“That it was enough to scare any one getting down such a ladder as that, and if he’d known, he’d have seen the service anywhere before he’d have come.”
“Yes, he looked regularly scared, gentlemen,” said the sergeant; and then he stopped short, swinging his lantern over the hole before him and showing the top of the tree ladder, while the gurgling, echoing whisper of the running water seemed to fill the air with strange sounds. But these were drowned directly by a fresh burst of hails, which went echoing away.
“Forward!” said the captain at last. “Steady in front, there. Be careful how you go down, men.”
“Don’t be alarmed, dear Roby,” whispered Dickenson. “Just as if we shouldn’t be careful of our invaluable necks.”
There was plenty of light now, for Lennox carried a lantern on going down after the sergeant, who had gone first, and stood at the bottom holding up his own, while four more were held over the yawning pit from the top. The men, too, were in better trim for the descent, knowing as they did the worst of what they had to encounter, so that they went down pluckily enough, in spite of the tree quivering and threatening to turn round, till it was held more steadily at both ends.
Then, as all crowded into the archway and hailed once more, their shouts seemed to return to them faintly from the arrow-shaped hollow, which from being broad at first went off nearly to a point, and more weirdly still from the continuation of the pit where the water ran.
“I’m beginning to be afraid he is not here,” said the captain. “Open out, my lads, and thoroughly search every hollow and corner.”
The men shouted again, with no result; and then they spread out like a fan and advanced, searching behind every stone, right on past the spot where the second Boer had been captured, and on once more till the cavern narrowed in and there was only room to creep.
“Hold the light closer, sergeant,” said Lennox.
“See anything?” cried Roby from just behind him.