Once or twice, when the line closed up on itself caterpillar-fashion, I was able to make out my white shirt dancing dimly; and once, where some trick of the tunnel sorted out the sounds, I caught a scrap of conversation.

“D’you suppose they’ll be able to see the shirt?”

“God knows.  I can hardly make it out from here.”

“When it looks like the right time to you, sir, turn the flashlight on it.”

“All right.  God damn!  Keep on going—­you nearly knocked out my eye-glass!”

Even over my shoulder, looking backward, I could see practically nothing, for what little light came in through the opening was swallowed by the first few yards.  There was a suspicion of paleness in the gloom behind, and the occasional suggestion of an outline of rough wall; no more.

Nor was the tunnel straight by any means.  It turned and twisted constantly; and at every bend the men who originally closed it had built up a wall of heavy masonry that Scharnhoff had had to force his way through.  In those places the broken stones were now lying in the fairway, as you knew by the suffering when you came in contact with them; some of the split-off edges were as sharp as glass.

It was good fun, all the same, while it lasted.  If we had been crawling down a sewer, or a modern passage of any kind, the sense of danger and discomfort would, no doubt, have overwhelmed all other considerations.  But, even supposing Scharnhoff had been on a vain hunt, and the veritable Tomb of the Kings of Judah did not lie somewhere in the dark ahead of us, we were nevertheless under the foundations of Solomon’s temple, groping our way into mysteries that had not been disclosed, perhaps, since the days when the Queen of Sheba came and paid her homage to the most wise king.  You could feel afraid, but you couldn’t wish you weren’t there.

I have no idea how long it took to crawl the length of that black passage.  It seemed like hours.  I heard heavy footsteps behind me after a while.  Some one following in a hurry, who could see no better than we could, kept stumbling over the falling masonry; and once, when he fell headlong, I heard him swear titanically in a foreign tongue.  I called back to whoever it was to crawl unless he wanted to be shot, but probably the words were all mixed up in the tunnel echoes, for he came on as before.

Then all at once Goodenough flashed on the light for a fraction of a second and the shirt showed like a phantom out of blackness.  The instant answer to that was a regular volley of shots from in front.  The flash of several pistols lit up the tunnel, and bullets rattled off the walls and roof.  The shirt fell, shot loose from its moorings, and the leading Sikhs gave a shout as they started to rush forward.