In some places they found it almost impossible to get around
certain corners, where there was barely room for their feet. As
Tom remarked grimly, a fat man never could have done it.
Fortunately they were all comparatively thin, for their hard
work, and not too abundant food, since they had left the airship,
had reduced their weight.
Up and up they went, higher and higher, sometimes finding the
path wide enough for two to walk abreast, and again seeing it
narrow almost to a ribbon. They hardly dared look down into the
chasm at their left--a chasm filled, in part, with the rocks and
boulders tossed into it by the lightning bolt.
Tom was in the lead, and had just made a dangerous turn around
a shoulder of rock--one of those places where he had to extend
both arms, and fairly hug the cliff before he could get around.
But, when he had made it, and found himself on a broad pathway,
cut in the living rock, he gave a great shout--a shout that
caused his companions to hasten to his side. They found the young
inventor pointing to a clump of bushes and small trees.
But it was not the shrubbery that Tom desired to call to their
attention. They saw that in an instant, for, dimly seen through
the leaves, was something black, and, as they looked more
closely, they saw that it was a great hole in the side of the
mountain--a vast cavern, opening like a tunnel.
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