“Here, this is better, and there is plenty more,” and she dipped the rag in the running water and washed off the blood that was trickling down over Iason’s ear and neck, while Chryseis raised his head higher.
Nikias was at the entrance trying to push his thin little body round the rock.
“I will get out now,” he said, “and shout for the officers.”
“Nikias!” cried Chryseis, her voice shrill with terror, “come back at once! You must not get out! I tell you, you must not! Pavlo! Pavlo! Stop him!”
But she looked around in vain; Pavlo was not there. He seemed to have completely disappeared.
“The coward!” exclaimed Andromache, in furious indignation. “The coward! He has managed to slip out somehow, and left us here all alone!”
But she was quite wrong.
The moment poor Iason had been pulled back into the cave, Pavlo suddenly remembered the speck of light in the wall that he had noticed as they were coming out, and without saying a word to anyone, he ran back into the depths of the cave to see if he could find the spot. Almost at once he came upon it, like a little white star in the dark wall of the cave.
Now Pavlo’s mind was of the kind that grown-up people call “logical,” which means that he knew that something could not exist without a reason for it; therefore he argued that if there was a light, there must be an opening; and even if the opening were only large enough for a head or even a hand to be passed through, it might be useful.
So he began feeling all over the rough damp wall with both hands.