to communicate, Dick, without comment, turned back again to his operation. Again the gurgling noise! again the water's upward rush! For the second time he had failed to effect an aperture to the outer air!
The situation was to the last degree alarming. The water had all but reached Mrs. Weldon, and she was obliged to take her boy into her arms. Every one felt nearly stifled. A loud singing was heard in the ears, and the lantern showed barely any light at all. A few minutes more and the air would be incapable of supporting life. One chance alone remained. They must bore another hole at the very summit of the cone. Not that they were unaware of the imminent danger of this measure, for if the ant-hill were really submerged the water from below would immediately expel the remaining air and death must be instantaneous. A few brief words from Dick explained the emergency of the crisis. Mrs. Weldon recognized the necessity,-
"Yes, Dick, do it; there is nothing else to be done."
While she was speaking the light flickered out, and they were in total darkness.
Mounted on the shoulders of Hercules, who was crouching in one of the side-cells, his head only just above water, Dick proceeded to force the ramrod into the clay, which at the vertex of the ant-hill was considerably harder and thicker than elsewhere.
A strange mingling of hope and fear thrilled through Dick Sands as he applied his hand to make the opening which was to admit life and air, or the flood of death!
The silence of the general expectation was broken by the noise of a sharp hissing; the water rose for eight inches, but all at once it ceased to rise; it had found its level. No need this time to close the orifice; the top of the ant-hill was higher than the top of the flood; and for the present, at least, they could all rejoice that their lives were spared!
A general cheer, led by the stentorian voice of Hercules, involuntarily broke from the party; cutlasses were brought into action, and the clay crumbled away beneath the vigorous assault that was made upon it. The welcome air was admitted through the new-made aperture, bringing with it the first rays of the rising sun. The summit of the ant-hill once removed, it would be quite easy to clamber to the top, whence it was hoped they would soon get away to some high ground out of reach of the flood.
Dick was the first to mount the summit; but a cry of dismay burst from his lips!
A sound only too well known to travellers in Africa broke upon his ear; that sound was the whizzing of arrows.