guides were laden with ropes, lamps, and long,
slender ladders that could be strapped together.

When everything had been checked and all the ladders and straps tested,
Shadrach went to a clump of bushes which grew feebly on the wind-swept
crest of the precipice. In the midst of these he found and removed a
large flat stone, revealing what evidently had been the head of a stair,
although now its steps were much worn and crumbled by the water that in
the wet season followed this natural drain to the depths below.

"This is that road the ancients made for purposes of their own,"
explained Shadrach, "which, as I have said, I chanced to discover when
I was a boy. But let none follow it who are afraid, for it is steep and
rough."

Now Joshua, who was already weary with his long ride and walk up to the
crest of the precipice, implored Maqueda almost passionately to abandon
the idea of entering this horrid hole, while Oliver backed up his
entreaties with few words but many appealing glances, for on this point,
though for different reasons, the prince and he were at one.

But she would not listen.

"My uncle," she said, "with you, the experienced mountaineer, why should
I be afraid? If the Doctor here, who is old enough to be the father of
either of us" (so far as Joshua was concerned this remark lacked truth),
"is willing to go, surely I can go also? Moreover, if I remained behind,
you would wish to stay to guard me, and never should I forgive myself
if I deprived you of such a great adventure. Also, like you, I love
climbing. Come, let us waste no more time."

So we were roped up. First went Shadrach, with Quick next to him, a
position which the Sergeant insisted upon occupying as his custodian,
and several of the Mountaineers, carrying ladders, lamps, oil, food and
other things. Then in a second gang came two more of these men, Oliver,
Maqueda, myself, and next to me, Joshua. The remaining mountaineers
brought up the rear, carrying spare stores, ladders, and so forth. When
all was ready the lamps were lit, and we started upon a very strange
journey.

For the first two hundred feet or so the stairs, though worn and almost
perpendicular, for the place was like the shaft of a mine, were not
difficult to descend, to any of us except Joshua, whom I heard puffing
and groaning behind me. Then came a gallery running eastward at a steep
slope for perhaps fifty paces, and at the end of it a second shaft of
about the same dept