For some half-hour we lay thus without speaking a word, and then at length began to creep along the great spur as best we might in the dense gloom.  As we drew towards the face of the cliff, however, from which the spur sprang out like a spike from a wall, the light increased, though only a very little, for it was night overhead.  After that the gusts of wind decreased, and we got along rather better, and at last reached the mouth of the first cave or tunnel.  But now a fresh trouble stared as in the face:  our oil was gone, and the lamps were, no doubt, crushed to powder beneath the fallen rocking-stone.  We were even without a drop of water to stay our thirst, for we had drunk the last in the chamber of Noot.  How were we to see to make our way through this last boulder-strewn tunnel?

Clearly all that we could do was to trust to our sense of feeling, and attempt the passage in the dark, so in we crept, fearing that if we delayed to do so our exhaustion would overcome us, and we should probably lie down and die where we were.

Oh, the horrors of that last tunnel!  The place was strewn with rocks, and we fell over them, and knocked ourselves up against them till we were bleeding from a score of wounds.  Our only guide was the side of the cavern, which we kept touching, and so bewildered did we grow in the darkness that we were several times seized with the terrifying thought that we had turned, and were travelling the wrong way.  On we went, feebly, and still more feebly, for hour after hour, stopping every few minutes to rest, for our strength was spent.  Once we fell asleep, and, I think, must have slept for some hours, for, when we woke, our limbs were quite stiff, and the blood from our blows and scratches had caked, and was hard and dry upon our skin.  Then we dragged ourselves on again, till at last, when despair was entering into our hearts, we once more saw the light of day, and found ourselves outside the tunnel in the rocky fold on the outer surface of the cliff that, it will be remembered, led into it.

It was early morning—­that we could tell by the feel of the sweet air and the look of the blessed sky, which we had never hoped to see again.  It was, so near as we knew, an hour after sunset when we entered the tunnel, so it followed that it had taken us the entire night to crawl through that dreadful place.

“One more effort, Leo,” I gasped, “and we shall reach the slope where Billali is, if he hasn’t gone.  Come, don’t give way,” for he had cast himself upon his face.  He rose, and, leaning on each other, we got down that fifty feet or so of cliff—­somehow, I have not the least notion how.  I only remember that we found ourselves lying in a heap at the bottom, and then once more began to drag ourselves along on our hands and knees towards the grove where She had told Billali to wait her re-arrival, for we could not walk another foot.  We had not gone fifty yards in this fashion when suddenly one of the mutes emerged from the trees