“Joe will easily manage it,” he said to himself; “but Sam will stick.”
“Time enough to think of that,” he muttered, “if he does.”
“Can you get higher?” panted Joe, after they had been creeping slowly along for some time.
“Yes, yes; but there’s an awkward turn just here. All right, it’s wider on my left. Hurrah! I’ve got into quite a big part. Come on!”
Joe climbed on, pushing his lanthorn before him, till it was suddenly taken and drawn up, when, looking above him with a start, he saw his friend’s face looking down upon him, surrounded by a pale, bluish glow of light.
“Want a hand?” cried Gwyn.
“No; I can do it,” was the reply, and Joe climbed beyond an angle to find himself in a sloping, flattened cave, whose roof was about four feet above his head; how far it extended the darkness beyond the lanthorn concealed.
“Come on, Sam,” cried Gwyn, as he looked down the slope he had ascended expecting to see the man’s face just below; but it was not visible, and, saving the hissing of the hot wind and the strange gurgling of rushing water, there was not a sound.
“He’s dead!” cried Joe, wildly.
“No, no; don’t say that,” whispered Gwyn. “It’s too horrible just when we are going to escape;” and, without pausing, he lowered himself over the angle of the rock and began to descend.