“Shall we stay here or try to find a way out?” and she replied in like fashion:
“Let us try.”
He nodded, and silently led the way. It was no longer necessary for her to hold on to him. The path they were following had undoubtedly been shaped by human hands. Every dozen yards was a rough-hewn block of stone put across the path step fashion. They were ascending, and now had the advantage of being screened by the cave from people on the boat, for on their right rose a jagged screen of rock.
They had not progressed a hundred yards before screen and wall joined, and beyond this point progress seemed impossible. The passage was in darkness. Apparently Brill had explored the way, for, taking the girl by the arm, he moved to the right, feeling along the uneven wall. The path beneath was more difficult, and the rocky floor made walking a pain. She was near to exhaustion when she saw, ahead of her, an irregular patch of gray light. Apparently this curious gallery led back to the far end of the cave, but before they reached the opening, Brill signalled her to halt.
“You’d better sit down,” he whispered. “We can put on our shoes.”
The stockings that she had knotted about her waist were still wet, and her shoes two soggy masses, but she was glad to have some protection for her feet. Whilst she was putting them on, Brill crept forward to the opening and took observation.
The water which had now flooded the cave was some fifty feet below him, and a few paces would bring them to a broad ledge of rock which formed a natural landing for a flight of steps leading down from the misty darkness of the roof to water level. The steps were cut in the side of the bare rock; they were about two feet in breadth and were unprotected even by a makeshift handrail. It would be, he saw, a nerve-racking business for the girl to attempt the climb, and he was not even sure that it would be worth the attempt. That they led to one of the many exits from the cave, he knew, because he had seen people climbing up and down those steps and disappearing in the darkness at the top. Possibly the stairs broadened nearer the roof, but even so it was a very severe test for a half-starved girl who he guessed was on the verge of hysteria; he was not quite certain that he himself would not be attacked by vertigo if he made the attempt.
There was a space behind the steps that brought him to the edge of the rock, part of the floor of the cave, and it was this way that he intended to guide Margaret. There was no sound; far away to his right the men on the launch were apparently absorbed in their work. Returning, he told the girl his plan, and she accompanied him to the foot of the steps. At the sight of that terrifying stairway, she shuddered.
“I couldn’t possibly climb those,” she whispered as he pointed upward into the gloom.
“I have an idea there is a sort of balcony running the width of the cave, and it was from there I was thrown,” he said. “I have reason to know that there is a fairly deep pool at the foot of it. When the tide is up, the water reaches the back wall—that is where I found myself when I came to my senses.”
“Is there any other way from the cave?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“I’m blessed if I know. I’ve only had a very hasty look round, but there seems to be a sort of tunnel at the far end. It’s worth while exploring—nobody is about, and we are too far from the boat for them to see us.”
They waited for a while, listening, and then, Brill walking ahead, they passed the foot of the stairs and followed a stony path which, to the girl’s relief, broadened as they progressed.
Margaret Belman never forgot that nightmare walk, with the towering rock face on her left, the straight drop to the floor of the cave on her right hand.
They had now reached the limit of the rocky chamber, and found themselves confronted with the choice of four openings. There was one immediately facing them; another—and this was also accessible—about forty feet to the right; and two others which apparently could not be reached.
Leaving Margaret, Brill groped his way into the nearest. He was gone half an hour before he returned with a story of failure.
“The whole cliff is absolutely bored with rock passages,” he said. “I gave it up because it is impossible to go far without a light.”
The second opening promised better. The floor was even and it had this advantage, that it ran straight in line with the mouth of the cave, and there was light for a considerable distance. She followed him along this passage.
“It is worth trying,” he said, and she nodded her agreement.
They had not gone far before he discovered something which he had overlooked on his first trip. At regular intervals there were niches in the wall. He had noticed these but had failed to observe their extraordinary regularity. The majority were blocked with loose stone, but he found one that had not been so guarded and felt his way round the wall. It was a square, cell-like chamber, so exactly proportioned that it must have been created by the hand of man. He came back to announce his intention of exploring the next of the closed cells.
“These walls haven’t been built up for nothing,” he told her, and there was a note of suppressed excitement in his voice.
The farther they progressed, the poorer and more inadequate was the light. They had to feel their way along the wall until the next recess was reached. Flat slabs of rock, laid one on the other, had been piled up in the
