en more than four hours in that
dreadful place, and I did not believe that I could continue to exercise
my limbs very much longer. The lights I had seen had ceased. It was
quite plain that the workmen had no idea that any one was imprisoned in
the cave.

But soon after I had come to this conclusion I saw through the clear
block of ice a speck of light, and it became stronger and stronger,
until I believed it to be close to the other side of the block. There it
remained stationary; but there seemed to be other points of light which
moved about in a strange way, and near it. Now I stood by the block
watching. When my feet became very cold, I stamped them; but there I
stood fascinated, for what I saw was truly surprising. A large coal of
fire appeared on the other side of the block; then it suddenly vanished
and was succeeded by another coal. This disappeared, and another took
its place, each one seeming to come nearer and nearer to me. Again and
again did these coals appear. They reached the centre of the block; they
approached my side of it. At last one was so near to me that I thought
it was about to break through, but it vanished. Then there came a few
quick thuds and the end of a piece of iron protruded from the block.
This was withdrawn, and through the aperture there came a voice which
said: "Mr. Cuthbert, are you in there?" It was the voice of Agnes!

Weak and cold as I was, fire and energy rushed through me at these
words. "Yes," I exclaimed, my mouth to the hole; "Agnes, is that you?"

"Wait a minute," came from the other side of the aperture. "I must make
it bigger. I must keep it from closing up."

Again came the coals of fire, running backward and forward through the
long hole in the block of ice. I could see now what they were. They were
irons used by plumbers for melting solder and that sort of thing,
and Agnes was probably heating them in a little furnace outside, and
withdrawing them as fast as they cooled. It was not long before the
aperture was very much enlarged; and then there came grating through
it a long tin tube nearly two inches in diameter, which almost, but not
quite, reached my side of the block.

Now came again the voice of Agnes: "Oh, Mr. Cuthbert, are you truly
there? Are you crushed? Are you wounded? Are you nearly frozen? Are you
starved? Tell me quickly if you are yet safe."

Had I stood in a palace padded with the softest silk and filled with
spicy odors from a thousand rose garden