‘Can you see a light behind us?’ asked my companion.

I turned round and looked carefully in every direction, but was unable to see one.

‘Never mind,’ said he.  ‘You go first, and I will follow.’

In some way during the instant that my back had been turned he had swung aside or plucked out the tangle of bush which had barred our way.  When I turned there was a square dark opening in the white glimmering wall in front of us.

‘It is small at the entrance, but it grows larger further in,’ said he.

I hesitated for an instant.  Whither was it that this strange man was leading me?  Did he live in a cave like a wild beast, or was this some trap into which he was luring me?  The moon shone out at the instant, and in its silver light this black, silent porthole looked inexpressibly cheerless and menacing.

‘You have gone rather far to turn back, my good friend,’ said my companion.  ’You must either trust me altogether or not trust me at all.’

‘I am at your disposal.’

‘Pass in then, and I shall follow.’

I crept into the narrow passage, which was so low that I had to crawl down it upon my hands and knees.  Craning my neck round, I could see the black angular silhouette of my companion as he came after me.  He paused at the entrance, and then, with a rustling of branches and snapping of twigs, the faint light was suddenly shut off from outside, and we were left in pitchy darkness.  I heard the scraping of his knees as he crawled up behind me.

‘Go on until you come to a step down,’ said he.  ’We shall have more room there, and we can strike a light.’

The ceiling was so low that by arching my back I could easily strike it, and my elbows touched the wall upon either side.  In those days I was slim and lithe, however, so that I found no difficulty in making my way onwards until, at the end of a hundred paces, or it may have been a hundred and fifty, I felt with my hands that there was a dip in front of me.  Down this I clambered, and was instantly conscious from the purer air that I was in some larger cavity.  I heard the snapping of my companion’s flint, and the red glow of the tinder paper leaped suddenly into the clear yellow flame of the taper.  At first I could only see that stern, emaciated face, like some grotesque carving in walnut wood, with the ceaseless fishlike vibration of the muscles of his jaw.  The light beat full upon it, and it stood strangely out with a dim halo round it in the darkness.  Then he raised the taper and swept it slowly round at arm’s length so as to illuminate the place in which we stood.