With an involuntary shudder I turned away, thinking of the consequences of a sudden vertigo.
Tom was busy with knife and rope, and kneeling down I helped him, puffing into the skins till almost breathless; but at last our task was done, and together we carried the little raft down to the water-side, though not without several slips, launched it, and then placed upon it our lights stuck in lumps of clay brought for the purpose.
The raft was about six feet long by four feet wide; the skins supporting light sticks of bamboo well secured to them, and these in their turn bearing cross pieces laid in their places, so that the light vessel’s deck, if I may call it so, was a sort of bamboo grating, upon which we could sit, though standing would have been a puzzling gymnastic exercise.
We were ready then at last; but now the same feeling seemed to pervade both as we stood there on the rock gazing before us at the black arch, through which, flowing easily, came the inky water. From where, from what strange regions?
Chapter Twenty Three.
The Waterfall.
I don’t think many could have stood peering into that gloomy tunnel without feeling something like a tremor of dread. However, I mastered it at last, after asking myself the question, Was it wise to run such a risk? The answer came in the shape of gold—it might be the passage to traverse to arrive at inexhaustible treasure, and I turned to Tom.