“That I know not,” he replied. “There is a passage that I can show thee, but where it ends I cannot tell; only I know that some of the slaves have gone away through it, but they have always been brought back after a time, excepting two.” “And what of them?” “They never came back from the passage, but whether they escaped, or died in their hiding-places, we never knew. It was a long time ago.” I considered a moment and decided to explore the passage, for if, after all, there was no way out through it we should be no worse off. We could still try the entrance. “Where is this passage?” I inquired. “Show me the furnace,” said he. I put his foot against the rim of the furnace mouth, and he groped round among the corpses until he felt the bellows; then he stood up and walked off confidently, and I followed. He walked straight to a post of timber, and having felt it, turned and made for the wall. “It is hereabouts,” he said, and, raising his arms, began to feel along the wall; and when I examined the spot as well as I could in the half darkness, I could make out a shape of deeper shadow about seven feet from the ground. “Here it is,” I said. “Stand thou there and let me climb on thy shoulders and I will pull thee up after.” “Thou wilt go and leave me behind,” he exclaimed suspiciously. “Then climb on my shoulders and go first,” said I, for I knew he would not go off by himself; and setting my arms against the wall I planted my feet firmly. He climbed up actively enough on to my shoulders, gave a spring and was gone, and the next moment I felt his hand reaching down for me; but in spite of his help I was quite unable to get up the slippery wall, and, after a number of fruitless struggles, was beginning to think of abandoning the attempt and making a dash for the entrance, when I remembered the coil of rope that the fetish-men had brought to bind me. Bidding the Moshi wait for me, I ran across the cavern, lighted by the now fading flare from the furnace, and found the coil lying in my alcove. Returning to the opening, I passed up the two ends to my companion, who now hauled me up without difficulty. The passage in which we now found ourselves was a kind of tunnel about four feet high, and, of course, pitch dark; and my companion being more at home in these conditions than I, led the way. We crawled along on hands and knees for a long distance until, at length, my comrade called out that the part that we had entered was higher, and I then stood up; but our progress was slower walking than crawling, for we had--or at least my companion had--to make sure of the ground before each step, lest we should fall into some shaft or pit. So we groped our way along for an apparently interminable distance until at last, to my joy, I perceived, a long way ahead, a faint spot of light. I informed my companion of this, but he seemed quite incredulous.