“You gentlemen know best, I dessay,” said the Sergeant; “but it strikes me that this here was a palace, and the bit we’re in was kitchen.”
“Nonsense,” said Denham. “It was a temple, and that was the altar.”
“Wouldn’t want a chimbley to a temple, would they, sir?”
“Chimney?” I said. “Where?”
“Yonder, sir. Goes back a bit, and then turns up. You can see the light shining down.”
“Yes,” I said, as we stepped close up to the supposed altar; “that must have been a chimney.”
“That’s right enough,” said Denham sharply. “Burnt sacrifices, of course. This place was covered in once, and that chimney was to carry off the smoke. But there, let’s get on. We’re not finding water. Is it dark through this doorway?”
Inspection proved that it was rather dark; but the absence of stones in the roof enabled us to see our way without a match. At the end of ten feet of narrow passage, whose floor was very much scored and broken up, there was a square opening similar to that which we had passed before entering the so-called temple.
“I shouldn’t be surprised if that hole communicates with the first,” I said.
“Pretty well sure to,” said Denham. “Here, sergeant, fetch one of those square bits of stone that lay by the other.”