"He's turned!" cried Holman. "We'll get him, Verslun! After the--O G.o.d!

_Look out_!"

Holman's warning came too late. The rocky floor over which we had been running, dropped away from us. I pitched forward after the youngster into a gulf of darkness, landed on my shoulder upon a ma.s.s of volcanic ash, and clutching vainly at the stuff, I rolled at tremendous speed down into the bowels of the earth. From far above us came the sounds of uncontrolled merriment--the high-pitched shrieks of a native rising above the deep ba.s.s laughter of Leith.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XX

THE BLACK KINDERGARTEN

I thought we were a thousand years rolling down that slope of smothering ash. It was a quicksand that melted beneath us. We drove our arms into it, but the stuff slipped away like fine wood ash, and we went on and on. I knew Holman was in front of me. Occasionally a curse directed at Leith managed to slip out when his mouth was not filled with the smothering dust. Once I shouted at him, and he answered the cry with a groan that told me how the happening had affected him. The arch ruffian had checkmated us for the third time inside three days.

We struck the bottom at last, and, like moles, we clawed our way out of the pile of soft, feathery stuff that came streaming down upon us like a river, and for some minutes we were busy wiping the fluffy ash from mouth and eyes and ears. It clung to us like down, and with each breath we drew it into our lungs till we coughed and sneezed from the irritation it produced. Struggling forward, knee-deep in the fine, dry powder, we reached a spot that was practically clear, and for five minutes we were busy endeavouring to relieve our tortured lungs.

"How far did we roll?" asked Holman.

"About half a mile," I replied.

"But straight, Verslun! What do you think?"

"Over a hundred yards; I'm certain of that."

"Well, I'm going to climb back."

"You can't do it!" I gasped. "That stuff is like quicksand."

"All the same I'm going to make a try."

We stumbled back to the gigantic ash pile, and shoulder to shoulder we made a rush at the immense mountain down which we had rolled. We couldn't see it, but we felt it rise around us like a flood as our legs sank deeper. It came up to our waists--to our armpits, choking and smothering us. Coming down we had rolled lightly over its surface, now our legs bored into it like rods, and we struggled vainly to move. The pile was like a high snowdrift into which we sank deeper and deeper the more we struggled, and, worn out with our efforts, we fought our way clear of the smothering ash and made an attempt to review the situation.

"He's beat us," groaned Holman. "He just trotted ahead of us till he had us on the verge of the thing, and then he side-stepped. O G.o.d! What a.s.ses we have been!"

"We did our best," I said.

"Our best?" repeated Holman. "And the man who tells you that he did his best as an excuse for failure should be shot, Verslun."

"We couldn't tell that this infernal trench was in front," I grumbled.

"Then we shouldn't have chased him like a brace of madmen. I wonder if Maru and Kaipi came near it?"

"We might call out, perhaps they'd hear."

Holman yelled the names of the two natives into the gloom above us, but his yells only started a million echoes rolling through the tremendous fissure in which we were prisoners.

"They turned back," said Holman. "They had sense enough to stay with One Eye; we hadn't."

It was no use arguing with the youngster. He denounced our stupidity till his tongue was too dry to utter the charges his half-crazed brain made against us.

To divert his thoughts I proposed that we make an attempt to explore the place, and without making any choice regarding direction we moved into the inky darkness.

"We'll take it in turns to lead," said Holman gruffly. "Then if one of us topples over a precipice the other has a chance to save himself. I'll take first try at it, and if I find that I have pushed my foot into a hole I'll yell out a warning."

I agreed, and we moved forward slowly. The chances of ever finding our way out of that place seemed small at that moment. Leith had put us in a spot where we would not be likely to trouble him for some time, and with bitterness in our hearts we staggered along in the dark, alternately d.a.m.ning the treachery of the ruffian and our own stupidity. We had tried to exercise caution, but when we reviewed our actions, it seemed, as Holman had remarked, that we had used the judgment of children.

"Why didn't we wait at the door of that place till the brute came out?"

he asked.

I had no answer to give to the question, and after an interval of silence he fired others at me.

"Why did you let go of One Eye? Why didn't we examine the cavern near the fire before chasing him? The girls might have been somewhere near the fire! Do you think they were?"

"I don't think so," I answered, trying to soothe him. "I think Leith was the only person at the fire. He picked Soma up just before we reached the gulf."

"But where are they? Where has the devil put them?"

"G.o.d alone knows!" I cried. "Here, it's my turn to take the lead."

In silence we went stumbling on into the appalling blackness. We could not see the dim outlines of each other when we stood only a few inches apart. The darkness of the Cavern of Skulls had been relieved by the silver skewers of moonlight, but in the night that rolled around us there was not a single gleam of light.

We had no matches. Everything that was in our pockets had been jolted out during the mad jaunt to the stone table, and now the revolver and cartridges which we had taken from One Eye had been lost by Holman during the slide down the mountain of volcanic ash that brought us to the bottom of the underground prison.

We plodded on for about an hour, then stopped simultaneously. At first I thought that the horror of the situation had affected my brain, but the fact that Holman had stopped abruptly at the same moment as I did choked back the cold fear that had rushed upon me. I was not insane! Holman was listening too! I seemed to feel that the tiny thread of sound which had set my pulses beating madly had also keyed him up to the highest tension.

After a minute of intense silence he put a question.

"Did you hear anything?"

"Did you?" I stammered.

"Are we mad, Verslun?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely. "I thought--" He stopped and moved close to me. I heard his quick breathing as he groped to find me.

"Verslun, did you hear?" he whispered, gripping my arm. "I heard her speak."

"I thought I did," I breathed. "Perhaps--perhaps it was an echo."

For a few minutes we stood, our ears searching for the sound that had disturbed us. We seemed afraid to call out--afraid to quench the little spark of hope which had suddenly flared up in the despair that filled our b.r.e.a.s.t.s. We knew that our ears had lied, and we tried to lengthen the thrill by remaining perfectly silent.

The sound came again, and Holman sent a wild cry into the night that hemmed us in. We were not insane! The spark of hope blazed as we rushed headlong forward. The silvery voice of Barbara Herndon had come to us again through the terrible gloom!

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXI

TOGETHER AGAIN