The White Waterfall

by James Francis Dwyer

"Not this trip," I answered. "I've just got a feeling that I'd like to see where it leads to. Hold tight!"

I stepped cautiously into the narrow passage and immediately found that it narrowed to such an extent that I had to turn sideways to squeeze through. The floor sloped upward, and as the rock was damp and slippery, I dropped upon my knees so that I could climb more rapidly. The place seemed a narrow chute. My knees were skinned from the rough bottom, but I scratched desperately to obtain a footing. Hope was still alive. The Maori had said that the road to heaven was sixty paces from the White Waterfall, and if an all-seeing Providence had guided Edith to the waterfall, it was surely decreed that we would make our escape from the clutches of the devil who had us at his mercy.

"We will surely escape," I muttered, as I scratched and clawed in an effort to drag myself up the slippery path. "We will escape! I know it! We will escape! I know—"

The muttered words died upon my lips. The crevice turned and then broadened suddenly, and a blinding flash of light forced me to fling myself face downward upon the rock. For a moment I lay there, wondering stupidly whether something had happened to my eyes or whether I had come suddenly into the light of day. I had seen light—the light of what?

Slowly I lifted my head, and the truth came to me with stunning force. It was God's own sunlight that I had seen! The chute ended within three paces of the spot where I lay, and immediately opposite the opening through which I looked was a patch of vermilion rock that blazed gloriously as the rays of the afternoon sun struck full upon it. I knew that rock! It had thrilled me as I looked at it on the afternoon when Leith had introduced us to the greatest natural wonder of the Pacific. I was at the end of a passage that opened into the Vermilion Pit!

From where I lay I could not see the top of the crater. When the passage had suddenly broadened, the roof came down upon it, so that the opening through which I looked at the opposite side of the great pit was about ten feet wide but not more than two feet in height. An overhanging lip of rock prevented me from looking up, but I understood that I was lower than the slippery Ledge of Death that we had crossed to reach the Valley of Echoes. It seemed years since we had crossed that path, yet it was less than a week.

I thought of the others waiting in the darkness, and I turned and slid down the chute up which I had scrambled. The path to liberty was not yet plain, but there was fresh air and sunlight at the top of the chute, and one could see the faces of those they loved. Bumping and bounding over the jagged rocks I went at a terrific speed to the bottom of the slide, and, scrambling through the opening, I shouted the news to the four who waited there.

"It opens into the Vermilion Pit!" I gasped. "I can't see how we can climb out, but there's hope—there's hope!"

I was foolish in making the last statement, but the sight of the glorious sunbeams, striking down into the abyss, had made me blind to the difficulties that were yet to be faced! And the Maori's chant must surely be true! Now that it had brought us to the light, I could not but believe that it would bring us to liberty.

The slippery chute brought a suggestion from Holman. He advised that the two girls and the Professor remain at the bottom while he and I took one end of the rope to the top so that we could haul them up the wet track that I had scaled with difficulty.