lf the leader of the party, insisted
on going forward.

"Don't go, massa, don't go; you'll fall down deep well and nebber come
up again," shrieked the guide. Archie and his companions,
notwithstanding this warning, pushed forward, holding their torches well
before them. The passage became more and more contracted, till they
reached an upright ledge of rock rising like a parapet wall almost
breast high. They climbed up it, but on the other side it sloped
rapidly down, and Archie, bold as he had become, thought it prudent to
draw back; but instead of doing so he found himself slipping forward,
and would have been unable to stop had not one of the other book-keepers
caught hold of his coat and assisted him to scramble up again. Just
then the guide came up. "Massa, you not know what you escape," he
exclaimed. "See." And he threw a stone, which, after descending for
some seconds of time, was heard to plunge into water, the noise echoing
backwards and forwards amid the rocks which formed the side of the
chasm. Archie shuddered as he thought of his merciful escape. Other
stones of larger size being thrown in produced a loud, hoarse sound
which reached to a considerable distance.

"What a fearful uproar you would have made, Archie, if you'd taken a
leap into the chasm!" said one of his companions.

"Don't talk of it, man; it is a lesson to me for the future to look
before I leap," was the answer.

"No, massa, as I say, you nebber come up again, unless you pop up in de
sea," observed the guide. "Dat hole full ob salt water and full ob big
fish; but I nebber gone down, and nebber intend to go--he, he, he!"

Further exploration in that direction having been cut short, the party
turned back, slowly to retrace their steps, occasionally entering for a
short distance some of the numerous avenues which they discovered as
they proceeded; but they were all apparently much like those they had
already visited. The ceilings were incrusted with stalactites, between
which in several places the fibrous roots of trees and plants forced
their way downwards through the interstices; in many places honeycombed
rocks formed the roof-work of the grotto; and in others, where openings
appeared towards the sky, the ground was strewed with various seeds and
roots, that of the bread-nut especially being in great abundance.
Reptiles, too, of curious shape were seen scuttling away, disturbed by
the intruders--toad, snake, and lizard forms, a