Part 52 (1/2)

I pointed to the exit in the middle ”That! We should have taken it in the first place On the raft we probably descended altogether so like five hundred feet from the level where we started--possibly twice that distance And this passage which slopes upill probably take us back”

”At least, it's as good as the other,” Harry agreed; and we entered it

We had not proceeded far before we found ourselves in difficulties

The gentle slope became a steep incline Great rocks looe was so narrow that two h it, and its walls were rough and irregular, with sharp points projecting unexpectedly into our very faces

Still ent forward and upward, scra over, under, round, between At one point, when Harry was a few yards in front of h sed by theto his feet at the bottom of a chasm some ten feet below Luckily he had escaped serious injury, and climbed up on the other side, while I leaped across--a distance of about six feet

”They could never have brought her through this,” he declared, rubbing a bruised knee

”Do you want to go back?” I asked

But he said that would be useless, and I agreed with hiled onward, painfully and laboriously The sharp corners of the rocks cut our feet and hands, and I had an ugly bruise on my left shoulder, besides many lesser ones Harry's injured knee caused hiress

At tie broadened out until the wall on either side was barely visible, only to narron again till it was scarcely iant boulders The variation of the incline was no less, being at tile whose ascent was all but impossible

Somehoe crawled up, like flies on a wall

When we ca directly across our path at the foot of a towering rock Harry gave a cry of joy and ran forward I had not known until then how badly his knee was hurt, and when I ca it in the streaive it a rest But he absolutely refused, and after we had quenched our thirst and gotten an easy breath or te struggled to our feet and on

After another hour of scraer nails, the way began to be easier We came to level, clear stretches with only an occasional boulder or ravine, and the rock beca feet The relief came almost too late, for by that tiress

Soon we faced another difficulty e cae showed a lane on either side One led straight ahead; the other branched off to the right They were very si to us, and we took it

We had followed this but a short distance when it broadened out to such an extent that the walls on either side could be seen but dile, and we had little difficulty in ain to a ait, keeping our eyes strained ahead, when there appeared an opening in the right wall at a distance of a hundred feet or so Not having seen or heard anything to reco our pace until we had reached it

I said aloud to Harry, ”Probably a cross-passage,” and then jerked hiainst the opposite wall as I saw the real nature of the opening

It led to a sh walls, dark as the passage in which we stood, for it contained no light

We could see its interior di just within the doorway His back was toward us, and he appeared to be fastening so with strips of hide

It was evident that we had not been seen, and I started toHarry's arm It was then that I beca away in front of us--that is, the one on the right--was marked as far as the eye could reach with a succession of siether; frouessed that they, too, led to rooms similar to the one in front of us, probably likewise occupied; but it was necessary to go on in spite of the danger, and I pulled again at Harry's ar had happened, I turned ain on the Inca in the roo us As we stood motionless he took a hasty step forward; we had been discovered

There was but one thing to do, and we didn't hesitate about doing it

We leaped forward together, crossing the intervening space in a single bound, and bore the Inca to the floor under us

My fingers were round his throat, Harry sat on hi so