Then there was a pause, and I lay listening till, from below, came the words: "Did any one speak?" "Yes, yes, I did," I cried. "Where are you?" "I--I don't know. Think I must have had a fall." I was about to lower myself to the speaker, when a sudden thought made me turn a little over on my left side. The next moment I was clinging hard with both hands, for a stone I had touched gave way, and there was a rushing sound, silence, and then a horrible echoing splash which set my heart beating fast. In imagination I saw the loosened stone slide down to an edge below me, and bound off, to fall into the water, which I could hear lapping, sucking, and gliding about the sides of the chasm, strangely suggestive of live creatures which had been disturbed and had made a rush at the falling stone in the belief it was something they might tear and devour. Recovering from my momentary panic, I set one hand free to search for and get out my little tin match-box. It was no easy task, under the circumstances, to get it open and strike one of the tiny tapers. "Val, is that you?" came from just below. "Yes; wait a moment. Hold tight," I said in a choking voice, as I rubbed the match on the bottom of the box, making a phosphorescent line of light, then another, and another, before impatiently throwing the match from me and seeing its dim light die away in the darkness. I knew the reason why I had not got the match to light. As I opened the box again to get another, I did not insert finger and thumb till they got a good rub on my jacket to free them from the dampness caused by holding on to the wet stones. Now, as I struck, there was a sharp crackling noise, and the light flashed out, caught on, and the match burned bravely, giving me light enough to look for the tin lamp I had touched before. There it was, some little distance above me, on a terribly steep, wet slope. No time was to be lost; so, mastering my hesitation as I thought of what was before me if I slipped, I began to climb; but, before I had drawn myself up a yard, Denham's voice rose to me, its tones full of agony and despair: "Don't leave me, Val, old fellow!" "Not going to," I shouted. "I'm getting the lamp." "Ah!" came from below. Almost before the exclamation had died away I was within reach of the fallen lamp; but just then I dislodged another loose stone, which went rolling down and plunged into the water below. The match had burned out. "All right," I shouted. "I'll get another."