I don't think many could have stood peering into that gloomy tunnel
without feeling something like a tremor of dread. However, I mastered
it at last, after asking myself the question, Was it wise to run such a
risk? The answer came in the shape of gold--it might be the passage to
traverse to arrive at inexhaustible treasure, and I turned to Tom.
"Are you ready?" I said.
"Yes, Mas'r Harry, I'm ready when I've lit my pipe," he said.
And coolly filling it and igniting it from the torch, he crept boldly on
to the little raft and took a bamboo, one of two cut on our way here, to
pole us along.
After placing our guns in safety upon a ledge of rock, I crept on too,
and the little raft swayed down heavily; but it was wonderfully buoyant,
and with our lights in front we prepared for our subterranean passage.
"All right, Mas'r Harry?"
"Yes," I replied.
And then we pushed off, poling ourselves along under the arch, the
rugged wall being easily reached on either side, the stream widening and
not being very rapid after we had passed the first dozen yards.
The navigation proved so easy that we were able to glance about at the
sides and roof, which often nearly touched us, compelling us to stoop,
while at other times the tunnel opened out and we seemed to be making
our way through a narrow lake. But it soon contracted again, and I
should think our onward progress must have been through the damp, dark,
winding way for quite a couple of miles; when, after seeing nothing but
shining, glistening rock above us for hours, we seemed to have come to
the end of our uneventful journey in a large irregularly shaped chamber
whose roof of veined rock was about forty feet above us, its length
being about two hundred feet, and its greatest breadth about sixty.
The stream had widened out into a little lake again, leaving, however,
on one side a sandy shore some six or eight feet wide. The waters were
troubled, as if in a state of ebullition, and for a while we sat
wondering and listening to a loud moaning roar coming apparently from a
distance. Then pushing on by the side, in a manner of speaking we
coasted round the place till we reached the sandy shore and rested; for
though the water flowed out through the arch by which we had entered
there was no way of further exit from the great vault.
This, then, was the extent of the cavern river, and it was with
disappointment that I went slowly round once more, poling the raft over
the troubled waters, to find that there was no likelihood of a discovery
here. The sandy shore was the only landing-place, and unless the
treasure was buried there I could see no other spot where a search could
be made. As to the lake's profundity, of that we could tell nothing,
only that at every attempt to touch bottom we withdrew our poles with a
shiver.
Here, then, was the source of the river, which rose from springs
somewhere far below--springs which caused the bubbling we saw, making
our little raft to rock terribly in one part we passed over, so that we
gladly sought the sandy shore and there remained listening to the
lapping of the water and the faint distant roar.
"There must be another cavern beyond this, Tom," I said after a
thoughtful pause.
"Ain't a doubt about it, Mas'r Harry," he replied. "It's my belief that
if any one would do it he might go on for ever and ever, right through
the inside of the earth to find it all full of places like this."
"Look!" I said eagerly, as I stood on the sandy slip of land and held
up the light above my head, pointing the while to the end of the vault;
"there's a rift up there, Tom, if we could climb to it, and that's where
that roaring noise comes through."
"Mean to try it, Mas'r Harry?"
"Yes," I said, "if we can climb to it; otherwise we must come again with
something we can fit together like a ladder."
"Oh! I can get up there, Mas'r Harry, I know," said Tom. "I've been up
worse places than that in Cornwall after gulls' eggs."
Tom sprang ashore, and I gave a cry of horror, for the little raft was
moving off; but with a leap Tom was back upon it and drew it ashore by a
piece of line, which he tied to one of the poles after forcing it well
down into the sand.
"That won't get away now, Mas'r Harry," he said.
And then stepping cautiously along over the sand, which gave way and
seemed to shiver beneath our feet, we reached the end of the vault, and
with very little difficulty climbed from cranny to cranny till we gained
the opening--a mere slit between two masses of rock--through which we
had to squeeze ourselves, and then wind up and up between block after
block, that looked as though they had been riven asunder in some
convulsion of nature.
Two or three times we were for going back, so arduous was the ascent;
but determined to see our adventure to the end we pressed on and on,
ever higher, till the noise became almost deafening, a cold dank wind
too made our lights to flutter, and once they threatened to become
extinct. But five minutes after the passage widened and the draught was
not so fierce, while bright veins running through the rock at my side
whispered of some rich metal or other for him who would venture thus far
in its search.
"We're a-coming to it now, Mas'r Harry," said Tom shouting, for the
noise was deafening.
The very next moment we were standing in a vast vault stretching out as
far as our feeble light would show us, while about fifty feet to our
left, in one black, gloomy, unbroken torrent, fell from some great
height above, a cascade of water, black as night, till it reached the
basin below us, which, even with our trembling lights, shone forth in a
silvery, iridescent foam.
We could hardly hear the words we uttered from time to time, but we felt
but little inclination to speak, so awe-inspiring was the scene before
us; and it was not until we had been gazing for some time that we
ventured to climb down lower and lower, to find that the bottom of the
cavern was a basin of restless water, from which it was evident some
portion escaped through a natural conduit to the vault below, while
probably the rest made its way to the vast gulf we had before seen.
Then up and down--now near the great foaming basin, then with arduous
climbing close to the dome that formed the roof--I searched about, well
aided by Tom, who seemed to think that I was looking for something
precious, though he said nothing. At one time we approached so near the
waterfall that we could distinguish, high up, the 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.