ble a reverberation and echo, that he
ceased, and began to try to climb back up the great crack to the light
of day.

To his horror and despair he soon found that such a climb would be
impossible in the darkness, and as a flood of terrible thoughts
threatened to sweep away his reason, and he saw himself dying slowly
there from starvation, it seemed to him that it was not quite so dark as
he thought, and peering before him, he felt about with hand and foot,
and changed his position slowly, finding that the stones beneath him
were pretty level till he made one unlucky step on a loose flat piece,
which began to glide rapidly down. Although he tried hard to save
himself, he slipped and rolled again for some distance before he could
check his way, when he sat up with his heart bounding with joy, for,
about a hundred yards or so before him, he could see a rough opening
laced over by branches, through which gleamed the sunlight.

And now, as he cautiously made his way toward the light, he began to
realise that he was in a rough rift or chasm in the rock, whose floor
descended at about the same rate as the hill-slope; and five minutes
after, he forced his passage out through the bushes which choked the
entrance, to hear, away on his left, a distant "cooey."

He answered at once, and went on descending the hill, thinking how
strange his adventure had been, and that after all it was only a bit of
a fright, and that he had come part of the way underground, instead of
above.

And now the heat of the sun reminded him that he had lost his hat, and
he stopped short with the intention of going back, but another shout on
his left warned him that he must proceed or he might be lost.

"And perhaps the Malays may find it," he argued; so tying his
handkerchief over his head with a great leaf inside, he trudged on,
answering the "cooeys" from time to time, till he drew nearer, and at
last, in obedience to a whistle, joined his uncle about the same time as
Frank.

"Nothing to show," cried the former. "I say, Ned, you got too far away.
I thought at one time I'd lost you. Why, where's your hat?"

"Lost it," replied the boy, looking toward Frank as he spoke.

That young gentleman was laughing at him, and this so roused Ned's ire,
sore and smarting as he was, that he did not attempt to make any
explanation of his mishap, feeling assured that he would only be laughed
at the more, for not looking which way he went.

They were all begi