Jack and His Seven Foes — page 181: what you’re looking at

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172 JACK AND HIS SEVEN FOES. ~ a mightier power—it might be in the very home of it—greater than aught connected with man, is it to be wondered at that their spirits sank ?P The intricate roads and underground paths in which they were, added to the surrounding horror, and they hastened on with waning hope. | Now here, now there, this way and that, they went, sometimes to find the way blocked, and sometimes to discover that they had returned to a spot but recently left. A miserable, sad, and bewildering journey. At last the crisis which all had dreaded came. | Ralph paused, with an expiring torch in his right hand, and an unlit one in his left. He looked at Jack. “ What shall I do?” he asked. “Ts it the last P”’ said Jack. “The last!” “It must be lit. Weare only wasting time and strength in loitering.” So it was lit, and once more they set out, Jack feverishly hurrying on. But whither was he going ? He knew not, and none could even guess. It was possible that every step might be taking them farther away from the possibility of escape. How they watched the burning torch, and noted how it wasted and wasted, be- erudging every spark that fell. Lower and lower it burnt, until only a few inches were left in Ralph’s hand. | “Tt will soon be out,”’ he said. “And after that?” groaned Jacob Sturmby. “ Darkness.” The word echoed mournfully around them like the sound of a distant passing- bell. Darkness in such a place! not synonymous with death P To grope about there unaided by light, to perish inch by inch, to go mad with despair. Surely the rent earthand the appalling voice of the earthquake, with the falling rock to crush out the miserable life, were the better fate. “Tt’s going,” said Ralph, and they all stopped to look upon the flickering torch. The flame swayed to and fro, subsided Was it gone. | In silence they stood a while in darkness, no man able to speak. the stillness. ‘Only death can come now,” he said; ‘the worst in other respects is here.” “Wecan only rely upon you,” Harold Deane said. “ We are nothing in our- selves.”’ ‘The blind find their way,” rejoined Jack, “why should not we? Place your hands against the wall to the left, and follow me. LHvery minute or so I will speak. ‘Then let all answer me.” So they began to grope their way, and. for. Every now and then Jack would speak. . ‘“ Are all here? ”’ “All,” they would answer, and so go on. If time crawled before, it halted in- cessantly now, and occasionally appeared to stand still. Hours seemed to have passed when Jack called halt. “All here?” ATS? “Rest alittle, and smoke 1f you will.” They still had a sufficiency of matches to afford the outlay of two or three to light their pipes with, and soon the cavern was faintly ulumined with the burning tobacco. in sad silence, Jack, who stood erect, listening to every sound. Suddenlv he bade them hold their very breath and listen. They did so, and heard a faint bubbling sound. ‘ Water,’ said Ralph. “ Just so,” returned Jack; ‘trickling from the ground above. We must find it, and work our way by it if we can. Stay here.” : They heard him go stumbling on ‘T’ve found it!” « And little good it will do us, I’m thinking,” muttered Deane. 7 ‘“‘Tt?s about our last chance, I reckon,” said Ralph. They put out their pipes, and after some blundering over loose stones, found their way to Jack. “The stream,” he said, ‘‘is fully a for a moment, then flickered upand was It was Jack who broke the portentous: covered more ground than they hoped — Pp Resting on the ground, they smoked — ahead, and presently heard him shout— VOLO KS,(60) CONMUC <S am