"And I say it again. But I say this too: we may be mighty glad indeed to get out!"
To which I added the quite supererogatory remark that it was clearly within the realm of possibility that we should.
Soon the slope of the passage was no longer gentle. An hour or so, and the descent was so steep and difficult that we had to exercise every caution and care in going down it. "Noon" found us still toiling down that steep and tortuous way. We then halted for luncheon. The Dromans ate and drank very sparingly, though this work gives one a most remarkable appetite. Rhodes and I endeavored to emulate their example. I am afraid, however, that it was not with any remarkable success. As it was, the lunch left me as hungry as a cormorant.
As we sat there resting, the Dromans held a low and earnest colloquy. The two girls, though, had but very little to say. The subject of the dialogue was an utter mystery to us. Only one thing could we tell, and that was that the matter which they were revolving was one of some gravity. Once and only once did we hear the word Drome.
Also, it was then that we first heard—or, at any rate, first made out—the name of our angel. We could not, indeed, at the time be certain that it was her name; but there was no uncertainty about the name itself—Drorathusa. Ere the afternoon was far advanced, however, we saw our belief become a certitude. Drorathusa. I confess that there was in my mind something rather awesome about that name, and I wondered if that awesome something was existent only in my mind. Drorathusa. It seemed to possess some of that Sibylline quality which in the woman herself was so indefinable and mysterious.
Drorathusa. Sibylline certainly, that name, and, like the woman herself, beautiful too, I thought.
In our world, it would, in all likelihood, be shortened to Drora or Thusa. But it was never so here. No Droman, indeed, would be guilty of a barbarism like that. It was always Drorathusa, the accent on the penultimate and every syllable clear and full. Drorathusa. Milton Rhodes declared that it was the most beautiful name he had ever heard in all his life!
It was about four o'clock when we issued from that passage, steep to the last, and found ourselves in a great broken cavern. The rock was granite, the place jagged and savage-looking as though seen in some strange and awful dream.
Here we rested for a while, and I, for one, was glad enough to do so. I was tired, sore and stiff from head to foot—especially to foot.
Just by the tunnel's mouth, there was some writing on the wall. Before this, Drorathusa and the older man (his name, we had learned, was Ondonarkus) stood for some moments. This examination, and the short dialogue which followed it, left them, I noticed even more grave of aspect and demeanor than we had ever seen them.