Then followed days and weeks of trekking before they reached the part of the country where the caverns were, and out-spanned one night at Wonderfontein, where, for a promise of payment, the son of a Boer living hard by undertook to provide lights and to show them the wonders of the underground region.
The Boer lad said that they would require a light-bearer besides himself, so Dinny was told to come, and after a little opposition he followed his master and their guide to the extent of about a mile, when the lad began to creep and slide down a well-wooded place in the plain that looked like the crater of an old volcano.
Here Dinny began to hesitate again.
“An’ is it go down there, sor?” he asked. “Shure and suppose the place has no bottom to it at all.”
“Go on. Dinny, and don’t be stupid,” cried Dick; and poor
Dinny found himself pretty well hustled down to the bottom of the funnel-like place, which seemed to bend round at the bottom and to lead into a little brook.
Here the guide lit a couple of roughly-made torches: he handed one to Dinny and retained the other, advising all the party to tuck up their trousers; and the reason for this was soon evident, for the floor of the grotto they were about to explore formed the bed of the transparent little river that had found its way into this strange crack in the rock, and gradually enlarged it to give itself more room.
“Ah, bedad, and the wather’s cowld,” cried Dinny. “Shure, Masther Dick, we’re niver going on along there?”
“Indeed we are, Dinny, with you to light us, like the brave, man you are,” said Dick.