the silence that followed, and as if with one
consent, the travellers broke into "Dubbuldideery."

It seemed as if the walls would shatter and the roof come tumbling down
at their prodigious hullabaloo. The bats raced to and fro. Scores of
fishes pushed up their snouts round Nod's raft, and gazed with curious
faces into the torchlight. The water was all astir with their
disquietude. But in the midst of the song there sounded a shrill and
hasty cry: "Down all!"

Only just in time had Ghibba seen their danger, and almost before the
shrill echo had died away, and Thimble had cast himself flat, their raft
was swirled under a huge rock, blossoming with quartz, that hung down
almost to the surface of the water. Thimble's jacket was ripped collar
to hem as he slid under, lying as close as he could. And the bobbing
raft of baggage behind them was torn away in a twinkling, so that now
all the food and torches the Mulgars had was what each carried for
himself. They dared not stir nor lift their heads, for still the fretted
roof arched close above the water. And so they drifted on and on, their
torches luckily burnt low, until at length the cavern widened, the roof
lifted, and they burst one by one into a great chamber of smooth water,
its air filled strangely with a faint phosphorescence, so that every
spar and jag of rock gleamed softly with coloured light as they paddled
their course slowly through. In this great chamber they stayed awhile,
for there was scarcely any current of water against its pillared sides.
With their rafts clustering and moored together, they shared out equally
what nuts, dry fruit, and unutterably mouldy cheese remained, and
divided the torches equally between them, except that Ghibba, who led
the way, had two for every one of the others.

These thin grey waters swarmed with fish, but all, it seemed, nearly
blind, with scarcely visible eyes above their snouts. Some of the bigger
fish, with clapping jaws, cast themselves in range or hunger against the
rafts. And the Mulgars, seeing their teeth, took good heed to couch
themselves close in the midst of their rafts. The longer they stayed,
the thicker grew the concourse of fish drawn together by the noise and
smell of the travellers, until the cavern echoed with their restless
fins and a kind of supping whisper, as if the fish had speech. So the
Mulgars pushed off again, laying about them with their poles to scare
the bolder monsters off as they gilded soft