I know the entire system perfectly.
"There are miles of corridors honeycombing the ground beneath the
gardens and the temple itself, and there is one passage that leads
down to and connects with the lower regions that open on the water
shaft that gives passage to Omean.
"If we can reach the submarine undetected we may yet make the sea
in which there are many islands where the blacks never go. There
we may live for a time, and who knows what may transpire to aid us
to escape?"
He had spoken all in a low whisper, evidently fearing spying ears
even here, and so I answered him in the same subdued tone.
"Lead back to Shador, my friend," I whispered. "Xodar, the black,
is there. We were to attempt our escape together, so I cannot
desert him."
"No," said the boy, "one cannot desert a friend. It were better
to be recaptured ourselves than that."
Then he commenced groping his way about the floor of the dark
chamber searching for the trap that led to the corridors beneath.
At length he summoned me by a low, "S-s-t," and I crept toward the
sound of his voice to find him kneeling on the brink of an opening
in the floor.
"There is a drop here of about ten feet," he whispered. "Hang
by your hands and you will alight safely on a level floor of soft
sand."
Very quietly I lowered myself from the inky cell above into the
inky pit below. So utterly dark was it that we could not see our
hands at an inch from our noses.
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