King Solomon’s Mines, H. Rider Haggard [best mystery novels of all time TXT] 📗

were all on our backs on the floor with a heavy flagstone upon the top of us. Sir Henry’s strength had done it, and never did muscular power stand a man in better stead.

“Light a match, Quatermain,” he said, so soon as we had picked ourselves up and got our breath; “careful, now.”

I did so, and there before us, Heaven be praised! was the first step of a stone stair.

“Now what is to be done?” asked Good.

“Follow the stair, of course, and trust to Providence.”

“Stop!” said Sir Henry; “Quatermain, get the bit of biltong and the water that are left; we may want them.”

I went, creeping back to our place by the chests for that purpose, and as I was coming away an idea struck me. We had not thought much of the diamonds for the last twenty-four hours or so; indeed, the very idea of diamonds was nauseous, seeing what they had entailed upon us; but, reflected I, I may as well pocket some in case we ever should get out of this ghastly hole. So I just put my fist into the first chest and filled all the available pockets of my old shooting-coat and trousers, topping up⁠—this was a happy thought⁠—with a few handfuls of big ones from the third chest. Also, by an afterthought, I stuffed Foulata’s basket, which, except for one water-gourd and a little biltong, was empty now, with great quantities of the stones.

“I say, you fellows,” I sang out, “won’t you take some diamonds with you? I’ve filled my pockets and the basket.”

“Oh, come on, Quatermain! and hang the diamonds!” said Sir Henry. “I hope that I may never see another.”

As for Good, he made no answer. He was, I think, taking his last farewell of all that was left of the poor girl who had loved him so well. And curious as it may seem to you, my reader, sitting at home at ease and reflecting on the vast, indeed the immeasurable, wealth which we were thus abandoning, I can assure you that if you had passed some twenty-eight hours with next to nothing to eat and drink in that place, you would not have cared to cumber yourself with diamonds whilst plunging down into the unknown bowels of the earth, in the wild hope of escape from an agonising death. If from the habits of a lifetime, it had not become a sort of second nature with me never to leave anything worth having behind if there was the slightest chance of my being able to carry it away, I am sure that I should not have bothered to fill my pockets and that basket.

“Come on, Quatermain,” repeated Sir Henry, who was already standing on the first step of the stone stair. “Steady, I will go first.”

“Mind where you put your feet, there may be some awful hole underneath,” I answered.

“Much more likely to be another room,” said Sir Henry, while he descended slowly, counting the steps as he went.

When he got to “fifteen” he stopped. “Here’s the bottom,” he said. “Thank goodness! I think it’s a passage. Follow me down.”

Good went next, and I came last, carrying the basket, and on reaching the bottom lit one of the two remaining matches. By its light we could just see that we were standing in a narrow tunnel, which ran right and left at right angles to the staircase we had descended. Before we could make out any more, the match burnt my fingers and went out. Then arose the delicate question of which way to go. Of course, it was impossible to know what the tunnel was, or where it led to, and yet to turn one way might lead us to safety, and the other to destruction. We were utterly perplexed, till suddenly it struck Good that when I had lit the match the draught of the passage blew the flame to the left.

“Let us go against the draught,” he said; “air draws inwards, not outwards.”

We took this suggestion, and feeling along the wall with our hands, whilst trying the ground before us at every step, we departed from that accursed treasure chamber on our terrible quest for life. If ever it should be entered again by living man, which I do not think probable, he will find tokens of our visit in the open chests of jewels, the empty lamp, and the white bones of poor Foulata.

When we had groped our way for about a quarter of an hour along the passage, suddenly it took a sharp turn, or else was bisected by another, which we followed, only in course of time to be led into a third. And so it went on for some hours. We seemed to be in a stone labyrinth that led nowhere. What all these passages are, of course I cannot say, but we thought that they must be the ancient workings of a mine, of which the various shafts and adits travelled hither and thither as the ore led them. This is the only way in which we could account for such a multitude of galleries.

At length we halted, thoroughly worn out with fatigue and with that hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, and ate up our poor remaining piece of biltong and drank our last sup of water, for our throats were like lime kilns. It seemed to us that we had escaped Death in the darkness of the treasure chamber only to meet him in the darkness of the tunnels.

As we stood, once more utterly depressed, I thought that I caught a sound, to which I called the attention of the others. It was very faint and very far off, but it was a sound, a faint, murmuring sound, for the others heard it too, and no words can describe the blessedness of it after all those hours of utter, awful stillness.

“By Heaven! it’s running water,” said Good. “Come on.”

Off we started again in the direction from which the faint