We struck the wall of the place after we had been walking for a period
that we judged to be about three hours, and we decided to rest for a
while. We sat close together upon the cold floor and endeavoured to
cheer each other's spirits by constantly asserting that the air of the
place made it reasonable to suppose that there must be some other
entrance besides the hole through which Leith had lowered the three, and
the fissure through which Holman and I had rolled down the gigantic ash
pile. And the assertions seemed logical. The two entrances that we knew
of opened into Leith's retreat, and it was hard to think that the air
supply of the enormous cavern in which we were wandering could come
through those two openings. We combatted our fears with this argument as
we ate a morsel of the food we had received that morning, and feeling
that he who has the biggest stock of hope has the biggest grip upon
life, we endeavoured to make light of our misfortunes as we stumbled on
again after a short rest.
But that impenetrable night produced a depression that we could not
shake off.
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