"You look out somebody doesn't creep up behind you and bite, Otto," laughed Bobby Hargrew, who was just ahead of the Swiss boy.
"Dat don't worry me von bit," growled Otto. "It iss only ha'ants I am afraid of, and ha'nts don't live in caves."
"No," said Bobby, shivering. "B—r—r—r! they'd freeze to death in here. Isn't it cold, after coming out of the warm sun?"
But when they were once well into the passage through the rock, and the first 'shivery' feeling had worn off, the girls as well as the boys were hilarious. When they shouted in the high and vaulted chambers their voices were echoed thunderously in their ears. The flaming tapers were reflected in places from many points of quartz, or mica. The floor of the cavern was quite smooth, and rose only a little. In places the walls were worn as smooth as glass. In some dim, past age the center of this island must have been a great lake, and the water had found an outlet through these passages.
At one point they found a little circular chamber at one side, in which was a bed of pine branches. It really looked as though the place had been used——and not so long before——as a camp. There were the ashes of a fire on the floor.
"Here's where the pirate has been living," Dora declared to her sister. "It would scare the girls into fits if we should tell them so."
"Hush!" said Dorothy. "Perhaps that man is here somewhere," and she, at least, was glad to hurry on, although Chet searched the chamber with particular care.
"What do you expect to find here, old man?" asked Lance, laughing.
But his chum only shook his head and led the way toward the distant outlet of the passage.