Chapter 25

THE LABYRINTH--LOST

We soon saw that we had entered not a cavern but a perfect labyrinth of caverns. I could never have imagined a place like that. It was bewildering, dreadful, forsooth, in the possibilities that it limned on the canvas of one's imagination. How in the world could any one ever have found his way through it? But somebody had, for there were the inscriptions and signs on the wall. For these the Dromans kept a keen watch, and the relief evinced whenever one was sighted showed what a frightful thing it might be to lose the way.

An hour passed, another, and still we were moving in that awful maze.

"Great Erebus," said I, "but this is confusion worse confounded. Do you think that we can ever find our way back through this?"

"I've got it all down here, Bill," returned Rhodes, tapping his notebook. "The angel, _the_ leader now, is finding her way through it: what she can do can't we do also?"

"She isn't through it yet! It is some time, too, since we saw one of those directions on the wall. The fact is, unless I am greatly mistaken, our Dromans are becoming uneasy right now."

"Think so, Bill? I confess that I thought something of the kind myself, but I was not sure that it wasn't only a fancy."

"I wish that I could believe so."

As Rhodes had remarked, Drorathusa was the leader now. And a striking sight it was--her tall white figure leading the way, the shadows quivering, swaying, rushing over the broken, savage walls and deepening to inky blackness in the secret places as we passed.

Farther and farther we went, deeper and deeper; but never another inscription was seen. The advance became broken, irresolute. Then suddenly there was a halt.

And at that instant the last vestige of uncertainty vanished: Drorathusa had lost the way.

There was a sudden panicky fear in the eyes of the girls, but it soon was gone. The little party met this most unpleasant truth with exemplary philosophy. There was a short consultation, and then we began to retrace our way. The object was, of course, to return to the last mark on the wall. If we missed it, then Heaven help us!

"Perhaps," I thought, "it will be Heaven help us, anyway!"

And it was.

We reached our objective without misadventure, and then a new start was made. Rhodes and I were greatly puzzled, for it was patent that neither the angel nor any one else knew how we had gone astray. And, not knowing that, how could any one tell which way to go?

"Better get it clear in that notebook," I admonished Rhodes. "Maybe this new start will end up in something more unpleasant than the other