usly. But what faint light it
afforded was sufficient. Step by step he went down until feet and legs
and then entire body were lost to Betty above; she had set the rifle
aside and was kneeling, her hands clasped in her excitement. Now she
could see only his head and the torch held high; he looked up and
smiled at her and waved the faggot. Then she saw only the dimly
burning fire and the hand clutching it. And dimmer and dimmer grew his
light until she strained her eyes to catch a glint of it and could not
tell if it were being extinguished for want of dean air or if he were
very, very far below her.

"Jim!" she called.

"All right," his voice floated back to her.

He had reached the bottom of the stone stairway; his feet shifting back
and forth informed him that he was on a rock floor that was full of
inequalities and that pitched steeply ahead of him. His fire was
almost out, deteriorating into a mere smudge curling up from dying
embers. The air was bad, thick and heavy; breathing was difficult. He
looked up and made out the dim square by which Betty knelt. He could
go a little further without danger, since if the air grew worse he
could still turn and run back up the steps? The floor seemed to be
pitching still more steeply. Fearful of a precipice or a pit and a
fall, he went down on his hands and knees and crept on. Thus he held
his poor torch before him and thus he made a first discovery. The
smoke was drifting steadily into his face. And that meant a current of
air.

Still crawling, he pressed forward eagerly, sniffing the air. But he
relaxed none of his caution; the floor underneath still pitched steeply
and, it seemed to him, grew steeper. Then his light began to brighten;
the embers glowed and when he blew on them, broke again into flame. He
looked up; he could not see the square of light above now. Evidently
he was passing into some sort of wide tunnel or lengthy chamber. Dimly
he could descry walls on either side of him. Ahead was only black
emptiness; underfoot the uneven floor seeming to grow smoother and to
slant still more abruptly downward.

"I'd better go easy," he told himself grimly. "If a man started
sliding here I wonder where he'd land!"

Decidedly the air was better. He filled his lungs and stopped where he
was, moving his torch above his head, lowering it, peering about him on
all sides. At last he made out that a dozen steps further on there was
a level space about