It was like an invitation to enter, but Ralph hesitated. Notwithstanding the reassuring light of day and the solid earth of rocks and trees, the feeling of something uncanny, something more than natural, would not down. When he laughed this away, there remained very human fears. "Who knows what may be down there," he thought, "and what kind of a reception I will receive?" Finally there were compunctions of delicacy. "It's hardly square to break in on their secrets behind their backs," he thought. Recollection of his own injuries wiped this out. "They weren't so careful of my feelings," he told himself.
In the end, perhaps because he was afraid, Ralph was obliged to descend. As he would have put it, he could not take a dare from himself. Swinging his legs over the edge, he felt for the top branch of the pine tree.
At the bottom of the hole he struck another match. There were several pine-knot torches lying at his feet; picking up the longest, he lighted it.
He was in a narrow cleft in the rock, extending obliquely and downward into the mountain. It was necessary to recline partly on his back and inch himself along, holding the sputtering torch at arm's length before him. It was an awkward posture in which to meet danger. But if Charley could come through he could, he thought.
After only a few yards of this he issued suddenly into a much larger chamber, where he was able to stand firmly on his feet. It was a kind of spacious corridor running off to the right and left, and floored with pebbles and sand. Manifestly a stream had once flowed over it, but at present the floor was dry.
The thrilling impressions of a cave brought Ralph's boyhood winging back to him. Thinking of grizzly bears and mountain lions none too comfortably—he was unarmed—he sniffed the air delicately. There was no suggestion of animal effluvium. Anyway, Charley had just passed through. The torch made an extraordinary dancing light on the walls of rock, reminding him of a certain flaring gas-light in the cellar at home. The cave was not like a tunnel with arching roof, as he had always imagined caves, but was still a fissure in the rock, both sides leaning obliquely in the same direction. Overhead the split gradually narrowed; the light of his torch did not penetrate to the top of it.
Ralph was faced by the choice of turning right or left in the corridor. He lowered the torch to look for footsteps. In the patches of sand they were plainly discernible, many of them, almost a beaten path leading off to the right. Besides Charley's, Ralph readily distinguished the prints of Nahnya's small, straight feet, and another foot, evidently her mother's. The sight of all these footsteps had the effect of allaying Ralph's fears, and of strongly stimulating his excitement. Up to this moment he had kept in view the possibility that this cave might be a private affair of Charley's. Now he could no longer doubt that Nahnya's secret, whatever it was, lay at the end of this path. He followed it, feeling himself on the brink of an amazing discovery. Nothing could have turned him back now. "With all her pains to keep me in the dark I have been a little too clever for her!" he thought vaingloriously.
Sometimes the corridor was ten feet wide; sometimes it narrowed down to four. The air had that extraordinary dead quality only to be found in deep caves, but it was quite pure, because the torch burned clearly. The stillness pressed on his ear-drums. The quietest room, the quietest night out of doors, was vibrant and musical by comparison. His own breathing sounded hoarse and laboured in his ears.
Holding the torch high over his head, wrought up to the highest possible pitch, he made his way swiftly over the smooth floor. Rounding a corner of the rock, the flickering light fell on a human figure standing motionless before him. He stopped short with a horrid shock of fright. The torch dropped from his nerveless hand and was extinguished. He slowly screwed down the clamps of self-control, and schooling his voice, hailed the creature. The sound shattered the dark stillness with an incredible, unnatural ring. The sound of his own voice in that place terrified him. The silence that followed upon it was terrible. There was no answer.
Very slowly he forced himself to pick up the torch, to light a match, and to ignite it again. He held it aloft. The figure was still there, motionless. Ralph went forward very gingerly, and saw that it was not human after all, but merely a kind of scarecrow, a stick planted in the sand with a cross-piece on which was hung a coat and hat. Evidently some of Charley's work, placed there for what purpose Ralph could not conceive. He sat down, and wiping his face, allowed his shaking nerves to quiet down.