This time it burnt bravely with a clear light, which showed us something of the interior of the cavern. It did not show us much, though, the darkness being too great for such a feeble illuminant to penetrate far into it.
“Now, boys,” said Tom, “I think we may venture in, as the foul air must be pretty well spent by this time; but we’ll have to get a torch or something to see our way by, or else we shall be breaking our necks or smashing our heads against the roof.”
“Guess one o’ them port fires we hev aboard would lighten it up to rights.”
“So it would,” replied Tom; “but we ain’t got it now, and must try and find somethin’ else to make a flare up.”
“Hyar’s some o’ the old wood,” observed the other, taking up a fragment of the broken door, which was crumbly with age. “Strike another match, will ye. I think this timber ’ll burn long enuff fur us to git inside an’ prospect a few.”
“Right you are, my hearty,” returned the other, carrying out this suggestion; and the next minute, the piece of old oak was in a blaze, when, holding it up in one hand, Hiram stooped down once more and stepped within the cave.
There was nothing there, however.
Nothing!
“Wa-all,” exclaimed Hiram, after bending here and there, and searching in every direction. “I calls this a durned sell, I dew!”
“Hold the light up again,” said Tom; “a little more to the right, bo, so as to throw it on that dark corner there.”