He was obliged to slide down this black opening, and when he found a footing in a dark, cellar-like place, he at once struck a match under the belief that he stood in a mere pit and nothing else, but a puff of wind blew the match out.

“Come along; there is an opening.”

The opening they found, and, as they entered it, they heard a shuffling noise behind.

“It’s that hag gone up into the room,” cried the Hunter, “and she’ll give the alarm.  We must go after her.”

Venning, however, pushed on.  “This is the way,” he said wildly; and Mr. Hume could do no less than follow, frowning as he went.

But it did seem that the boy was right.  The little black hole of a passage suddenly opened out into light that almost blinded them by its brilliancy.  It was a broad track.  On the right was the wall of the cliff pierced with little holes, through which they looked down again on the canon itself, the opposite walls seeming very near.

“Wasn’t I right?” asked Venning, with an excited laugh.  “We can’t be very far above.  I fancy I can hear the river.”

“Well, there is this about it, if the worst comes, and we can’t find a way out, we can signal from one of these holes to people in the valley.”

“And Dick would find a way to rescue us—­Dick and Muata.  Hurrah!  Then we won’t have to go down into that awful darkness.”

“No; but we may as well see where this leads to.”

They had to skirt a Y-shaped fall in the track, and this accomplished, their course, after many windings, terminated at a totally unexpected spot, no less than a point high up the face of the cliff rising sheer up from the Deadman’s Pool.  They stepped out from the passage into broad day, and raised their hats to let the wind blow upon them, but they found that they were as far off from escape as before.  Below, the cliff sank hundreds of feet; above, it rose like a wall without foothold; but they were thankful for the sunlight, for the far view over the dark forest, for the privilege to look once more on the unruffled sky.  Now that they were in the light, they could take stock of each other, and found it in their hearts to start a feeble laugh at the covering of mud, smoke, and green mould that almost disguised their identity.

But it was a comfort to stretch their aching limbs in the sun, to take the pure air into their lungs, to look restfully away over the trees that marched unbroken to the uttermost horizon.  They dozed under the influence of the sunlight, blinking their eyes like cats, and when Mr. Hume stirred at last, the sun was slipping down the western slope.

“We must be going,” he said, looking down.

“I suppose so,” said Venning, wearily.

“There’s something astir down there.  Men are moving up the slope towards the gorge—­and, by George, they are Hassan’s men too!”

Venning stood up, and looked down upon a file of little figures breasting the slope.