Then Dinny growled out something about its being a shame to make such a naygur of a white man, and seeing no alternative, went on behind the guide, being followed by Mr Rogers, the boys bringing up the rear.
The first part of their journey was for some distance through narrow passages, where they often had to bend double, with only an opportunity now and then for straightening themselves upright; but by degrees, as they went on splash, splash, through the water, the roof rose higher and higher, till its summit seemed to be lost in gloom, while the grey walls looked wild and romantic in the extreme.
A glance to right and left of the narrow way showed that in some great convulsion of nature, the rock had been split and separated to a small extent, and the result was the formation of this cavern; for so similar were the sides that had the natural action been reversed, the two sides would have fitted together, save where the water had worn the rock away.
It was a weird journey, made the more mysterious by the guide, who pointed out side passages where the water grew deeper, which passages, he said, had never been explored; and at last, after they had been travelling slowly along the solemn echoing place, Dinny appealed to his master to go back.
“Shure I’m not a bit freckened,” he said; “but, sor, there’s danger to us all if we go on there.”
“Absurd, Dinny,” cried his master. “Go on. What is there to be afraid of?”
“Oh, nothing at all, sor. It isn’t that I mind, but we shall be coming upon some great big water-baste or a wather-shnake or something, and then what’ll we do at all?”
“Let it eat us, Dinny,” shouted Dick; and his voice sounded echoing and strange.
“Oh, an’ is it ate us, Masther Dick? Shure ye’ll have—murther! murther! murther!” shrieked Dinny. “I towld ye so. Oh! Help, here! Help!”
Down went Dinny’s torch into the water, to be extinguished upon the instant, and the scared fellow kept on yelling with all his might.