For a space of several seconds no one moved or spoke. In the flickering light of the candle they looked at one another, and then at the fantastic pillars of salt all about them. Then Mr. Damon started forward.
"Bless my trolley car!" he exclaimed. "It isn't possible! There must be some mistake. If we'll keep on we'll come out all right. You know your way about, don't you, Mr. Petrofsky?"
"I thought I did, from what the guard told us, but it seems I must have taken a wrong turning."
"Then it's easily remedied," suggested Tom "All we'll have to do will be to go to the place where we started, and begin over again."
"Of course," agreed Ned, and they all seemed more cheerful.
"And if we start out once more, and get lost again, then what?" asked Mr. Damon.
"Well, if worst comes to worst, we can go, back in the tunnel, go to our cells and ask the guard to come with us and show us the way went on Tom.
"Never!" cried the exile. "It would be the most dangerous thing in the world to go back to the prison. Our escape has probably been discovered by this time, and to return would only be to put our heads in the noose. We must keep on at any cost!"
"But if we can't get out," suggested Tom, "and if we haven't anything to eat or drink, we—"
He did not finish, but they all knew what he meant.