It came up to our waists--to our armpits, choking and
smothering us. Coming down we had rolled lightly over its surface, now
our legs bored into it like rods, and we struggled vainly to move. The
pile was like a high snowdrift into which we sank deeper and deeper the
more we struggled, and, worn out with our efforts, we fought our way
clear of the smothering ash and made an attempt to review the situation.
"He's beat us," groaned Holman. "He just trotted ahead of us till he
had us on the verge of the thing, and then he side-stepped. O God! What
asses we have been!"
"We did our best," I said.
"Our best?" repeated Holman. "And the man who tells you that he did his
best as an excuse for failure should be shot, Verslun."
"We couldn't tell that this infernal trench was in front," I grumbled.
"Then we shouldn't have chased him like a brace of madmen. I wonder if
Maru and Kaipi came near it?"
"We might call out, perhaps they'd hear."
Holman yelled the names of the two natives into the gloom above us, but
his yells only started a million echoes rolling through the tremendous
fissure in which we were prisoners.
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