“It will encourage him, for I will not believe he’s dead,” said Oliver aloud, and then, in spite of himself he shivered, for his voice went echoing strangely along the great hollow. But he mastered this unpleasant feeling, and determining to be strong, he raised his voice and uttered a loud “Ahoy,” listening directly after to the wonderful echoes, which seemed to fly in all directions, repeating and blurring each other as it were, into a strange confusion till the last one died out.
“Not pleasant,” thought Oliver, as he listened, and then when all was silent once more he made a start for the river’s edge, and reaching it began to follow it down. This, by walking slowly, did not prove very difficult, for the water had cut the bed in which it ran so straight down through the lava that there was quite a well-marked angle, which he could run his right foot along and make his way without stooping, save at rare intervals.
As he went on with his eyeballs aching from the strong natural effort to see through the darkness, his mind would keep wandering away to the glory of the sunshine without, and how beautiful were light and life, and how little appreciated till a person was shut off from their enjoyment.
Travelling slowly on in this way for how long a time he could not tell, he at last became conscious of the fact that he must be nearing the place where they had turned off nearly at right angles and plunged from silence into the deafening roar of echoes formed by the noise of falling waters. For there it all was plainly on the ear, but as it were in miniature, and Oliver stopped short, thinking.
“Shall I be doing wisely in going forward after all?” he said to himself, and he hesitated as he thought of one of the main objects of his being there—to try and let poor Wriggs know that he was not forsaken and that help would soon be at hand.
“My voice can never be heard in all that din,” he said to himself, and before going farther he uttered a loud shout, and listened to the echoes, one of which struck him as being so peculiar that he shouted again with the repetition sounding even more peculiar.
His heart began to throb and his hopes to rise, for he felt convinced that the “ahoy” was an answer to his call, and in a wild fit of excitement and joy he said to himself,—
“It must be. Now, let’s try if it is after all only an Irish echo.”
“Ahoy!” he cried. “Where are you?”
There was utter silence for a few moments, and then he heard a cry sounding so wild and strange that it seemed to freeze the very marrow in his bones.