# Drome/Chapter 26

Chapter 26
Through the Hewn Passage
I could set down no adequate record of those hours which followed. It was late now, and yet on and on ​we went, mile after mile, deeper and deeper, but only, it seemed, to involve ourselves the more hopelessly in the dread mysteries of that fearsome place. I wondered if it was my imagination that made it so, but certainly the confusion of those chambers and caverns seemed to become only confusion worse confounded.
At last and suddenly came the discovery.
We had entered a long and narrow chamber and were drawing near the end, wondering if we should find an exit there. Of a sudden there was a sharp exclamation from the lips of Drorathusa, who was some distance in advance—an exclamation that fetched me up on the instant. She had stopped and was pointing toward the left-hand wall, her attitude and the look upon her face such that I started and a sudden fear shot through me.
"What on earth can it be?" I said.
Rhodes made no answer. He was moving forward. I followed. A moment, and he was beside the Dromans, his light turned full upon the wall.
"Look at that, Bill!" said he.
I moved to his side, and we stood there gazing, for some moments motionless and silent.
"Well, Bill," he queried at last, "what do you think of that? We are not the first humans to stand in this spot."
"But probably thousands of years have passed since any human being stood here and gazed upon that entrance—went into it. I wonder what it leads to. Why should men have cut that passage into the living rock? In such a horrible place!"
The entrance was about four feet in width by eight in height. Above it there was some striking sculpturing, evidently work of a mystical character. Its meaning was an utter mystery to Rhodes and me but not, I thought, to our Dromans. Very little dust had accumulated, though,
I had good reason to believe, many, many centuries had passed since that spot was abandoned to unbroken blackness and silence.
Many were the pictures that came and went as we stood there and looked and wondered. Who had cut this passage into the living rock? In what lost age of a people now perhaps lost as well? And for what purpose had they hewn it?
Well, probably the answer to that last awaited us there within.
Rhodes and I moved over and peered into the tunnel.
"About fifty feet long," he observed, "and evidently it enters another chamber."
We started in, but when we had taken a few steps we stopped and turned our look to the Dromans. Why did they stand hesitant, with that strange look in their eyes and upon their faces? Even the angel was affected. Affected by what? The mere mystery of the place?
"I wonder what is the matter with them," I said.
"Superstitious dread or something, I suppose," returned Rhodes. "Well, it ill becomes a scientist to let superstition stay his steps, and so on we go."
And on we went into the passage. When we were nearly through it, I glanced back. The Dromans had not moved.
"Look here!" said I, coming to an abrupt stop.
"What is it now, Bill?"
"Maybe this is a trap."
"A trap? How can it be a trap?"
"How on earth do I know that? But to me the whole business has a queer and suspicious look, I tell you."
"How so?"
"How so? Why, maybe they brought us to this hole. We don't know what's in there. Maybe they do. Maybe 'hey aren't lost at all. Why didn't they come in, too? What ​are they standing out there for, standing and waiting—waiting for what? Probably for their chance to steal away and leave us to our fate!"
"My gosh, Bill," said Milton, "your imagination goes like a jumping-jack!"
"Heaven help us if that's what you think when a. man would be cautious and watchful!"
"Cautious and watchful. Yes, certainly we want to be cautious and watchful. After all, there may be something in what you say. But not much, I think. No, Bill; this is not a trap. There is no faking about it: they are lost."
"I don't like it," I told him. "Why won't they come in?"
"Goodness knows, Bill. Why won't some people sit down to the table if the party numbers thirteen? And why should we stand hesitant? Suppose that they do plan to steal away from us. I don't believe it, but suppose that they do. What then? Are we going to run after them, like lambs after little Bo-peep? Not I, old tillicum. If they are as treacherous as that, the quicker we part company the better. For, sooner or later, their chance would come."
"There may be something in that," I admitted. "Lead on, Macduff."
A second or two, and we had stepped from the passage out into a great and lofty chamber.
"Great heaven!" I cried, my right hand going to my revolver. "What is that thing?"
Rhodes made no answer. He stood peering intently.
"Look out!" I cried, pulling out my weapon and drawing back toward the entrance. "It's moving!"