After all, he was not so culpable, however, for he had intended to use the lamp for only a few minutes, to study the carvings on the cave roof. The can of carbide, lying beside the lamp, had gone into his pocket from force of habit, a good habit, too. If only he had slipped the quart canteen over his shoulder! But Abington’s work had taught him to manage comfortably with very little water and who would burden himself with a canteen when he was merely going to climb fifteen or twenty feet? He shut off the lamp entirely, since it was folly to waste the flame while he sat there thinking over the unpleasant predicament in which his scientific zeal had led him. That little cat claw of light might serve to help him over a bad place, he reflected. As he sat there, he could recall several places which he would not care to negotiate in the dark. Furthermore, there had been trickles of water in some of the passages and one cavern held a pool. It occurred to him that Bill would probably be worried. It was the first time he had thought of Bill since he started this strange underground journey. He remembered now that he had not seen Bill in the cave when he left it that morning. “He’ll think the gosh-awful got me in the night!” Abington grinned to himself. Abington hated to go back without having discovered the secret of these writings, but common sense told him that the thorough exploration of this place was likely to take some little time. The problem now was to find his way back to the cave. He had little doubt that he could retrace his steps, though he realized that it would take some time, feeling his way along in the dark, as he would be compelled to do unless he found water. He stood up, stooping under the low roof, and stared unseeingly into the blackness whence he had come, trying to recall the nearest point where he could find water. It was some little distance back, he knew. He had been climbing considerably in the last half hour or more and the walls were dry. Well, he would have to help out with matches until he found water enough to fill his lamp. An inveterate smoker, he had a fair supply of matches; and now he lighted one and tucked it under the little lamp switch, so that he could have the benefit of the blaze down the full length of the wood. That first match having helped him down a rough channel where the boulders were trickily piled, he felt his way along the wall as far as he dared go before lighting another. Walking in alternate darkness and light, he made his way for some distance. Inevitably the time arrived when he paused, hesitating between a left-hand turn and a right, with a black hole directly in front of him. It cost Abington two matches to decide that he knew none of these passages, that he had not come this way at all.