ess of the cavern just a little
less dark than blackness, I saw him standing on the sill, as it were, of
the opening up in the wall, beyond the fire-place as one approached from
the entrance, and above the vertical wall of rock.

He had found a passage just big enough to crawl through leading from the
aperture up to this species of gallery-alcove. The passage curved and was
not much over twenty yards long. He pulled me up to the gallery and we
crawled back together out of the aperture by which he had entered the
passage. The whole passage was dry, unlike the floor of the cave.

"I tell you what we ought to do," said Agathemer, "let us go outside and
gather armfuls of small leafy boughs and twigs. These we can throw up into
that gallery-opening and make a fine bed there where it is dry. Then we
can get a good safe sleep, and we need a long sound sleep."

We did as he suggested till we had leaves enough for a good bed. Then we
ate, sparingly, for we had not much food in our wallets. After eating we
wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and went to sleep; Agathemer with his
wallet beside him and his head on his arm, I with my wallet under my head.

I wakened with a hand over my mouth and with Agathemer's voice in my ear
saying:

"Keep still! Lie still! Don't move or speak! Lie still!"

He spoke in a tense whisper, so low that I could hardly understand him
with his mouth against my ear, so full of terror that the tone of it
startled me wide awake.

My first impression was of a glaring orange light on the roof of the
cavern and a diffused reflection of it or from it on the roof of our
gallery-alcove.

"Keep your head down!" Agathemer whispered. "If you turn over, turn over
quietly."

I did turn over, very slowly, a muscle at a time and with great
precautions to avoid rustling the leaves or twigs of the bed on which we
lay.

As soon as I turned over I perceived that a good, big fire must be burning
on the fire-place and that the light on the cavern roof was the direct
glare from that, while the subdued glow on the roof of our alcove was the
light reflected from the farther wall of the cavern or from its roof.

As our alcove was separated from the fire by a jutting pillar of rock, no
direct light from the fire fell on its opening; it and we were well in the
shadow. So shadowed we could hunch ourselves forward as far as we dared
and peer down into the cave.

Its floor was littered with wallets, blankets, staffs and othe