"Look!"he whispered,"is my brain going,or is that light?"We stared with all our eyes,and there,yes,there,far ahead of us,was a faint glimmering spot,no larger than a cottage window-pane.
It was so faint that I doubt if any eyes,except those which,like ours,had for days seen nothing but blackness,could have perceived it at all.
With a sort of gasp of hope we pushed on.In five minutes there was no longer any doubt:it was a patch of faint light.A minute more and a breath of real live air was fanning us.On we struggled.All at once the tunnel narrowed.Sir Henry went on his knees.Smaller yet it grew,till it was only the size of a large fox's earth -it was earth now,mind you;the rock had ceased.
A squeeze,a struggle,and Sir Henry was out,and so was Good,and so was I,and there above us were the blessed stars,and in our nostrils was the sweet air;then suddenly something gave,and we were all rolling over and over and over through grass and bushes and soft,wet soil.
I caught at something and stopped.Sitting up,I hallooed lustily.
An answering shout came from just below,where Sir Henry's wild career had been stopped by some level ground.I scrambled to him,and found him unhurt,though breathless.Then we looked for Good.A little way off we found him,too,jammed in a forked root.He was a good deal knocked about,but soon came to.
We sat down together there on the grass,and the revulsion of feeling was so great that I really think we cried for joy.We had escaped from that awful dungeon,that was so near to becoming our grave.Surely some merciful Power must have guided our footsteps to the jackal-hole at the termination of the tunnel (for that is what it must have been).And see,there on the mountains,the dawn we had never thought to look upon again was blushing rosy red.
Presently the gray light stole down the slopes,and we saw that we were at the bottom,or,rather,nearly at the bottom,of the vast pit in front of the entrance to the cave.Now we could make out the dim forms of the three colossi who sat upon its verge.Doubtless those awful passages,along which we had wandered the livelong night,had originally been,in some way,connected with the great diamond mine.As for the subterranean river in the bowels of the mountain,Heaven only knows what it was,or whence it flows,or whither it goes.I,for one,have no anxiety to trace its course.
Lighter it grew,and lighter yet.We could see each other now,and such a spectacle as we presented I have never set eyes on before or since.Gaunt-cheeked,hollow-eyed wretches,smeared all over with dust and mud,bruised,bleeding,the long fear of imminent death yet written on our countenance,we were,indeed,a sight to frighten the daylight.
And yet it is a solemn fact that Good's eye-glass was still fixed in Good's eye.I doubt whether he had ever taken it out at all.Neither the darkness,nor the plunge in the subterranean river,nor the roll down the slope,had been able to separate Good and his eyeglass.
Presently we rose,fearing that our limbs would stiffen if we stopped there longer,and commenced with slow and painful steps to struggle up the sloping sides of the great pit.For an hour or more we toiled steadfastly up the blue clay,dragging ourselves on by the help of the roots and grasses with which it was clothed.
At last it was done,and we stood on the great road,on the side of the pit opposite to the colossi.
By the side of the road,a hundred yards off,a fire was burning in front of some huts,and round the fire were figures.We made towards them,supporting one another,and halting every few paces.Presently,one of the figures rose,saw us,and fell on to the ground;crying out for fear.
"Infadoos,Infadoos!it is us,thy friends."
We rose;he ran to us,staring wildly,and still shaking with fear.
"Oh,my lords,my lords,it is indeed you come back from the dead!
-come back from the dead!"
And the old warrior flung himself down before us,and clasped Sir Henry's knees,and wept aloud for joy.