"Tuk all me could tote to make your little dressum-room wiv. Lef' de big 'uns fur cheers when me hab comp'ny, hiah yah! When Pomp come, him help me place 'em around scrumptious like. Pomp bery strong—lif' like you neber see!"
Climbing over the stones, they reached, at the farther end of the hall, an abrupt termination of the floor. A black abyss yawned beyond. In its invisible depths the moan of waters could be heard. Virginia, who had been thrilled with wonder and fear, standing in the hall of the stones, and thinking of those crushing masses showered from the roof, now found it impossible not to yield to the terrors of her excited imagination.
"I cannot go any farther!" she said, recoiling from the gulf, and drawing Penn back from it.
"Come right 'long!" cried Cudjo; "no trouble, missis!"
"See, he has piled stones in here and made some very good and safe stairs. Take my torch, Carl, and follow; Cudjo will go before with his. Now, one step at a time. I will not let thee fall."
Thus assured, she ventured to make the descent. A strong arm was about her waist; a strong and supporting spirit was at her side; and from that moment she felt no fear.
The limestone, out of which the cave was formed, lay in nearly horizontal strata; and, at the bottom of Cudjo's stairs, they came upon another level floor. It was smooth and free from rubbish. A gray vault glimmered above their heads in the torchlight. The walls showed strange and grotesque forms in bas-relief, similar to those of the first gallery: here a couchant lion, so distinctly outlined that it seemed as if it must have been chiselled by human art; an Indian sitting in a posture of woe, with his face buried in his hands; an Arctic hunter wrestling with a polar bear; the head of a turbaned Turk; and, most wonderful of all, the semblance of a vine (Penn named it "Jonah's gourd"), which spread its massive branches on the wall, and, climbing under the arched roof, hung its heavy fruit above their heads.
Close by "Jonah's gourd" a little stream gushed from the side of the rock, and fell into a fathomless well. The torches were held over it, and the visitors looked down. Solid darkness was below. Carl took from his pocket a stone.
"It is the same," he said, "that Mishter Sprowl pumped his head against. I thought I should find some use for it; and now let's see."
He dropped it into the well. It sunk without a sound, the noise of its distant fall being lost in the solemn and profound murmur of the descending water.