Groping his way through the darkness and followed closely by Jude, Tanar crept slowly through the Stygian darkness. The tunnel seemed interminable. They became very hungry and there was no food, though they would have relished even the filthy fragments of decayed fish that the Coripies had hurled them while they were prisoners. “Almost,” said Tanar, “could I eat a toad.” They became exhausted and slept, and then again they crawled and stumbled onward. There seemed no end to the interminable, inky corridor. For long distances the floor of the tunnel was quite level, but then again it would pitch downward, sometimes so steeply that they had difficulty in clinging to the sloping floor. It turned and twisted as though its original excavators had been seldom of the same mind as to the direction in which they wished to proceed. On and on the two went; again they slept, but whether that meant that they had covered a great distance, or that they were becoming weak from hunger, neither knew. When they awoke they went on again for a long time in silence, but the sleep did not seem to have refreshed them much, and Jude especially was soon exhausted again. “I cannot go much further,” he said. “Why did you lure me into this crazy escapade?” “You need not have come,” Tanar reminded him, “and if you had not you would by now be out of your misery since doubtless all the prisoners have long since been torn to pieces and devoured by the Coripies of the grotto of Xax.” Jude shuddered. “I should not mind being dead,” he said, “but I should hate to be torn to pieces by those horrible creatures.” “This is a much nicer death,” said Tanar, “for when we are sufficiently exhausted we shall simply sleep and awake no more.” “I do not wish to die,” wailed Jude. “You have never seemed very happy,” said Tanar. “I should think one as unhappy as you would be glad to die.” “I enjoy being unhappy,” said Jude. “I know that I should be most miserable were I happy and anyway I should much rather be alive and unhappy than dead and unable to know that I was unhappy.” “Take heart,” said Tanar. “It cannot be much further to the end of this long corridor. Mow came through it and he did not say that it was so great a length that he became either exhausted or hungry and he not only traversed it from end to end in one direction, but he had to turn around and retrace his steps after he reached the opening into the cavern which we left.” “The Coripies do not eat much; they are accustomed to starving,” said Jude, “and they sleep less than we.” “Perhaps you are right,” said Tanar, “but I am sure that we are nearing the end.” “I am,” said Jude, “but not the end that I had wished.” Even as they discussed the matter they were moving slowly along, when far ahead Tanar discerned a slight luminosity. “Look,” he said, “there is light. We are nearing the end.”