no bottom to it at all."

"Go on. Dinny, and don't be stupid," cried Dick; and poor Dinny found
himself pretty well hustled down to the bottom of the funnel-like place,
which seemed to bend round at the bottom and to lead into a little
brook.

Here the guide lit a couple of roughly-made torches: he handed one to
Dinny and retained the other, advising all the party to tuck up their
trousers; and the reason for this was soon evident, for the floor of the
grotto they were about to explore formed the bed of the transparent
little river that had found its way into this strange crack in the rock,
and gradually enlarged it to give itself more room.

"Ah, bedad, and the wather's cowld," cried Dinny. "Shure, Masther Dick,
we're niver going on along there?"

"Indeed we are, Dinny, with you to light us, like the brave, man you
are," said Dick.

Then Dinny growled out something about its being a shame to make such a
naygur of a white man, and seeing no alternative, went on behind the
guide, being followed by Mr Rogers, the boys bringing up the rear.

The first part of their journey was for some distance through narrow
passages, where they often had to bend double, with only an opportunity
now and then for straightening themselves upright; but by degrees, as
they went on splash, splash, through the water, the roof rose higher and
higher, till its summit seemed to be lost in gloom, while the grey walls
looked wild and romantic in the extreme.

A glance to right and left of the narrow way showed that in some great
convulsion of nature, the rock had been split and separated to a small
extent, and the result was the formation of this cavern; for so similar
were the sides that had the natural action been reversed, the two sides
would have fitted together, save where the water had worn the rock away.

It was a weird journey, made the more mysterious by the guide, who
pointed out side passages where the water grew deeper, which passages,
he said, had never been explored; and at last, after they had been
travelling slowly along the solemn echoing place, Dinny appealed to his
master to go back.

"Shure I'm not a bit freckened," he said; "but, sor, there's danger to
us all if we go on there."

"Absurd, Dinny," cried his master. "Go on. What is there to be afraid
of?"

"Oh, nothing at all, sor. It isn't that I mind, but we shall be coming
upon some great big water-baste or a wather-shnake or something, and
then what'll we d