'At that rate we are entombed, and must die in the full sight of life,' cried the man, leaning against the wall, and folding his arms with a scowl. 'It is bad enough that I should be here, cursed idiot that I am! But that I should have drawn you into a living grave!'
'I desire you will act as a man,' she interrupted passionately. 'We must husband our strength and preserve our voices. In to-day or in to-morrow'—but her tones failed her as she spoke—'a man may pass within reach of our voice, and learning who I am, deliver us.'
He gazed at her with a sudden admiration. She certainly made a noble heroic figure as she stood viewing him in that strange tunnel-like light, bright on the left, in gloom on the right. Her eyes sparkled. She looked down the corridor where the steps lay, then sat down, placing her back against the wall. It was clear that an under-dread possessed her, but not so as to master her. The thought of being locked down with a strange man in a lonely cavern for an afternoon and night—and for how much longer, who could tell?—was horrible; it kept her soul shuddering, so to speak. But the man's own consternation was too excessive to take notice of anything but this: that he was entombed in a smugglers' cave where, as things stood, there was every chance of their leaving their bones. He squatted in a most disconsolate posture opposite to her, and they both had the light on them.
'This,' said the man, meaning the light, 'is worth something, anyhow.'
'Continual darkness is frightful,' she answered; 'it drives men mad.'
'Who the deuce could figure that those sands would be covered at flood?' he cried. 'What an enormous waste they offer when the water is low!'
'You must have slept, otherwise you would surely know that you had already spent a night in this place.'
'When I found I couldn't get out,' he answered, 'I took to wandering in the darkness, and lost the light, and losing that, lost this corridor. I turned and plied and groped, and then my candle being burnt out, I sat down as I now sit, and I have no doubt I slept. I awoke, and began to grope my way along again, and after a long time my hands brought me to some entrance just down yonder, clear into the view of this orifice.'
'Was it daylight?' she asked.