chap. I've brought you quite a
feast."

Venning took a long drink, ate the bananas, and fell back on his
pillow, while the Hunter resumed his seat to watch through another
night. It seemed as if they were to be left in peace. Since that
solitary, withered, and scared creature dived out of the cave they
had seen no one. But still he sat on guard as the hours slipped
slowly by, and then there came a surprising thing.

Just the tinkle made by a drop of water falling into a pool!

It came at regular intervals, incessant, musical, and he began to
count it, wondering at the height it fell, and marvelling at the
noise it made.

And then he leapt to his feet, and stood a moment in breathless
amazement. A single drop of water to be heard above all that
multitudinous clamour! What did it mean? It meant a silence so
profound that from the black depth of the yawning cavity the tiny
tinkle could reach him. It meant that the roaring torrent was
stilled!

CHAPTER XXIV

LETTING IN THE RIVER

The river was no longer thundering through the underground passage,
and as the sudden silence following the stopping of engines on a
passenger steamer will awaken every sleeper even more quickly than
the roaring of a gale, so this lull in the tremendous din aroused
Venning.

"What is the matter?" he asked, starting up.

"The river has stopped."

They sat straining their ears for the swift roar of the waters, but
out of the slumbering depths below there came only the regular
splash and tinkle of the falling drops.

"I don't understand it," muttered the Hunter.

"I do," said Venning, with a shout. "Hassan has blocked up the mouth
of the canon."

"Nonsense, boy; how could he?"

"Look out of the loophole."

Mr. Hume put his face to the hole. "The water has risen, I think,
from the noise."

"You remember what Muata said about the drowning of the valley?
Well, that is what is happening. The Arab has blocked the mouth by
blasting a mass of rock which overhung the river. That's what!"

They pondered over this new phase.

"If we had food, this would be the safest place, after all, then."

"Food, Dick, and a way out."

"Dick, of course. Anyhow, sir, it is a relief to have silence; the
noise made my head throb so, I did not know what I was doing."

Before, they had to shout into each other's ears, now they spoke in
low tones, but even so the echoes seemed to people the dark with
whispers, and they desisted from talk. In the