"Not unless you wish to break your necks, for the hill outside is perpendicular and fully twenty feet high. Besides, I want to show you another way I have of getting in and out of the cave. Afterward you must look down into the 'bottomless hole'; that's what we call it. It runs right through the world to China."
"There," he continued, after walking but a few feet. "If you fall into that well you'll land in kingdom come."
The boys approached the place cautiously. Before them they saw a round opening about six feet in diameter, which appeared to be the work of man—a dark, cylindrical passage cut through the solid, limestone floor, a portal black and forbidding that led to the abodes of endless night. Yet it was formed by the hand of Nature; when or how no mortal could tell.
"Listen, boys, listen!" Into the hole Stayford threw a large stone.
It rasped against the walls of projecting rocks. It bounded from side to side, while the vaults above moaned with the prolongation of repeated echoes.
"Down!" Stayford paused.
"Down-n-n!" Silence again.
Owen held his breath.
"Down! down-n-n-n!"
Martin grew dizzy and unconsciously grasped the hand of his companion.