It was Marjorie calling from the interior of the cave. With a quick glance at the path below, I scrambled to my feet. The entrance to the cave was not more than four feet high and I had to bend almost double to enter. Within, for a few feet from the opening there was enough light to see that the floor, brittle and crumbly, sloped down into a dark void. I felt my way cautiously along the side of the cave foot by foot, stooping low to avoid the roof and seeing nothing. Then from somewhere far below, as it seemed at my very feet, the girl's cry went forth again:
"Coo.... eee!"
I stopped.
"Right!" I shouted. "Where are you?"
From far below the cry came up, faint and a little quavery.
"Down here in the dark and I don't like it! But I've found water! There are some steps cut in the rock!"
The lure of the water was irresistible. I glanced at the path, above which hung a trembling curtain of heat. It was still deserted. I judged that I might safely risk a quick dash into the cave to quench my burning thirst.
The cave narrowed as it receded into the rock, and presently my foot shot out into space. I groped a bit and struck a shallow step. Then I suddenly remembered that I had a stump of candle in my pocket. I had picked it up on the previous evening when we had been loading the launch. An old campaigner never leaves candle ends lying about. They are apt to come in useful—as witness this case.
So I struck a match and lit my bit of candle and peered down. The feeble ray only illuminated a black void, a dark narrow shaft; but I saw that the steps descended almost sheer down one side. I was now able to stand erect, so clutching the side of the rock with one hand and bearing my lighted candle in the other, I started the descent. And I counted as I went.
I had counted fourteen steps when suddenly the ground appeared to give way beneath my feet. I clutched wildly at the side of the rock, my hand slipped over the smooth surface, and with a soft rumble the whole of the steps seemed to slide away. My light was extinguished and in a shower of crumbling rock and a cloud of acrid dust, I slithered headlong into the black shaft.