“Here goes!” cried Vince. “Hold the light high up.”
Mike raised it on high, and leaned forward as far as he could; while, sitting down and grasping the rope, Vince let himself glide, and the next moment his feet sank deep in soft sand.
“Come on!” he shouted back to where Mike was anxiously watching from twenty feet or so above him. “It’s easy as easy. Never mind the lanthorn.”
He looked round as he spoke, to see that he was in a large cavern, floored with beautifully smooth, soft sand, and lit up by the same soft grey dawn that had greeted him at the end of the passage, but how it entered the place he could not make out, for no opening was visible, and the rushing, roaring sound of the water came from the lofty roof.
Vince’s was only a momentary glance, for Mike was coming slowly down the smooth shoot, sliding on his back, but lowering himself foot by foot, as he held on to the rope.
“There!” cried Vince, as his companion stood beside him, gazing at the rugged walls and lofty roof of the great dry channel; “wasn’t this worth coming to see?”
“Why, it’s grand,” replied Mike, in a subdued voice. “I say, what a place!”
“What a place? I should think it is. I say, Ladle, we’ve discovered this, and it’s all our own. You and I ought to come and stay here when we like. I say, isn’t it a size? Why, it must be thirty feet long.”
He paced across the rugged hollow, tramping through the soft sand.
“Twelve paces,” he cried from the other side. “It’s splendid; but I wish it was a bit lighter. There must be somewhere for the light to come in. Yes, I see!”