seek their
fortunes.

And then we saw a thing that was well worth coming all that way for; the
stream suddenly disappeared under a dark stone archway, and however much
you stood in the water and stuck your head down between your knees you
could not see any light at the other end.

The stream was much smaller than where we had been beavers.

Gentle reader, you will guess in a moment who it was that said--

'Alice, you've got a candle. Let's explore.' This gallant proposal met
but a cold response. The others said they didn't care much about it, and
what about tea?

I often think the way people try to hide their cowardliness behind their
teas is simply beastly.

Oswald took no notice. He just said, with that dignified manner, not at
all like sulking, which he knows so well how to put on--

'All right. I'M going. If you funk it you'd better cut along home and
ask your nurses to put you to bed.' So then, of course, they agreed
to go. Oswald went first with the candle. It was not comfortable; the
architect of that dark subterranean passage had not imagined anyone
would ever be brave enough to lead a band of beavers into its inky
recesses, or he would have built it high enough to stand upright in. As
it was, we were bent almost at a right angle, and this is very awkward
if for long.

But the leader pressed dauntlessly on, and paid no attention to the
groans of his faithful followers, nor to what they said about their
backs.

It really was a very long tunnel, though, and even Oswald was not sorry
to say, 'I see daylight.' The followers cheered as well as they could as
they splashed after him. The floor was stone as well as the roof, so it
was easy to walk on. I think the followers would have turned back if it
had been sharp stones or gravel.

And now the spot of daylight at the end of the tunnel grew larger and
larger, and presently the intrepid leader found himself blinking in the
full sun, and the candle he carried looked simply silly. He emerged,
and the others too, and they stretched their backs and the word 'krikey'
fell from more than one lip. It had indeed been a cramping adventure.
Bushes grew close to the mouth of the tunnel, so we could not see much
landscape, and when we had stretched our backs we went on upstream and
nobody said they'd had jolly well enough of it, though in more than one
young heart this was thought.

It was jolly to be in the sunshine again. I never knew before how cold
it was underg