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1Now to return to Tom and Becky's share in the picnic. They tripped along the murky aisles with the rest of the company,
2visiting the familiar wonders of the cave--wonders dubbed with rather over-descriptive names, such as "The
3Drawing-Room," "The Cathedral," "Aladdin's Palace," and so on. Presently the hide-and-seek frolicking began, and Tom and
4Becky engaged in it with zeal until the exertion began to grow a trifle wearisome; then they wandered down a sinuous
5avenue holding their candles aloft and reading the tangled webwork of names, dates, postoffice addresses, and mottoes
6with which the rocky walls had been frescoed (in candle-smoke). Still drifting along and talking, they scarcely noticed
7that they were now in a part of the cave whose walls were not frescoed. They smoked their own names under an overhanging
8shelf and moved on. Presently they came to a place where a little stream of water, trickling over a ledge and carrying a
9limestone sediment with it, had, in the slow-dragging ages, formed a laced and ruffled Niagara in gleaming and
10imperishable stone. Tom squeezed his small body behind it in order to illuminate it for Becky's gratification. He found
11that it curtained a sort of steep natural stairway which was enclosed between narrow walls, and at once the ambition to
12be a discoverer seized him. Becky responded to his call, and they made a smoke-mark for future guidance, and started
13upon their quest. They wound this way and that, far down into the secret depths of the cave, made another mark, and
14branched off in search of novelties to tell the upper world about. In one place they found a spacious cavern, from whose
15ceiling depended a multitude of shining stalactites of the length and circumference of a man's leg; they walked all
16about it, wondering and admiring, and presently left it by one of the numerous passages that opened into it. This
17shortly brought them to a bewitching spring, whose basin was incrusted with a frostwork of glittering crystals; it was
18in the midst of a cavern whose walls were supported by many fantastic pillars which had been formed by the joining of
19great stalactites and stalagmites together, the result of the ceaseless water-drip of centuries. Under the roof vast
20knots of bats had packed themselves together, thousands in a bunch; the lights disturbed the creatures and they came
21flocking down by hundreds, squeaking and darting furiously at the candles. Tom knew their ways and the danger of this
22sort of conduct. He seized Becky's hand and hurried her into the first corridor that offered; and none too soon, for a
23bat struck Becky's light out with its wing while she was passing out of the cavern. The bats chased the children a good
24distance; but the fugitives plunged into every new passage that offered, and at last got rid of the perilous things. Tom
25found a subterranean lake, shortly, which stretched its dim length away until its shape was lost in the shadows. He
26wanted to explore its borders, but concluded that it would be best to sit down and rest awhile, first. Now, for the
27first time, the deep stillness of the place laid a clammy hand upon the spirits of the children. Becky said: "Why, I
28didn't notice, but it seems ever so long since I heard any of the others." "Come to think, Becky, we are away down below
29them--and I don't know how far away north, or south, or east, or whichever it is. We couldn't hear them here." Becky
30grew apprehensive. "I wonder how long we've been down here, Tom? We better start back." "Yes, I reckon we better. P'raps
31we better." "Can you find the way, Tom? It's all a mixed-up crookedness to me." "I reckon I could find it--but then the
32bats. If they put our candles out it will be an awful fix. Let's try some other way, so as not to go through there."
33"Well. But I hope we won't get lost. It would be so awful!" and the girl shuddered at the thought of the dreadful
34possibilities. They started through a corridor, and traversed it in silence a long way, glancing at each new opening, to
35see if there was anything familiar about the look of it; but they were all strange. Every time Tom made an examination,
36Becky would watch his face for an encouraging sign, and he would say cheerily: "Oh, it's all right. This ain't the one,
37but we'll come to it right away!" But he felt less and less hopeful with each failure, and presently began to turn off
38into diverging avenues at sheer random, in desperate hope of finding the one that was wanted. He still said it was "all
39right," but there was such a leaden dread at his heart that the words had lost their ring and sounded just as if he had
40said, "All is lost!" Becky clung to his side in an anguish of fear, and tried hard to keep back the tears, but they
41would come. At last she said: "Oh, Tom, never mind the bats, let's go back that way! We seem to get worse and worse off
42all the time." "Listen!" said he. Profound silence; silence so deep that even their breathings were conspicuous in the
43hush. Tom shouted. The call went echoing down the empty aisles and died out in the distance in a faint sound that
44resembled a ripple of mocking laughter. "Oh, don't do it again, Tom, it is too horrid," said Becky. "It is horrid, but I
45better, Becky; they might hear us, you know," and he shouted again. The "might" was even a chillier horror than the
46ghostly laughter, it so confessed a perishing hope. The children stood still and listened; but there was no result. Tom
47turned upon the back track at once, and hurried his steps. It was but a little while before a certain indecision in his
48manner revealed another fearful fact to Becky--he could not find his way back! "Oh, Tom, you didn't make any marks!"
49"Becky, I was such a fool! Such a fool! I never thought we might want to come back! No--I can't find the way. It's all
50mixed up." "Tom, Tom, we're lost! we're lost! We never can get out of this awful place! Oh, why did we ever leave the
51others!" She sank to the ground and burst into such a frenzy of crying that Tom was appalled with the idea that she
52might die, or lose her reason. He sat down by her and put his arms around her; she buried her face in his bosom, she
53clung to him, she poured out her terrors, her unavailing regrets, and the far echoes turned them all to jeering
54laughter. Tom begged her to pluck up hope again, and she said she could not. He fell to blaming and abusing himself for
55getting her into this miserable situation; this had a better effect. She said she would try to hope again, she would get
56up and follow wherever he might lead if only he would not talk like that any more. For he was no more to blame than she,
57she said. So they moved on again--aimlessly--simply at random--all they could do was to move, keep moving. For a little
58while, hope made a show of reviving--not with any reason to back it, but only because it is its nature to revive when
59the spring has not been taken out of it by age and familiarity with failure. By-and-by Tom took Becky's candle and blew
60it out. This economy meant so much! Words were not needed. Becky understood, and her hope died again. She knew that Tom
61had a whole candle and three or four pieces in his pockets--yet he must economize. By-and-by, fatigue began to assert
62its claims; the children tried to pay attention, for it was dreadful to think of sitting down when time was grown to be
63so precious, moving, in some direction, in any direction, was at least progress and might bear fruit; but to sit down
64was to invite death and shorten its pursuit.
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