re of the earth, and it seemed ages ago, aeons of time, since I
had last seen the "King." What time was it? I felt for my watch. I found
but the wreck of it. It was the only thing that had suffered. It was
smashed to smithereens.

Then I moved myself again, and, taking up the lantern, raised it aloft,
but the chasm down which I had fallen went up and up in a slanting
direction, and lost itself in darkness. Bringing the lantern down to the
level again, I examined the rock corridor. Behind me, as before me, it
continued--a long, deep fissure, splitting its way through the earth. I
limped my way along some yards of the section that lay before me, but it
seemed to me that it was growing narrower as it went on, as though it
were coming to an end; and indeed, after a while, I came to a place too
narrow for me to pass.

I swung my lantern aloft, seeking the possibilities of a climb, but
everywhere it was sheer, without a ledge or protuberance of any kind to
take advantage of, and it was utterly devoid of vegetation--not a sign
of a friendly shrub or root to hold by.

So I turned back to try my luck in the other direction. But first I
shouted and shouted with all my might. I could not be far away from the
ruins, and there was a chance of some one hearing me. However, I had
little faith in my effort, and was too tired to keep it up; so I turned
with my lantern toward the other end of the corridor. And here it was
easy going, along a gently-graded descent, covered, as I have said, with
white sand, in which shells were here and there embedded. My heart beat
wildly. Perhaps I had only to walk on a little farther to come out on
the sea--for here certainly the sea had been once, whether or not it
came up there any more. Vain hope!--for when I had followed the corridor
some fifty yards or so, it suddenly widened out for a few yards into
something of a cavern, and then as suddenly narrowed into a mere slit,
and so came to an end.

The deadening of my spark of hope weakened me. I slid down, with my back
against the rock, and gave way to despair. As I looked up at the smooth
implacable walls that imprisoned me, I felt like some poor insect
clinging to the side of a bowl partly filled with water. How frantically
the poor creature claws and claws the polished sides, at each effort
slipping nearer and nearer to the fatal flood.

I had sense enough to know that I was too tired to think profitably, and
drowsiness coming over me told me t