The rest was comparatively easy, for taking off his linen robe, Japhet knotted it once or twice, and let it down to us.  By the help of this improvised rope, with Orme supporting me beneath, I, too, was dragged up to the coping of the wall.  Then both of us pulled up Oliver, who, without a word, swung himself over the wall, hanging to Japhet’s arms, and loosing his hold, dropped to the ground on the farther side.  Next came my turn.  It was a long fall, and had not Oliver caught me I think that I should have hurt myself.  As it was, the breath was shaken out of me.  Lastly, Japhet swung himself down, landing lightly as a cat.  The lamps he had already dropped to us, and in another minute they were all lighted, and we were speeding down the great cavern.

“Be careful,” I cried; “there may be fallen rocks about.”

As it happened I was right, for at that moment Oliver struck his legs against one of them and fell, cutting himself a good deal.  In a moment he was up again, but after this our progress grew slow, for hundreds of tons of stone had been shaken from the roof and blocked the path.  Also, whole buildings of the ancient and underground city had been thrown down, although these were mostly blown inward by the rush of air.  At length we came to the end of the cave, and halted dismayed, for here, where the blast of the explosion had been brought to a full stop, the place seemed to be crowded with rocks which it had rolled before it.

“My God!  I believe we are shut in,” exclaimed Oliver in despair.

But Japhet, lantern in hand, was already leaping from block to block, and presently, from the top of the debris, called to us to come to him.

“I think there is a road left, though a bad one, lords,” he said, and pointed to a jagged, well-like hole blown out, as I believe, by the recoil of the blast.  With difficulty and danger, for many of the piled up stones were loose, we climbed down this place, and at its bottom squeezed ourselves through a narrow aperture on to the floor of the cave, praying that the huge door which led to the passage beyond might not be jammed, since if it were, as we knew well, our small strength would not avail to move it.  Happily, this fear at least proved groundless, since it opened outward, and the force of the compressed air had torn it from its massive stone hinges and thrown it shattered to the ground.

We scrambled over it, and advanced down the passage, our revolvers in our hands.  We reached the audience hall, which was empty and in darkness.  We turned to the left, crossing various chambers, and in the last of them, through which one of the gates of the palace could be approached, met with the first signs of the tragedy, for there were bloodstains on the floor.