Prisoners of Chance

I could perceive, by means of the faint light streaming through the narrow opening, that he was busily engaged in rubbing his sorely lacerated sides, and I noted his brown jerkin had been fairly wrenched off his shoulders.

"Where did you leave your coat?"

"Yonder in that accursed hole! It has store of provisions in its pockets. Lord save me, but was there ever such a time!"

He turned, groping anxiously about in the scene of his late adventure until he finally brought forth the missing garment. Carefully testing the pockets to see their contents remained intact, a smile lit up his leathern face, and he flung it across his shoulders, like a pair of well-filled saddle-bags. I reached in also, lowered the drapery, and then led down the dark tunnel as rapidly as the grim uncertainty of the way would permit.

The passage proved long and tedious; at least so it seemed to us compelled to grope slowly onward through the darkness. However, it ran straight and upon a level, although the numerous supports of the roof gave us occasional foul blows, and proved so confusing we were considerable time in traversing its distance. All I have already pictured as occurring since I departed from the presence of Madame, and first plunged blindly into the underground labyrinths, had required several hours, and it must have been close upon sunset when we emerged from the gloom of the tunnel into the fresh sweet air.

The passage traversed so long terminated abruptly, and with a sheer turn to the left, coming forth between two huge rocks. To all appearances, it ended at the high bank of a noisy stream, and was partly hidden by the overhanging cliff. The latter, devoid of path or chasm, now barred our progress, towering aloft until its ragged summit appeared to press the blue sky. At first view I thought the way ended here, but Cairnes pointed silently toward the right, and then I perceived where a path led upward, along the merest narrow, jagged shelf, skirting the boiling water, yet ever rising higher above it, until, as my eyes followed its serpentine windings from terrace to terrace, I grew dizzy contemplating the possibilities of so mad a climb.

"I suppose it must be tried," I admitted soberly, "for there is apparently no other passage. Doubtless it leads straight to the top of the cliff."

"Ay," with more of indifference than I had expected, "and it will be no easy trick in the night."

"The night?"

"Surely, yes; when else could we expect to compass the path? Is it not plain, friend, that before we rose fifty feet we should be in full view of every eye in the valley with the sun bright upon us? I tell you we must foot yonder rocks amid the night shadows, or else it will be safer to lie hidden here."