“Hullo! what have you found?” cried Briscoe, who came next to Lynton. “Water? Why, they must have dug out a great cistern or reservoir in here, and let in a spring from somewhere above.”
“I say, do mind how you go,” cried Lynton excitedly. “It’s getting dark there, and you may slip down into some awful well-like hole.”
“All right,” said Brace confidently. “I’m feeling my way every step with the butt of my gun, and I can see yet.”
“Precious awful-looking place,” said Briscoe. “Here, we must have lights. Stop him, Lynton: he shan’t go a step forward. I don’t mean for us all to be drowned like rats in a tank.”
“You two wouldn’t need to be,” said Brace coolly, “for you would stop at once if you should hear me go down.”
“Oh, of course,” said Briscoe, with a sneer: “we shouldn’t try to save your life. ’Tisn’t likely, is it, Lynton?”
“Not a bit,” was the gruff reply; “but I say, Mr Brace, hold hard now. I’ll go back and send a man down below to bring up some pieces of pine-wood to burn.”
“I have stopped,” said Brace, whose voice sounded to the rest of the party hollow and echoing, dying away in the distance like a peculiar whisper. “There’s a great pillar here, and the passage branches off to right and left.”
“Well, let’s have lights.”
“I don’t think we shall want them if we take the passage to the left, for I can see light shining in through a hole. Yes, and there’s another hole farther on. It’s a passage going down at a slope. Why, it’s all steps.”