"Follow!"

This was all that he condescended to say, after lighting his torches
and distributing them to his visitors. He stalked off, and stooping
down, darted into the low passage-way. The cicerone followed, then
Buttons, then Dick, then the Senator, then the Doctor, then Mr. Figgs.
The air was intensely hot, and the passage-way grew lower. Moreover,
the smoke from the torches filled the air, blinding and choking them.

Mr. Figgs faltered. Fat, and not by any means nimble, he came to a
pause about twenty feet from the entrance, and, making a sudden turn,
darted out. The Doctor was tall and unaccustomed to bend his
perpendicular form. Half choked and panting heavily he too gave up,
and turning about rushed out after Mr. Figgs.

The other three went on bravely. Buttons and Dick, because they had
long since made up their minds to see every thing that presented
itself, and the Senator, because when he started on an enterprise he
was incapable of turning back.

After a time the passage went sloping steeply down. At the bottom of
the declivity was a pond of water bubbling and steaming. Down this
they ran. Now the stone was extremely slippery, and the subterranean
chamber was but faintly illuminated by the torches. And so it came to
pass that, as the Senator ran down after the others, they had barely
reached the bottom when

_Thump_!

At once all turned round with a start.

Not too quickly; for there lay the Senator, on his back, sliding, in
an oblique direction, straight toward the pool. His booted feet were
already in the seething waves; his nails were dug into the slippery
soil; he was shouting for help.

To grasp his hand, his collar, his leg--to jerk him away and place
him upright, was the work of a shorter time than is taken to tell it.

The guide now wanted them to wait till he boiled an egg. The Senator
remonstrated, stating that he had already nearly boiled a leg. The
Senator's opposition overpowered the wishes of the others, and the
party proceeded to return. Pale, grimy with soot, panting, covered
with huge drops of perspiration, they burst into the chamber where the
others were waiting--first Buttons, then Dick, then the Senator
covered with mud and slime.

The latter gentleman did not answer much to the eager inquiries of
his friends, but maintained a solemn silence. The two former loudly
and volubly descanted on the accumulated horrors of the subterranean
way, the narrow passage, the sulphurous