chance with her would have been to attack the granite shoes with his
pickaxe, but before he could think of that, she had caught him up in
her
arms, and was rushing with him across the cave. She dashed him into a
hole in the wall, with a force that almost stunned him. But although he
could not move, he was not too far gone to hear her great cry, and the
rush of multitudes of soft feet, followed by the sounds of something
heaved up against the rock; after which came a multitudinous patter of
stones falling near him. The last had not ceased when he grew very
faint, for his head had been badly cut, and at last insensible.
When he came to himself, there was perfect silence about him, and
utter
darkness, but for the merest glimmer in one tiny spot. He crawled to it,
and found that they had heaved a slab against the mouth of the hole,
past the edge of which a poor little gleam found its way from the fire.
He could not move it a hair's breadth, for they had piled a great heap
of stones against it. He crawled back to where he had been lying, in the
faint hope of finding his pickaxe. But after a vain search, he was at
last compelled to acknowledge himself in an evil plight. He sat down
and
tried to think, but soon fell fast asleep.
Madhuri Noah
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