Rob replied with another question.
“Got a match, Jumbo?” he asked.
“Yas sah, Marse Blake, I done got plenty ob dem lilly lucilfers.”
He dived in his pocket and produced a handful of matches, which he handed to Rob. The boy struck one, and, as the yellow flame glared up, he uttered a little cry and stepped back with a perceptible shrinking movement.
No wonder he did so. At the young Scout’s feet the flare of the match had revealed a yawning abyss. One more step and he would have been over it. Gazing into the ravine he could hear the subdued roar of a stream somewhere far, far below. A cold blast seemed to strike upward against his face.
“Gracious, what a narrow escape!” he exclaimed. Then, stirring a small stone with his foot he dislodged it and sent it bounding over the edge. Bump! bump! tinkle! tinkle! plop! plop!—and then—silence.
“Golly, goodness, dat hole mus’ be as deep as de bad place itself!” exclaimed Jumbo, shrinking back in affright, “dat hole mus’ go clean frough de middle of de world an’ come out de odder side in China.”
“It certainly does seem as if it might,” agreed Rob; “at any rate, if we’d gone over it we’d have had no time to investigate—ugh!”
Rob gave a shudder he could not subdue as he thought of their narrow escape.
The only thing to be done under the circumstances, was to turn aside and keep on slowly, awaiting the daylight to see where they were, and the nature of their surroundings. They had progressed in this fashion perhaps half a mile or so, when Jumbo gave a sudden cry: