‘They guard the entrance,’ said Yacka. ‘When no one is here this opening in the rock closes up, and no one can find the cave of Enooma.’
Edgar wondered how Yacka knew the cleft closed up if no one was there to see such a strange thing happen.
‘How can you tell that,’ he said, ‘if you have never seen it?’
‘Rest and listen,’ said Yacka: ‘You never believe I speak truth because I am black. Once the Enooma were defeated by the Curracoo, and fled before them to these hills. They were so hard-pressed that they had to rush through the cleft in the rock, and when the last of the tribe passed in the cleft closed and shut the Curracoo out. This is true, for men of the tribe have told me, and they do not lie to the chief.’
Edgar believed this to be another superstition of the blacks, but he could not resist looking behind him towards the cleft they had entered by. With a loud cry he sprang to his feet, for behind them there was a solid rock, and he could see nothing of the blacks they had left. Will looked, and turned pale as he saw they were shut in.
‘How is this?’ said Edgar. ‘What has happened?’
‘Enooma has closed her gate,’ said Yacka. ‘She knows of the approach of her son and the white men, and she wishes to be undisturbed.’
Edgar walked back to where he imagined the cleft in the rock by which they entered had been, but he could see nothing but a solid mass in front of him. He felt the rock and it was hard and firm, and must have been there for ages. How had this strange thing happened? Yacka must have suddenly turned as they walked along, and the opening become hidden, but as they entered the black appeared to have gone straight on.
‘I give it up,’ said Edgar. ‘We seem to be blocked in here, and shall have to trust to Yacka to get us out. It makes a fellow feel queer when such strange things happen, but I have no doubt there is an explanation of it if we can find it out.’
The place they were now standing in was a narrow defile between rocks towering up perpendicularly to a considerable height. These rocks were bare and smooth, and not a plant or fern could be seen growing on the sides. Before them was the mouth of a cave, and inside seemed dark as pitch. Yacka walked to the mouth of the cave, and they followed him. When they became accustomed to the gloom, they saw a faint glimmer of light, about the size of a bull’s-eye lantern glass, in the far distance. So far as Edgar could make out, the sides of the cave were rocks, but smoothed in a similar way to those on either side of the defile they had left. The floor of the cave was hard and even, in some places so smooth that it became slippery and dangerous. Yacka did not speak, but kept moving slowly forward, and they could see the dim outline of his figure.