he narrow archway through
which it gushed. It seemed, too, that by a little management any one
daring enough might have passed round the rocky amphitheatre in which we
were, right beneath the waterfall to the other side, where rifts and
faintly-discerned chasms whispered of further wondrous passages
unexplored, and I felt sure--for the more I searched the more the
feeling came home to me--that we were the first human beings who had
ever entered this stronghold of nature.

With the exception of the bright veins I have mentioned there was no
trace of gem or precious metal. The sides and roof sparkled and
glistened again and again, but it was only with some stalactitic
formation--beautiful to the eye, but worthless; and at last I felt that
this was labour in vain--the treasure was no more here than in the vast
chasm where we had hurled the stone; and, shouting to Tom my intentions,
we stood and had another look, and then lit upon a mass of rock a large
piece of oily oakum which we had brought for the purpose.

Our oakum burned brightly, but it was of little avail, giving us not
much more than a glimpse of the wonders of the grand chamber in which we
stood; and then we turned to go, but only to encounter an unexpected
difficulty. The chamber was so vast and the rift by which we had
entered the sloping side so high up amidst crags resembling one another
that we had great difficulty in finding it, and I remember shuddering as
I thought of the consequences of being lost there in the dark.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

CAST ON A STRANGE SHORE.

Being nervous or wanting in nerve is a state that would soon prove the
ruin of the adventurous.

We had to set ourselves determinedly to the task of finding our way
back, and after a weary climb Tom pointed it out.

If anything, the descent was more laborious than the climbing up; but at
last, tired out, we reached the vaulted chamber with its troubled lake
and narrow sandy strip of shore--a welcome place, gloomy and horrible as
it was, for it meant rest upon our raft, and the gliding out with the
stream to the entrance arch, and then not so very long a journey to the
blessed light of heaven.

"Ah!"

That cry burst from our lips simultaneously, as, climbing down to reach
the sand, we held our lights low to see--what?

That there must be a sort of tide in the lake, small as it was; for the
water was bubbling up more fiercely with a hissing noise, and there was
no sand--the wa