"Impossible," said the colonel. "I can prove it instantly. When we started away from the spot where the river enters on our trip around the lake, the shore was on our right. When we arrived here just now it was still on our right, whereas, had we unconsciously turned the canoe about and reversed our course, the shore would be on our left. We have circumnavigated the lake and returned to our starting point, and in some way missed the outlet."
"No," cried Chutney in tones that chilled his hearers with horror. "We did not miss the outlet."
"What do you mean?" cried the colonel.
"I say we did not miss the outlet," continued Guy, "because there was no outlet to miss. No exit from the lake exists. We are entombed forever and ever. None of us will ever see the light of day again. We shall die here in the bowels of the earth, and the serpents will mangle us as they mangled those poor unfortunates yonder on the island. Better to know the truth now than later. It is useless to hope. I tell you we are doomed men and——" Here Guy's voice faltered, and sinking down into the canoe, he covered his face with his hands.
Sir Arthur uttered a heartrending cry and fell back in a faint. He lay unnoticed. The torch dropped from the Greek's nerveless hands and expired with a hiss. In darkness and silence they floated on and on until the roar of the inflowing water became fainter and fainter. Then it died out entirely and all was intensely quiet.
The darkness was grateful to their stricken hearts. They wanted time to realize the awful misfortune that had fallen so suddenly and heavily upon them.
It was impossible to grasp the truth in a moment, especially when that truth meant utter hopelessness and a terrible death. So they drifted in silence under the great vault of the cavern, living-dead in a living tomb.
Long afterward—it might have been an hour and it might have been a day, for all passage of time was lost—Chutney rose to a sitting posture.
His brain was dizzy and reeling. The aching misery lay heavy on his heart, and yet one faint spark of hope lingered amid the black despair, the natural buoyancy of his nature that refused even to submit to the decrees of the inevitable.
It was he who had first spoken the words of doom to his companions, and now he told himself he would show them the way to safety. He fumbled in his clothes for a match, and striking it deliberately, lit a fresh torch.