ugful! We're
goin' t' light right out o' this an' be smack off for home."

"How?" I asked, blankly, and with real alarm; for the hot hope that had
filled me at the thought of our having found a way of escape had
vanished as I perceived that from this chamber there was no outlet save
the hole in the roof; which hole also accounted for the current of air
whereby my hope had been inspired. Therefore, when Young spoke in this
extravagant fashion, the dread came over me that he was going mad.

"How?" he answered, "why, through that Jack Mullins, of course. He _is_
th' tippin' kind. I was just tryin' him, while you was pokin' 'round in
that old rubbish, when I happened t' ketch sight of our guns; an' seein'
them, you bet, made me bounce. Here goes for another shot at him! Stick
somethin' under him t' keep him up when I heave."

I was so dazed by the stunning wonder and by the joy that Young's words
carried with them, that I obeyed his order mechanically. With a grave
seriousness he seated himself upon the head of the idol; and as the
figure and the stone base upon which it rested settled down at the end
upon which he sat, and its other end correspondingly swung upward,
showing beneath it a dark opening, I wedged up the mass with a heavy
plate of gold that served as the lid of one of the boxes ranged upon the
shelves.

"It won't do for us both together t' go down there," Young said, as he
rose from his seat and we peered into the dark cavity. "Mullins might
take 't into his fool head t' shut himself up while we was down there,
an' that ud mean cold weather for Rayburn an' Pablo. I'll just jump down
them steps an' prospect a little, while you look after him t' see that
he keeps steady;" and with these words down he went into the hole.

In five minutes or so he joined me again. "It don't look like th' nicest
place I ever got into," he said, "but I guess we'll have t' take th'
chances on it. There's a little room down there, an' out o' that a kind
of a back entry leads into an everlastin' big cave. But there seems t'
be a sort of a path runnin' along in the cave--it's all as dark as th'
devil--an' as paths mostly have two ends to 'em, I guess if we keep on
long enough we'll get somewhere. We can't stay here, that's sure, so
we've just got t' risk it, an' th' sooner we get Rayburn down there th'
better. When he's solidly safe, then we can do some prospectin'--by
good-luck we've got lots o' matches--an' see where that path goes