is patients was sad
enough, but a more terrible tragedy resulted from a wager.

The guides are particular on entering the caves with a large party to
beg them to keep together, as it would be impossible for a person to
find his own way out of the labyrinth of passages, chambers, etc. Two
gentlemen of a party made a bet that they would accomplish the feat,
and, taking their opportunity, slipped away from their party, without
the guides being aware of their absence, and it was not until late in
the evening that the other party to the wager remarked that those two
foolhardy fellows had not found their way out of the cavern. This coming
to the ears of the guide, he exclaimed, "Then they are dead men!"
Nevertheless they went in full force to do everything that was possible
to find them, but spent the night in vain searches. Sometimes they came
upon their track in the soft dust, then lost it again.

On the following day the search was renewed by the guide who had
escorted the party, and his description of the finding of one of the
gentlemen was truly horrible: "It was the most tarnation cutting up job
I ever had in my life," said the guide. "We are not much of cowards, we
guides,--we get accustomed to awfulness down in the bowels of the earth;
but when that _critter's_ shrieks first came to my ear, I just shivered
all over and my feet rooted to the ground,--not that I did not wish to
save him, the poor devil, but I got an idea that that shriek came right
straight from hell and no mistake, and I had no fancy to go there before
I was sent for! Wall, when I had wiped my brow and taken a drink, I went
on in the direction of the sound, for it came every now and again, the
echoes making like fifty devils instead of one. I found him sooner than
I expected; he was a sight to behold; he flew at me like a tiger; he
clutched me, and pulled me, and wrestled with me, yelling and howling
like a wild beast. I thought he would have torn me to pieces. I should
not have known him again for the same gentleman. His eyes glared, his
mouth was foaming, and his hair on end, his clothes all torn and covered
with dust. He was a real raving maniac, and so he remained, as far as I
know. The work I had to get him out of that cave! He would stand stock
still and shake all over, then suddenly clutch at me again. I was the
stronger man of the two, and he was weak from long fasting, or I never
should have got him out. The doctor said he was fright-stricken.