--Harry saw that it almost immediately began to dip, and
ere they had advanced many paces the dip became so pronounced that the
smooth floor gave place to a long flight of roughly hewn steps, at first
broad and shallow, but rapidly steepening, until they became so narrow
and deep as to necessitate a considerable amount of care in the
negotiation of them. To Harry this flight seemed interminable; there
must have been hundreds of steps, for--although the lad did not time
himself--the descent appeared to have occupied considerably more than
half an hour; but at length they once more reached level ground and,
leaving the steps behind them, proceeded to traverse a narrow and
winding passage, the air in which smelt stale and musty, while here and
there they were obliged to squeeze their painful way between long, spiky
stalactites and stalagmites until they came to more steps--this time
leading upward. Harry counted these; there were only one hundred and
twenty-three of them, and they were not nearly so steep as the others;
and then they ceased, and the pair came to a gently rising floor, along
which they passed for about half a mile, finally entering a spacious
chamber or cavern, where, very much to the young Englishman's surprise,
they found Cachama awaiting them with a torch in her hand.

It was perfectly evident that the old lady was intensely angry, for upon
the appearance of her visitors she darted toward them and, shaking her
fist furiously in the face of the Indian--whom, by the way, she
addressed as Arima--she poured out upon him a torrent of strange words,
the virulence of which could be pretty accurately estimated by the
effect which they produced upon their recipient, for poor Arima writhed
under them as though they had been the lash of a whip. For fully ten
minutes the old woman stormed relentlessly before she was reduced to
silence through want of breath, and then the Indian got his chance to
reply, and apparently vindicate himself, for, as he proceeded with what
appeared to Escombe to be his explanation, Cachama's wrath gradually
subsided until she became sufficiently mistress of herself to greet the
young white man, which she did with more cordiality than her previous
outburst had led him to expect.

"Welcome back to my poor home, Senor!" she exclaimed. "I knew that you
were coming, and am glad to see you; but that dolt Arima enraged me, for
he brought you by the secret way, although he knew that it is forb