“See?” cried Nic.
“Yes; come along.”
“One moment,” said Nic, pausing to look upward at the arching ferns eight or ten feet overhead. “No one would think of coming down there to look for a way. But how about footmarks in this soft sand? One of the blacks would trace us directly.”
“The water trickles over them and washes them full of sand directly, Nic. I am safe in that.”
“But did you venture into this black darkness without knowing where you were going? One might slip down into some horrible pit.”
“I slipped down into a horrible pit years ago, boy,” said the convict bitterly, “and I felt that I could only lose my life in an adventurous search. But I did not go far in the dark. Come on a few yards, and I will show you. There is nothing to mind.”
“Does the water get deeper?” whispered Nic, in an awe-stricken voice.
“Never more than an inch or two, except in rainy time, and then of course it becomes a rushing torrent and impassable. Come along: it is always a soft sandy or rippled path formed of petrifactions like that you saw just now.”
Nic braced up his nerves and followed the wash, wash of the convict’s footsteps till his companion cried, “Halt!”
“Now,” he said—“hold this.”