With these conditions made worse by the artillery shake-up, it would be a close call if the boys escaped burial alive. There was no way out at the rear.
A shut off ahead—and that would be the end.
But for the lanterns it is doubtful if the boys could have refrained from running wild, and dashing into obstructions without care or reason.
They at least did not have the added horror of total darkness with which to contend.
As the descent grew sharper so grew the nerve strain of the travelers.
They passed the first point of danger on hands and knees. Between the roof and the floor there was the scant margin of three feet.
At the next the barrier presented an even tighter squeeze.
Then a clearer way for ten or fifteen yards.
Here it was that the lantern shafts of light ahead showed in one appalling instant a shifting of earth; first dust, then clods and small stones.
The passage was closing in!