'So that we can't get out?'
'Not from within.'
'Well,' said he, after a pause, and with a tone of courage in his voice, 'what we've got to do is to go to that light-hole yonder and wait for something to pass, and make our case known. Somebody is sure to pass.'
'Let me see if I can feel the steps with my foot,' said the girl. 'But hold on to me.'
He had brought out a large metal tinder-box—but empty; and in his fit of distraction let it fall. She shrieked as if she had been stung. The nerves of even stout-hearted girls soon yield to blackness, to the association of strange invisible men, and to the probability of a frightful fate. He laughed to encourage her, said what the thing was, and groped and picked it up. She took him to the steps, felt with her foot, and said, 'Feel for yourself. The trap-door is immediately overhead.'
'Well, if we mean to preserve our lives,' said the man—'and God knows how sorry I am that you should be here sharing my imbecile fate—we must walk to that round hole yonder, and keep a smart look-out on the sands below. But I'll try first if this stone can be lifted by shoving.'
He left her and got upon the short set of steps, and strained with his hands. He could not bring his shoulder to bear. In vain. He toiled and groaned. He came down, and feeling for her, said, 'No; the sight-seers have made it easy from above; but it is not easy to thrust up from under, and if I were twenty men I could not do it with my hands in that narrow circumference.'
'Let's walk to that hole,' said the girl, hooking him. 'It is our only chance.'
'Another sight-seer may descend,' said he.