go; one
will do. However that can wait until we find the hut."

"I'm not hungry," Moira said, "and I think my clothes are practically
dry. The sun's coming out now, and I don't see why we should feel any
the worse for last night's adventures if we only take reasonable care of
ourselves."

"If that's the case," I remarked, "let us go down by all means."

I sent Cumshaw down first, as he was the only one of us who was familiar
with the place, and then I handed Moira down to him. Or, rather, I
helped her down; Moira at the best of times is no light weight. For a
moment we stood blinking at the entrance to the funnel, and then Moira
caught my arm in her impulsive way and cried, "Come on, Jim! Let's enter
into Paradise!"

I smiled at her quaintness and made to follow her, but Cumshaw
interposed quickly. "Not that way," he said. "This is the way." He
glanced at me as he spoke, and I realised that he was taking us by a
path that would lead us away from the mouldering bones.

The ground was rough underfoot, and the matted cover of vegetation that
effectually hid stray boulders from view made it all the worse. In
places the wattle grew over our heads in a profusion that was almost
tropical, and more than once we would have lost our way had I not taken
our bearings at the start, and thus was able to guide the party by means
of my pocket-compass.

"In your father's day there was a wood hereabouts," I said to Cumshaw
presently. "There doesn't seem to be one now."

"There doesn't," he said. "Can you understand how practically the entire
physical features of the place have changed so much?"

"Frankly I can't. But they apparently have, and that's about all we can
say. We'll just have to keep our eyes open and trust to luck."

"Our luck seems to have held good so far," Moira said, turning to me
with high hope in her face.

"Mind your footing," I said warningly. "You want to watch every inch of
the way. There's all sorts of rocks and boulders under this stuff."

"I'll be careful," she smiled, and scarcely were the words out of her
mouth than her foot caught in something. She pitched forward on her face
before I could spring to her assistance. I lifted her up carefully, but
she seemed none the worse for her fall.

"I don't know what it was that tripped me," she confided. "It wasn't a
boulder or anything of the sort. I think it was a log of wood, yet my
foot seemed to catch underneath it."

I was on the point of offering a