with all our eyes, and there, yes, there, far ahead of us,
was a faint, glimmering spot, no larger than a cottage window pane. It
was so faint that I doubt if any eyes, except those which, like ours,
had for days seen nothing but blackness, could have perceived it at all.

With a gasp of hope we pushed on. In five minutes there was no longer
any doubt; it _was_ a patch of faint light. A minute more and a breath
of real live air was fanning us. On we struggled. All at once the
tunnel narrowed. Sir Henry went on his knees. Smaller yet it grew, till
it was only the size of a large fox's earth--it was _earth_ now, mind
you; the rock had ceased.

A squeeze, a struggle, and Sir Henry was out, and so was Good, and so
was I, dragging Foulata's basket after me; and there above us were the
blessed stars, and in our nostrils was the sweet air. Then suddenly
something gave, and we were all rolling over and over and over through
grass and bushes and soft, wet soil.

The basket caught in something and I stopped. Sitting up I halloed
lustily. An answering shout came from below, where Sir Henry's wild
career had been checked by some level ground. I scrambled to him, and
found him unhurt, though breathless. Then we looked for Good. A little
way off we discovered him also, hammed in a forked root. He was a good
deal knocked about, but soon came to himself.

We sat down together, there on the grass, and the revulsion of feeling
was so great that really I think we cried with joy. We had escaped from
that awful dungeon, which was so near to becoming our grave. Surely
some merciful Power guided our footsteps to the jackal hole, for that
is what it must have been, at the termination of the tunnel. And see,
yonder on the mountains the dawn we had never thought to look upon
again was blushing rosy red.

Presently the grey light stole down the slopes, and we saw that we were
at the bottom, or rather, nearly at the bottom, of the vast pit in
front of the entrance to the cave. Now we could make out the dim forms
of the three Colossi who sat upon its verge. Doubtless those awful
passages, along which we had wandered the livelong night, had been
originally in some way connected with the great diamond mine. As for
the subterranean river in the bowels of the mountain, Heaven only knows
what it is, or whence it flows, or whither it goes. I, for one, have no
anxiety to trace its course.

Lighter it grew, and lighter yet. We could see each other no