'Is that you, George? What a good fellow you are. I thought you wouldn't be long after me,' came from the ground, and in the fullness of his relief George laughed out.
'What a joker it is!' he said. 'One would have thought that a fall like this would have taken the sprightliness out of you, Terence.'
'I fell on my head,' the Irishman answered simply, 'and that, no doubt, saved my life. Strike a match and let us see where we are.' Then, as George obeyed, 'Why, you are covered with blood. Are you hurt, dear old fellow?'
'I fell upon my nose,' replied George dryly, 'and, as it is not so hard as your head, you see the result. But, thank God, we are no worse. We seem to be in a kind of tunnel. If the Maoris know of the place——'
'We shall be in a hole, indeed,' put in the irrepressible Terence.
But it was no tunnel into which they had fallen, but a vast, underground forest—a wonder of God's own working. Here and there in New Zealand these dead worlds exist, in which, when once you have found your way thither, you must believe yourself to be within the veritable home of the gnomes and elementals. The tops of dead trees, fixed in the earth above and cemented by the decay of ages, form the roof of your new world, while their great trunks, not so much decayed as changed by mineral deposit, stand like tall sentinels guarding the long gone past, the very emblems of the grandeur of repose.
Such a space as this may extend for miles, or may show as a comparatively small chamber, owing to subsidence from above; while from some such hole as that down which the friends had fallen, or from cracks in the upper earth, 'a dim, religious light' struggles through, which faintly illumines, while it does not dispel, the weird gloom of the subterranean forest.
Of course all this did not become clear in a moment to our adventurers; but one discovery George did make as he struck his third match, and he raised something from the ground as it flickered out.
'This looks as if the place was known and used,' he said, endeavouring to ignite the thing he had picked up. It was a torch, and a bundle of them lay at his feet. For some time he was unsuccessful, but at last the end caught, and the torch burned with a feeble light.
'These were not made yesterday,' went on George, lighting another from the one he held and handing it to Terence. 'Pick up a few and let us explore a bit.'