“Very well, lad. Shall I tell you a story?”
We must have been on the floor of a lofty cavern, for my words came back.
“Hush!” he whispered.
His hand was groping for mine. Perfect blackness encompassed us. I took his hand. A slight tremor thrilled it, and I put an arm about his shoulders, drew him close, and pressed his head down in the hollow of my neck. There was none of his refractory wildness now. Poor lad! For all the pluck that he had shown in the past, the silence and the darkness of this grew-some passage had unmanned him. It was good to hear the comfort in his sigh, the fading of the tremor, and the firm grasp of his hand.
Evidently Beelo had never made this trip before, but I wondered that at least its upper end had been left unguarded and why it was not a highway for the natives. In a whisper I asked him.
“It is guarded,” he answered; “but when a storm or an earthquake comes, the men are afraid that what is in here will come out; and, besides, they think a storm is a better guard than they. But they weren’t far away. I knew how to avoid them.”
“Yes, but——”
“Down!” came sharply from Christopher simultaneously with a dull blow.
I flattened Beelo and myself.
“Up,” said Christopher.