“This is the way,” said Dummy, and he led on for a quarter of an hour longer, with a peculiar rushing noise growing louder, till it became a heavy dull roar, as the narrow crack through which they had passed suddenly opened out into a vast cavity which, below the ledge on which they stood, ended in gloom, and whose roof was lost in the same blackness; but the echoes of the falling water below told them that it must be far enough above their heads.
“What a horrible hole!” cried Mark.
“Yes; big,” said Dummy. “Look: I climbed along there. It’s easy; and then you can go right on, above where the water comes in. It’s warm in here.”
“Yes, warm enough.”
“Shall we go any farther?”
“No, not to-day. Let’s stop and look. Shall I throw down my candle?”
“No, Master Mark: it’s no good. Goes out too soon. I’ll light a match.”
He took an old-fashioned brimstone match from his breast, lit both its pointed ends, waited till the sulphur was fluttering its blue flame, and the splint was getting well alight and blackening, and then he reached out and let it fall, to go burning brightly down and down, as if into a huge well. Then it went out, and they seemed for the moment to be in darkness.
“I don’t think it’s very, very deep,” said Dummy quietly; “but it’s all water over yonder. Seen enough, Master Mark!”
“Yes, for one day. Let’s go back now.”