“Are you ready?” I said.
“Yes, Mas’r Harry, I’m ready when I’ve lit my pipe,” he said.
And coolly filling it and igniting it from the torch, he crept boldly on to the little raft and took a bamboo, one of two cut on our way here, to pole us along.
After placing our guns in safety upon a ledge of rock, I crept on too, and the little raft swayed down heavily; but it was wonderfully buoyant, and with our lights in front we prepared for our subterranean passage.
“All right, Mas’r Harry?”
“Yes,” I replied.
And then we pushed off, poling ourselves along under the arch, the rugged wall being easily reached on either side, the stream widening and not being very rapid after we had passed the first dozen yards.
The navigation proved so easy that we were able to glance about at the sides and roof, which often nearly touched us, compelling us to stoop, while at other times the tunnel opened out and we seemed to be making our way through a narrow lake. But it soon contracted again, and I should think our onward progress must have been through the damp, dark, winding way for quite a couple of miles; when, after seeing nothing but shining, glistening rock above us for hours, we seemed to have come to the end of our uneventful journey in a large irregularly shaped chamber whose roof of veined rock was about forty feet above us, its length being about two hundred feet, and its greatest breadth about sixty.
The stream had widened out into a little lake again, leaving, however, on one side a sandy shore some six or eight feet wide. The waters were troubled, as if in a state of ebullition, and for a while we sat wondering and listening to a loud moaning roar coming apparently from a distance. Then pushing on by the side, in a manner of speaking we coasted round the place till we reached the sandy shore and rested; for though the water flowed out through the arch by which we had entered there was no way of further exit from the great vault.
This, then, was the extent of the cavern river, and it was with disappointment that I went slowly round once more, poling the raft over the troubled waters, to find that there was no likelihood of a discovery here. The sandy shore was the only landing-place, and unless the treasure was buried there I could see no other spot where a search could be made. As to the lake’s profundity, of that we could tell nothing, only that at every attempt to touch bottom we withdrew our poles with a shiver.