The slightest obstruction in their course—a bush leaning over the water and striking the bow of their boat, and turning it from its course by so much as a hair’s breadth—would have ended all this suspense and anxiety in an instant of time.
But there was no bush nor anything else in their way. The channel was as smooth and deep here as it was in the valley they had left—how long ago? Was it an hour or a day? Bob did not know, for he could take no note of the flight of time.
The interior of the earth must be a long way off, he thought; and that he was drawing nearer to it every minute seemed probable, for these little patches of light he had noticed a while back were no longer to be seen. Above, around and beneath him was darkness.
He could not even see the water by which he and his companion were borne along. He wasn’t certain that he had a companion in his misery, for he had not heard anything from George since they entered the canyon.
He was about to pronounce his name, when a blinding glare of light shot down upon him so suddenly that it frightened him. Was he awake or dreaming? He raised himself to a sitting posture and looked about him.
Behind him was a black opening between the mountains, looking exactly like the one on the other side of the range, and in front and on each side of him was a broad and fertile valley, through which the boat was flying with undiminished speed.
Bob rubbed his eyes and looked again; and at the same moment, George Edwards, who had also lain down in the boat to avoid hitting his head against the rocks, which were at least two hundred feet above him, straightened up, revealing a face so pale and haggard that Bob was startled. But he was not so near dead as he seemed to be, as his actions proved.
The river, where it entered the valley, made a sudden turn to the right, and of course the current set into the bight of the bend, taking the boat with it, and carrying it within ten or fifteen feet of the shore, which was thickly lined with bushes.
George’s first act was to catch up the painter and jump overboard with it; and, although the current whirled him along as if he had been a feather, he succeeded in crossing it and reaching the slack waters near the bank.
The rest was comparatively easy. A turn of the painter around a convenient sapling held the boat until the current swung it into the eddy, and the instant it touched the shore Bob Howard sprang out.