d noise of crackling,
snapping and hissing arose from it.

Every eye but Grom's was glued in fascination to the baleful scene.
But Grom now thought only of using that pervasive light to best
advantage while it should last. The wall of the cavern at this point
was so broken and fissured that it was not unscalable; and a little
way off to the right he marked, at some height above the water, what
looked like the entrance to a lateral gallery.

"Come! While the light lasts," he ordered, setting off over the rocks.
The others followed close. Now sidling along knife-like ledges, now
clinging by fingers and toes to almost imperceptible projections, they
made their way across the face of the steep, and gained the mouth of
the gallery. It was spacious, and easy to traverse, its floor sloping
upwards somewhat steeply. They plunged into it with confidence. And
the blue light of the Hall of Terrors faded out behind them.

Not many minutes later, another light, as it were a white star,
gleamed ahead of them. It grew as they went, and turned to gold. Then
a patch of turquoise sky, flecked sweetly with small fleeces of cloud,
opened before them, and in a moment more they came out upon a high,
blossoming down, blown over by a breeze that smelt of honey and salt.
Below them was a lovely, land-locked bay, with a herd of deer
pasturing among scattered trees by the shore. Away behind them
undulated the gracious line of the downs, inviting their feet.

"It is a pleasant land," said Grom, "and we will surely come back to
it. But I think we must find another way than that by which we came."

CHAPTER XI

THE FEASTING OF THE CAVE FOLK

I

At last, and reluctantly, the Folk of the Caves had withdrawn from
their earthquake-harassed valley and betaken themselves to the new
dwelling-place which Grom had found for them, on the green hill-slope
beside the Bitter Waters. They had lost no time, however, in accepting
the new conditions; for these caves in the limestone were ample and
secure--it was hard for any invader to come at them save by way of the
long, bare ridge of the downs running westward behind the caves; a
sweet-water brook ran almost past their threshold to fall with a
pleasant clamor into the bay,--and the surrounding country was rich in
game. The vast basin of marshy plain and colossal jungle, to be sure,
which stretched and steamed below the downs to southward, was the
habitation of strange monsters; but these, apparen