“Bravo us! You see we have done it, Claud, and it is no great matter after all.”
“Aye, Martin, the coming down is all very well; but the getting up again? How, in heaven’s name, shall we manage that?”
“Oh,” said he, laughing, “that will come all right. As for me, I shall make my way up the same as the natives; and you, you know, we can haul up between us.”
When Kati, and all those of the prahu’s men who were not stationed above, at the spikes and ropes, to prevent their being tampered with, had descended, Prabu leading the way, we moved toward the interior of the cave. At the entrance the scent had not been agreeable, but as we progressed the stench became almost intolerable—so much so, I could not forbear an exclamation of disgust.
“Oh, bother!” cried Martin—“adventurers mustn’t have too fine noses; we shall get used to it in time.”
“Aye,” said I, “as eels do to skinning—at the last gasp.” But my brother was right, or other causes soon made us forget the nuisance.
As we advanced, the cave appeared to widen; but as, at every step, we had been leaving the light and wind behind us, it was now both prudent and necessary to appeal to flint and steel. Two torches were therefore at once lighted by Prabu and Kati, when a din assailed our ears that could be compared with nothing mortal. The little swallows in regiments, nay battalions, left their nests, loudly chirping their astonishment, and flapping their wings with indignation; while hundreds, perhaps thousands, of huge bats darted frantically to and fro, and, swooping down in their anger, literally smacked our faces and boxed our ears with their wings. Almost stunned with the hideous sounds—sounds rendered almost supernatural by the echoes of the cave—I placed my fingers in my ears; but removing them again, the noise sounded as demoniac as looked that mass of darkness, gilded by the deep red glare of the two torches.
“Our small friends seem taken by surprise,” said Martin, who regarded it all as good fun. “Hilloa! that’s not civil,” he added, as a bat flapped his great wings in his face.
“They will soon make their way out to sea,” said Prabu. But as the last covey of bats, probably aroused by the noise made by the others, came, as it were, tumbling one over the other in their haste to escape from the cavern, they blundered against the torches, and we were at once in total darkness.
“How stupid of the winged brutes!” exclaimed my brother.