And so it would be well to make sure of
recognizing this one again before he loosed his hold on it. So he
pulled off one boot, and feeling carefully round the opening, placed it
just inside as a landmark.
Then he groped on along the right-hand wall to learn the size of the
chamber, and was immediately thankful that his own passage was safely
marked, for he came on another opening, and another, and another, and
labelled them carefully in his mind, "One, two, three."
It was truly eerie work, groping there in that dense darkness and utter
silence, and trying to the nerves even of one who had never known
himself guilty of such things. But, being there, he was determined to
learn all he could.
He clung to his right-hand wall as to a life-rope. If he once got mazed
in a place like that he might never taste daylight and upper air again.
Of the size of the chamber he could so far form no opinion. He would
have given much for a light. His flint and steel were indeed in his
pocket, but he was sodden through and through, and had no means whatever
of catching a spark if he struck one.
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