Well, that used to carry away the waters of the pool. Some day the water became stuffed with sand and the pool found another way out.”
“I begin to understand!” Frank exclaimed. “I think I know what you mean. You have an idea that we can restore the water to its old channel and creep out through the larger passage, like the Egyptians crossing the Red Sea without getting their feet wet?”
“That’s the idea,” Jack exclaimed, “that’s just the idea! Only the Egyptians didn’t cross the Red Sea without getting their feet wet. It was the Hebrew children who crossed between two vertical walls of water. The Egyptians got theirs right there in the mud!”
“Have it your own way,” Frank laughed. “I’m afraid I don’t remember my Sunday School lessons very well. Have it your own way, only plan some escape from this everlasting pit.”
“Just as I was about to say when you interrupted with your fake story about the Egyptian army,” Jack went on, “we may be able in time to cut through the natural levee that separates the waters of the pool from the old channel. If we can, we can draw the water out of the present exit and use it for our own escape.”
“That’s the idea!” Frank declared.
The two boys now made a closer inspection of the natural levee and the mouth of the crevice. They discovered that by cutting through a couple of feet of sand, the distance being about ten feet, they could, indeed, turn the waters of the pool into its old channel.
Of course this would not provide a depth of channel sufficient to empty the pool, but they believed that, with the natural wash of the current, the surface might be lowered so that water would no longer find its way into the large opening.