et me have a try."

But as he spoke one spark fell upon the tinder and seemed to stay, while
as soon as Vince saw this he bent down and blew, with the result that it
began to glow and increase in size so much that when the brimstoned
point of the match was applied to the glowing spot still fanned by the
breath the curious yellow mineral began to melt, sputter, and then burst
into a soft blue flame, which was gradually communicated to the wood.
This burned freely, the candle in the lanthorn was lit, the door shut,
and the tinder-box with flint and steel closed and smothered out and
returned to the creel.

"You'd have done it in half the time, of course," said Vince, rising and
slinging the creel on his back. "Now then, are you going to carry the
lanthorn?"

"I may as well, as I've got it," said Mike.

"All right: then you'll have to go first."

Mike felt disposed to alter the arrangement, but he could not for very
shame.

"You take the rope, then. But, I say, you needn't carry that creel as
well," he said.

"I don't want to; but suppose the candle goes out?"

"Oh, you'd better take it," said Mike eagerly. "Ready?"

"Yes, if you are."

Mike did not feel at all ready, but he held the lanthorn up high and
took a step or two forward and downward, which left the sunlit part of
the place behind, and then began cautiously to descend a long rugged
slope, which was cumbered with stones of all sizes, these having
evidently fallen from the roof and sides, the true floor of the
tunnel-like grotto being worn smooth by the rushing water which must at
one time have swept along, reaching in places nearly to the roof just
above the boys' heads.

The way was very steep, and winding or rather shooting off here and
there, after forming a deep, wonderfully rounded hollow, in which in
several cases huge rounded stones lay as they had been left by the
torrent, after grinding round and round as if in a mill, smoothing the
walls of the hollow, and at the same time making themselves spherical
through being kept in constant motion by the water. These pot-holes, as
a geologist would call them, are common enough in torrents, where a
heavy stone is borne into a whirlpool-like eddy, and goes on grinding
itself a deeper and deeper bed, the configuration of the rock-walls
where it lies having prevented its being swept down at the first, while
every year after it deepens its bed until escape becomes impossible.

Again and again, as th