“Mas’r Harry, I’ll go first; follow close behind, and crawl.”
His words gave me energy, and we set off, crawling slowly, now upwards, now downwards, feeling every foot of the way, lest some new peril should lie in our path. The roar of the torrent rose and fell as we crept away, till by slow degrees it became fainter, fading to quite a soft murmur; but still no new horror assailed us. The dread darkness was forgotten in the hope that shed a light into our hearts, as foot by foot we progressed through what was sometimes a narrow passage, sometimes a wide vault, as we could tell by the echoing of our voices from its arched roof. In one of these, too, our ears were saluted by the shrieks of birds and the rushing of wings—a fact which told us we could not be very far from the light of day; but progress was so slow that I often despaired of seeing that light again.
Often and often I could have lain down and cried like a child, and it required no weak effort to keep my emotion back.
“Seems to me, Mas’r Harry,” said Tom at last, “this is a very big place we’re in, for the more I try about, the less I seem able to get on. Shall we rest a bit?”
Had Tom said, “Shall we keep on?” I should have made the same reply—“Yes.” And then, as we extended our aching limbs upon the soft soil which covered the floor of the cave in this part, a delicious sense of tranquillity stole over me, and almost instantaneously I sank into a deep dreamless sleep.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
To Daylight.
How long we lay in that stupor—more than sleep—I cannot tell; but I was awoke by Tom, and once more we slowly continued our journey, walking now though—for the absence of fresh perils had given us courage—and with our arms extended we went slowly on; but ever with the soft earth of the cave beneath our feet, and the stillness only broken by the occasional shriek of a bird.