For three days they were compelled to live in this manner, while their comrades worked desperately to pierce the barrier. At last it was accomplished, and rescued and rescuers met face to face. Amid cheers the survivors of the accident were brought to the surface.
It was then that a strange thing was seen. Their hair had turned white as snow from suspense and suffering, but otherwise, except that they looked thin and haggard, they showed no permanent effects of their terrible experience.
"And when I find mesel' in a tight place," concluded Sandy, "I think to mesel' of MacPherson and his comrades in yon black hole."
Jack agreed that the experience of the engineer and his companions was indeed an example of something turning up when everything seemed at its blackest, but he could not help but think that their own situation was almost as bad.
A short time after, they rose to their feet and struck out for the passage by which they had entered the big cavern. As Sandy switched on the light, however, they both became aware of something that made them jump back in a hurry.
A big black snake was coiled on the floor of the cave, almost at their feet. Another step, in fact, and they would have trodden on the reptile. As they jumped backward, with the agility of acrobats, the snake hissed angrily and, opening its mouth, showed a forked, darting tongue and ugly-looking fangs.
Sandy aimed a blow at the creature with his stick, but, instead of recoiling, the reptile made as if to strike at the lad. Just then, as the Scotch lad's misfortune would have it, he tripped on a rock and fell forward.
He uttered an involuntary yell as he did so. He could almost feel, in imagination, the fangs of the black snake fastening into his flesh. Naturally, too, in his extremity, he dropped his pocket light, which went out immediately, being one of the variety that are worked by keeping a finger pressed on a spring.
Plunged once more in Egyptian darkness, with his companion, for all he knew, involved in a battle with the serpent, Jack caught his breath. Then he struck a match. The sputter of flame showed him Sandy sprawled out at full length on the ground, while the snake had its head drawn back and its body coiled as if to strike.
At that instant the match flickered and went out. But Jack had marked where the snake lay, and, in a desperate effort to save Sandy at all hazards, he struck out blindly in the darkness. He felt his stick strike something soft and wriggly. The feeling sent a shudder of repulsion through the boy, but he bravely kept on striking out nevertheless. In the meantime Sandy had recovered himself, and, feeling about for it, found the pocket light. He switched it hastily on and saw Jack battling with the black snake, which was hissing and striking viciously in every direction.