"Regular cave. Three sacks of powder stowed
already, so we're none too soon.--One sack was leaky. I struck a match,
and nearly blew myself to Casabianca." He paused, as if reflecting. "It
gives us a plan, though. Rudie: are you game for something rather
foolhardy? Be frank, now; for if you wouldn't really enjoy it, I'll give
old Gilly Forrester his chance."
"No!" said Rudolph, stung as by some perfidy. "You make me--ashamed!
This is all ours, this part, so!"
"Can do," laughed the other. "Get off your jacket. Give me half a
moment start, so that you won't jump on my head." And he went wriggling
down into the pit.
An unwholesome smell of wet earth, a damp, subterranean coolness,
enveloped Rudolph as he slid down a flue of greasy clay, and stooping,
crawled into the horizontal bore of the tunnel. Large enough, perhaps,
for two or three men to pass on all fours, it ran level, roughly cut,
through earth wet with seepage from the river, but packed into a smooth
floor by many hands and bare knees. It widened suddenly before him. In
the small chamber of the mine, choked with the smell of stale betel, he
bumped Heywood's elbow.
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