those inky depths
it would not require a great effort of the imagination to call it white.
The faint luminous flashes were the only particles of light that we had
seen since Leith had thrown the half-extinguished torch into the hole
that morning, and we could hardly turn our eyes from the novelty.

The water fell into an opening in the rocky floor, and gurgled away into
depths that made us shiver as the distant tinkle came up to us as we
crept forward on hands and knees. We were all thirsty at that moment,
but we wished to put the directions of the Maori to an immediate test,
and we were satisfied to let our longing for a cool drink stay with us
till we could prove whether the strangely luminous waterfall before us
was the one about which the two natives chanted the strange song.

"They said to the left, didn't they?" asked Holman.

"Yes," I answered. I hardly recognized my own voice as I jerked out the
word. I couldn't see the faces of the girls, but I understood what
skyscrapers of hope they had built upon the announcement I had made when
Edith had told of her discovery. Now, as we moved around the hole in the
floor, I understood what a tremendous shock it would be to them if we
discovered that there was no connection between the falling water and
the chant.

"I suppose the left side will be the one upon our left hand when facing
the fall?" said Holman.

"I suppose so," I stammered. "Let us move up close to the side of the
water."

We edged along till we could touch the flashing stream that dropped from
some point high up in the immense roof of the place, and then we started
to step the distance, the Professor chattering along behind us, while
the two girls brought up the rear.

Holman chanted the numbers aloud, and a cold sweat broke out upon me as
he counted. A fear of my own sanity came upon me. I thought that this
connection between the song and the luminous water might have been
suggested by a brain that had suddenly lost its balance under the
torture of the preceding three days.

"Fifty-six! Fifty-seven! Fifty-eight!----"

It was Holman's voice, but to my reeling brain the sound came from the
roof and thundered in my ears like a brazen bell.

"Fifty-nine! _Sixty_!"

We stopped together, and the suppressed sobs of Barbara Herndon were the
only sounds that broke the little stillness that followed. There was no
way out! The darkness, so it seemed to us, was thicker than ever!

"Nothing doing," mutte