In his pocket Jack had plenty of matches and the small electric torch that he used in making examinations of the more intricate parts of the wireless apparatus. He stuffed all the bread and meat he could inside his coat, slung the canteen over his shoulder and was ready to start on an adventure that would end he knew not how, but which he had sternly made up his mind to attempt.
As a last thought he coiled up the rope by which he had been lowered into the pit and laid it over his arm. Then he plunged into the deep fissure. For some distance it was open to the sky above, but after some time it closed in and became a tunnel.
At this point, Jack hesitated. The darkness beyond appalled even his stout heart. He knew not what lay within, what perils might face him. For several moments he stood there hesitant; but finally he took heart of grace and, gripping his electric torch, plunged into the black mouth of the tunnel.
[CHAPTER XXVIII—A CLIMB FOR LIFE]
The passage, for such it was, through which Jack was now advancing, was swept by a wind of such violence that at times it almost lifted the boy from his feet.
But this Jack regarded as a good omen. He knew that there must be some opening in this bore of nature’s making to cause the great draught. He was glad he had his electric torch. No other light could have remained burning in the fierce gale.
The walls were of black rock, and the electric torch gleaming on them was flashed back in spangled radiance from some sort of ore it contained. In places, the tunnel contracted till it was only possible for the boy to progress by bending double. Again it broadened out till he could only touch the roof with his finger tips.
Suddenly he heard ahead of him a roaring sound like a water fall. Pressing on with a beating heart, lest he should find his further progress barred, Jack found himself facing a fair sized chamber, from the roof of which a cascade was falling. The boy guessed that he must be beneath the bed of some river and that the water was pouring into the cavern from a fissure in the rocky roof.
It was a beautiful sight, but he had no time to stop and admire it. He must push on. He left the cavern and the singing waterfall behind him, and once more battled with the mighty wind that swept through the bore.
The walls began to grow damp now and it was almost as cold as if a heavy frost had fallen. Jack shuddered and drew his coat close around him. He tried to calculate how far he had come, but the bore had made so many twistings and windings that he found it impossible to estimate.