[Illustration: Curdie went on after her, flashing his torch about.]
"Here it is!" he cried. "No, it is not!" he added, in a disappointed
tone. "What can it be then?--I declare it's a torch. That _is_ jolly!
It's better almost than my pickaxe. Much better if it weren't for those
stone shoes!" he went on, as he lighted the torch by blowing the last
embers of the expiring fire.
When he looked up, with the lighted torch casting a glare into the great
darkness of the huge cavern, he caught sight of Irene disappearing in
the hole out of which he had himself just come.
"Where are you going there?" he cried. "That's not the way out. That's
where I couldn't get out."
"I know that," whispered Irene. "But this is the way my thread goes,
and
I must follow it."
"What nonsense the child talks!" said Curdie to himself. "I must follow
her, though, and see that she comes to no harm. She will soon find she
can't get out that way, and then she will come with me."
Madhuri Noah
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