"We don't want to tumble down there .-- I say, Briggs, pick up that bit of stone, and reach in and pitch it down." The sergeant rested his rifle against the wall, picked up a block of stone, and reaching in, threw it to his left so accurately, by good chance, that it must have dropped right in the middle of the opening and gone down clear for some distance before it struck against stone, and then rebounded and struck again, rumbling and rolling down for some distance before it stopped.
"Cheerful sort of place to have gone down," said Denham.

"Tell you what; that's the way down to the wine-cellars.

The old races were rare people for cultivating the grape and making wine." "I believe it's the way down to the vaults where they buried their dead," I said.
"Ugh! Horrid," cried my companion.

"Here, let's light another match." He struck one, held it low, and stepped in and then to his right, and stood at the very edge of a hole in the rough floor of crumbled stone.
Then, to my horror, the light flashed in the air as if it was being passed through it rapidly.
Then Denham spoke.
"It's all right," he said.

"You can step across.