Silently as cats they slipped down the corridor and, after about a quarter of an hour of traversing its smooth floor, they found themselves at the hole which gave egress to the outside world and from which hung the rope-ladder by which they were to descend to freedom.
Aga and the other savage gave grunts of pleasure and even laughed softly as the boys' with a horrified start, almost stumbled over a recumbent figure.
It was that of the guard of the ladder.
He lay as if dead—his body right across the narrow entrance. The moonlight from the outside that flooded the entrance showed that his mouth was open and his eyes closed.
A sudden rage filled Billy as he looked on the victim of what seemed to him to have been a wanton murder.
"You have killed him," he said raising his voice imprudently in his anger.
"Hush, boy-with-the-glass-eyes," exclaimed Umbashi, "he is not dead. In a few hours he will be as well as you or I, but he will recollect nothing. We have given him the sleeping root that brings oblivion."
And now it was time to take the final step.
"A canoe with food and a jar of water is at the foot of the ladder," whispered their guide, "and the current will carry you down toward the coast. It will not be a hard journey except for the Tunnel of the Roaring Waters. Only a few men have navigated that and escaped alive, but you will be compelled to traverse it to reach the coast."
"Can we not leave the canoe and go overland round the tunnel?" asked Billy rightly conjecturing that their guide referred to a place where the river ran underground when he spoke of the Tunnel of the Roaring Waters.