ss onwards.
Now he would squeeze himself between the converging sides of the
passage, now he would crawl on hands and knees through a hole which
would barely receive his shoulders; and thus, sweating, panting,
bruised, and even bleeding where his hands and arms had been grazed by
rasping and projecting rocks, he at length sat down to rest in a place
where the tunnel broadened into a small chamber. How far he had pushed
his way into the bowels of the earth he could not tell, neither was he
thoughtful of the distance. What he was looking and hoping for, was a
gleam of light ahead, but whenever he blew out his candle the inky
blackness was so intense as to be painful to his eyes.

"My God! Supposing a man got in here, and couldn't get back? Suppose I
got stuck between two rocks?--I'd have to stop here till I grew thin
enough to squeeze out."

Quickly he re-lit his candle.

"That's better," he exclaimed. "There is after all some company in a
lighted candle. We'll now go on; we'll press forward; we'll see whither
this intricate path leadeth. 'Vorwarts' is the word: no turning back
till the goal is reached."

He crept through a low aperture, and with difficulty he rose to his
feet; a few steps further on he stumbled; the candle fell from his hand,
and dropped, and dropped, and dropped, in fact he never heard it reach
the bottom.

Feeling in his pocket for his matches as he lay prone, he struck a
light, and held the burning taper beyond him as far as he could reach.
All that he saw was a dark and horrible abyss. He struck another match
with the same result. He seized a piece of loose rock, rolled it over
the edge, and waited for the sound of its lodgment at the bottom. He
heard it bumping as it fell, but its falling seemed interminable, till
at length the sound of its passage to the nether regions died away in
sheer depth.

Tresco drew a long breath.

"Never," he said, "never, in the course of his two score years and ten
has Benjamin been so near Hades. The best thing he can do is to 'git,'
deliberately and with circumspection. And the candle has gone: happy
candle to preserve the life of such a man as B.T."

Slowly and with the utmost caution he crept backwards from the horrible
pit. But his supply of matches was scanty, and often he bumped his head
against the ceiling, and often he tripped and fell, till before long
there was not a part of his portly person that was free from pain. Yet
still he struggled on, for h