The road to the coast, for one that was neither particularly steep nor crooked, was amazingly uncomfortable to drive over. Cruel patches of the sharp stones with which the roads are mended scarred the way. We bounced here, and bounced there; now surmounting an acclivity and catching a glimpse of the blue sea, now dipping into a hollow. It was a gratuitously bad road; evil alike for driving, walking, or cycling over.
When we reached Puerto Cristo the carriage drew up beside two empty vehicles at the back door of a little fonda that is said to be famed for its omelets and its pretty girls.
Passing through a room where a table was set for lunch, we reached a trellised enclosure overlooking a charming little cove on whose waters a boat was sailing.
The silent guide, who had lingered indoors to prepare his acetylene lamps, appeared with them already lit; and, following in his wake, we set off, past a few fisher houses in whose doorways sun-tanned boys were baiting lines, across a bridgelet that spanned a slender arm of the sea, and up a rough track over a moor so brown and bare that it might have been in Devon. Judging by outward appearance, it was the last place where one would have anticipated finding a cave of even the smallest dimensions.
As we went we met two parties of Spaniards who had been seeing the caves and were now returning. It was for them that the carriages waited and the omelets were being prepared at the fonda of the three pretty girls.
Just as we were wondering if our taciturn guide would ever consent to humour us by producing a cave, he headed for an opening in a stone wall. Entering, we were confronted with a barred window and a locked door set in the side of a slope.
Producing a key, the guide unlocked the door, then when we were all inside he carefully re-locked it. A breath of warm exhausted air met our faces. The guide, still preserving his impenetrable reserve, removed his coat, and the Boy, fortunately remembering the advice of an experienced friend, counselled us to follow his example. An hour and a half of hard going was before us. The temperature, which was high even in the entrance hall, was likely to increase as we got farther underground. So the men in shirt-sleeves and myself in a thin net blouse meekly pursued our dumb conductor down a flight of roughly cut steps that seemed to lead right into the bowels of the earth.
Walking in advance, the guide flashed his light upon all sorts of varied wonders, from caverns so hideous and grimy that they looked as though coated with the refuse of a coal mine, to banks of glittering crystals or stalactites of glistening semi-transparent amber.
At one point he drew aside, and stood mutely pointing in advance. Thinking he meant us to move on, I was walking forward, when he drew me back just in time to prevent my stepping into a lake so clear and pellucid as to be absolutely imperceptible.
That was the beginning of the water effects that lend enchantment to the Caves of the Dragon. The Dragon himself is but a poor thing, diminutive and wholly unworthy his surroundings. We saw him. He was pointed out, sneaking up a pillar, a truly undignified position for any creature owning the romantic and awe-inspiring cognomen of dragon. And, speaking confidentially, the humble name of lizard would suit him better.