h of rough, rocky road in the darkness. There could be no
question as to which was the more prudent of the two plans; but there
was a vein of obstinacy in Cavendish's character; he hated to confess
himself beaten, and a light draught of warm air coming from the
direction toward which he had been heading decided him to take the more
risky course of pressing onward.

Accordingly, he resumed his course, holding his rifle horizontally
before him to guard himself against the chance of collision with unseen
obstacles, while he carefully felt the ground before him with one foot
before throwing his weight upon it. Proceeding thus cautiously, in
about a quarter of an hour he became aware of a faint glimmer of
greenish light on the walls of the tunnel on either hand, and a few
minutes later emerged into what appeared to be a great chamber, or
cavern, the interior of which was just sufficiently illuminated by the
light entering through another tunnel on its opposite side, to reveal
the fact that the vertical walls of the chamber were, like the cliff
which was occupying Earle's attention, covered with sculptures from the
floor upward as high as the light had power to reach. But it was
altogether too feeble to reveal anything of the details of the
sculptures, and with a mere glance about him Dick crossed the floor of
the cavern--mechanically noting as he did so, that it was smooth and
level--and passed into the opposite tunnel, entering which, he at once
became aware that his journey was practically ended, for at a distance
of but a few yards there appeared before him an irregular opening, into
which, through a thick, screen of shimmering foliage, the light of day
was streaming. A minute later, and he was once more in the open air,
forcing his way through a tangle of bushes which effectually masked the
opening from which he had just emerged.

Dick's first act, after forcing a passage for himself through the screen
of bushes, was to look about him, when he found, not very greatly to his
surprise, that he was within a short half-mile of the camp, the tunnel
through which he had journeyed piercing the great mass of sandstone from
one side to the other. Then, knowing that Earle would wish to examine
the sculptured chamber, he sought some means of identifying the position
of the opening, and soon found it in a peculiarly shaped projection in
the face of the rock almost immediately above. This done, he made the
best of his way to E