“Yes,” replied Roake. “I can take you through it, if you wish.”
They entered the cavern. Mr. Withers was only too familiar with the place. They went over the route he had twice traversed before. There were the same tortuous passage-ways, dimly lighted by hanging lamps. Roake said:
“We keep these lamps here in the summer and early fall, when there are a good many visitors about. It saves the trouble of carrying torches.”
“A very good arrangement,” commented Mr. Withers.
They soon came to the termination of the cavern. A foaming cataract of falling water greeted their vision.
The visitor regarded it silently, and was apparently lost in admiration.
“A wonderful freak of nature,” he observed. “The water, I suppose, comes from some subterranean spring, and continues its course through that opening below our feet. Does the supply never fail and leave the rocks behind the cataract bare?”
“No,” was the reply. “It flows the year round.”
Roake betrayed no surprise or uneasiness at the question, and delivered his answer in a careless tone. Why should he feel concern? Hundreds of tourists had made the same inquiry, and received the same reply. And nothing could have been further from his thoughts than that his companion was the escaped captive, who knew the secret of the room behind the splashing waterfall.
But the eyes of the Reverend Mr. Withers were busy, and his thoughts active.