There was nothing else for it. We shouldered our spears and started to retrace our steps.
"No use running now," I declared. "We can't keep it up forever, and we may as well save our strength. We'll never catch up with 'em, but we may find 'em."
Harry, striding ahead two or three paces in front, did not answer.
Finally we reached the cavern from which we had started.
"And now what?" asked Harry in a tone of the most utter dejection.
I pointed to the exit in the middle. "That! We should have taken it in the first place. On the raft we probably descended altogether something like five hundred feet from the level where we started—possibly twice that distance. And this passage which slopes upward will probably take us back."
"At least, it's as good as the other," Harry agreed; and we entered it.
We had not proceeded far before we found ourselves in difficulties. The gentle slope became a steep incline. Great rocks loomed up in our path.
In spots the passage was so narrow that two men could hardly have walked abreast through it, and its walls were rough and irregular, with sharp points projecting unexpectedly into our very faces.
Still we went forward and upward, scrambling over, under, round, between. At one point, when Harry was a few yards in front of me, he suddenly disappeared from sight as though swallowed by the mountain.