"I've got it all down here, Bill," returned Rhodes, tapping his
notebook. "The angel, _the_ leader now, is finding her way through it:
what she can do can't we do also?"
"She isn't through it yet! It is some time, too, since we saw one
of those directions on the wall. The fact is, unless I am greatly
mistaken, our Dromans are becoming uneasy right now."
"Think so, Bill? I confess that I thought something of the kind myself,
but I was not sure that it wasn't only a fancy."
"I wish that I could believe so."
As Rhodes had remarked, Drorathusa was the leader now. And a striking
sight it was--her tall white figure leading the way, the shadows
quivering, swaying, rushing over the broken, savage walls and deepening
to inky blackness in the secret places as we passed.
Farther and farther we went, deeper and deeper; but never another
inscription was seen. The advance became broken, irresolute. Then
suddenly there was a halt.
And at that instant the last vestige of uncertainty vanished:
Drorathusa had lost the way.
There was a sudden panicky fear in the eyes of the girls, but it
soon was gone. The little party met this most unpleasant truth with
exemplary philosophy. There was a short consultation, and then we began
to retrace our way. The object was, of course, to return to the last
mark on the wall. If we missed it, then Heaven help us!
"Perhaps," I thought, "it will be Heaven help us, anyway!"
And it was.
We reached our objective without misadventure, and then a new start
was made. Rhodes and I were greatly puzzled, for it was patent that
neither the angel nor any one else knew how we had gone astray. And,
not knowing that, how could any one tell which way to go?
"Better get it clear in that notebook," I admonished Rhodes. "Maybe
this new start will end up in something more unpleasant than the other
did. It's a queer business, and I don't pretend to understand any of it
at all."
We went along for a half-mile or so, carefully and with no little
apprehension, and then, hurrah, there was a sign on the wall! The route
to Drome again! But for how long?
Drorathusa quickened her pace. She was moving along now as though
in confidence, certitude even. I have never been able to explain
what followed. For a time, an hour or more, that confidence of hers
certainly was fully justified. Then came the change. Suddenly we became
aware of an unpleasant fact--there was something wrong again. Not that
we remained in doubt as to what that something was which was wrong. A
few minutes, and we had a fact even more unpleasant presented to our
contemplation and incidentally cogitation--again we had gone astray.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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