"'Follow—where?' said Deslow. I couldn't help smiling at the man's distress. All the rest were prepared to obey my directions; and it was hard for him to separate himself from them. But it seemed harder still for him to trust in me. I was not a Moses; I could not take them through that Red Sea. What then?
"I made for the chasm. All followed, even Deslow,—dragging and lugging the bear. We came to the brink. The place, I must confess, had an awful look, in the light of the trees burning all around it! Deslow was not the only one who shrank back then; for though the spot was known to some of them, they had never explored it, and could not guess what it led to. It was difficult, in the first place, to descend into it; it looked still more difficult ever to get out again; and there was nothing to prevent the burning limbs above from falling into it, or the trees that grew in it from catching fire. For this is the sink, Mr. Villars, which you have probably heard of,—where the woods have been undermined by the action of water in the limestone rocks, and an acre or more of the mountain has fallen in, with all its trees, so that what was once the roof of an immense cavern is now a little patch of the forest growing seventy feet below the surface of the earth. The sides are precipitous and projecting. Only one tree throws a strong branch upwards to the edge of the sink.
"'This way, gentlemen,' said I, 'and you are safe!'
"It was a trial of their faith; for I waited to explain nothing. First, I tumbled the bear off the brink. We heard him go crashing down into the abyss, and strike the bottom with a sound full of awfulness to the uninitiated. Then, with my rifle swung on my back, I seized the limb, and threw myself into the tree.
"'Where he can go, we can!' I heard Stackridge say; and he followed me. I took his gun, and handed it to him again when he was safe in the tree. He did the same for another; and so all got into the branches, and climbed down after us. The trunk has no limbs within twenty feet of the bottom, but there is a smaller tree leaning into it which we got into, and so reached the ground.
"'Now, gentlemen,' said I, when all were down, 'I will show you where you are.' And opening the bushes, I discovered a path leading down the rocks into the caverns, of which this cave is only a branch. Then I made them all take an oath never to betray the secret of what I had shown them. Then I lighted one of the torches Cudjo and I keep for our convenience when we come in that way, and gave it to them; lighted another for my own use; invited them to make themselves quite at home in my absence; left them to their reflections;—and here I am."
Still the mystery with regard to the unknown horseman was in no wise explained. Pomp, informed of what had happened, arose hastily. Penn followed him from the cave. Pepperill accompanied them, to show the way. It was raining steadily; but the thickets in which lay the dead horse and his rider were burning still.
"As I was going to Stackridge's camp," said Pomp, "I thought I saw a man crawling over the rocks above where the horse was tied. I ran up to find him, but he was gone. Peace to his ashes, if it was he!"
"Won't be much o' the cuss left but ashes!" remarked Pepperill.
Pomp ascended the ledges, and stood, silent and stern, gazing at the destruction of his beloved woods.