“Well, it’s most awfully disappointing to come all this way, and read the map so well, and then not find a thing,” said Dinah, who was cross and tired. “I’m fed-up. I shan’t hunt any more. You can all go on looking if you like, but I’m going to have a rest.”
She flung herself down, and lay fiat, looking upwards at the steep mountainside above her. It was ridged with flat slabs of rock, sticking out here and there like ledges. Dinah examined them lazily with her eyes. Then she sat up suddenly.
“Hi!” she called to the others. “Look up there!”
They came over to her and looked up. “See those big ledges of rock sticking out all the way up the cliff-side?” she said. “Like shelves. Well, look half-way up — see one that sticks out rather far? Look underneath it. Is that a hole there?”
“It does look rather like a hole,” said Jack. “Maybe a foxhole, though. Still, it’s the only sizable hole hereabouts, so we’d better explore. I’ll go up. Coming, Tufty?”
“Rather,” said Philip. “It doesn’t look difficult. Aren’t you two girls coming too?”
Dinah forgot that she was fed-up, and she joined in the climb to the hole under the ledge of rock. When they got there they found that it was a very big hole indeed. It could not possibly be seen from above, for the shelf of rock stuck right out over it and hid it. It could only be seen from one place below, at a certain angle — and that was the place where Dinah had flung herself down some time back.
“Bit of luck you happened to spot it, Dinah,” said Jack. “We might have hunted all day and never found it. I wonder if this is the entrance to the real treasure-cave.”
They peered down. The hole yawned below them, dark and appearing rather vast. “Where’s my torch?” said Jack, and, taking it from his pocket, he switched it on.
The children gazed down into the hole. It seemed nothing but a hole. No treasure was there. But, as Jack swung his torch a little further down, Dinah thought she caught sight of a passage further back.
“I believe,” she said, almost falling into the hole in her excitement, “I do believe it goes right back, into a passage.”
Kiki flew off Jack’s shoulder and disappeared into the hole. A mournful voice floated up to them.
“What’s down there, Kiki?” called Jack.
“Three blind mice,” answered Kiki, solemnly and untruthfully. “Three blind mice. Pop!”
“You’re a fibber,” said Jack. “Anyway — down we go to find the . . .”
“Three blind mice,” said Kiki, and went off into an imitation of Lucy-Ann’s giggle.
Chapter 21
THE STRANGE CAVES
JACK went down the hole first. He lowered himself right in, and only had to drop about a foot to the ground below.
“Lucy-Ann, you come next,” he said, and helped her down. Then came the others, excited and eager. Had they really found the treasure cave?
“It simply must be the hiding-place for the treasure!” said Jack. “There isn’t another hole or cave anywhere. Now, let me flash my torch round a bit.”
At the back of the hole, as Dinah had thought, there was a passage — quite a wide one, and fairly high. A very tall man could have walked down it with ease.
“Come on!” said Jack, his voice shaking with excitement. “We’re getting warm!”
They followed him down the passage, Kiki sitting on his shoulder. Lucy-Ann held on to his sleeve, half fearful of what they might find.
The passage was wide and high all the way along, but wound about a little. It went downwards, and kept more or less in the same direction, for all its windings — that is, towards the heart of the mountain.
Suddenly the passage came to an abrupt end. Jack paused, and gasped. In front of him was a most extraordinary sight.
His torch shone brightly on to an unending mass of brilliant white columns, hanging from the high roof of a cave. Whatever could they be?
Lucy-Ann clutched his arm and gasped too. She stared at the shining white things. She saw that other white columns were growing up from the floor of the cave too. Some had met the hanging ones, and had joined, so that it seemed as if the cave roof was being supported by pillars.
“Jack! What is it? Is it the treasure?” whispered Lucy-Ann.
“It’s icicles, isn’t it?” said Dinah in an awed tone. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life! Look at them hanging down — so still and white and lovely!”
“No — they’re not icicles,” said Jack. “They are stalactites — at least, the hanging ones are. They’re not made of ice, either — but of limestone, I think. My word — what a sight!”
The children stood quite still and gazed their fill at the silent, beautiful cave. Its roof was as high as a cathedral, and the graceful stalactites hung down from it in dozens, gleaming in the light of Jack’s torch.
“The ones growing up from the floor are stalagmites, I think,” said Jack. “Aren’t they, Philip? Do you know anything about them? I’ve never in my life seen anything like this before!”
“Yes — they’re stalagmites,” said Philip. “I remember seeing pictures of them. Stalactites and stalagmites. Gosh, what a sight!”
Kiki tried to say the two words and couldn’t. Even she seemed to be awed by the amazing and unexpected discovery.
“Oh, look!” said Lucy-Ann suddenly, and pointed to what looked like an old old shawl, carved in ivory. “Look — this has grown here too — it’s just like a shawl — even to the pattern in it! And look at that sort of gate over there — all carved too! Surely somebody made them — surely they didn’t just grow!”
“Well — they formed,” said Jack, trying to explain. “You know — just as the crystals in a snowflake form. They don’t grow because they’re not alive — they form.”
Lucy-Ann couldn’t quite understand. Secretly she thought that all the marvellous hanging pillars had grown, and then got frozen in their beauty.
“I thought this must be the treasure!” she said, half laughing.
“I’m not surprised,” said Jack. “It’s too beautiful for words. Fancy finding a cave like this! It’s like an enormous underground cathedral — it just wants an organ to begin playing a grand and magnificent hymn.”
“There’s a kind of path down the middle,” said Dinah. “I don’t know if it’s just a natural path, Jack, or whether it has been made by man. Do you see what I mean?”
“Yes,” said Jack, flashing his torch along it. “Bit of both, I think. Well — shall we go on? There’s no treasure here.”
They went along the middle of the great silent hall, surrounded on all sides by the hanging icicle-like pillars. Lucy-Ann pointed out many that had joined with columns growing from the ground.
“The drops of water from the stalactites must have dripped to the ground, and made stalagmites form there, growing up to meet the column above,” said Philip. “They must have taken ages and ages to form — hundreds of years. I say — no wonder this cave feels awfully old to us. I feel as if there is no Time here at all — no years, or days of the week or hours — just nothing.”
Lucy-Ann didn’t like that very much. It gave her a queer feeling of being only a dream, and not real. She took hold of Jack’s arm and was glad to feel its nice, solid warmth.
They walked slowly to the end of the enormous cave. A great archway stood there, and that too was set with stalactites, which, however, did not hang far down. The children could walk under them with ease.
“This archway is quite like a tunnel,” said Philip. His voice sounded big and hollow there and made them all jump. Kiki gave a mournful cough, which was magnified to a hollow giant-cough that startled everyone very much.
They came to another cave. The roof of this was not so high as the one before, and only small, icicle-like stalactites hung from it.
“Do those stalactites shine in the dark?” asked Dinah suddenly. “I thought I saw something glowing in the corner over there.”
Jack switched off his torch — and immediately the children gasped. For up in the roof and over the walls there glowed thousands of tiny stars. They were green and blue, and shone and flickered in a most enchanting manner.
“Gracious! What are they?” whispered Dinah, amazed. “Are they alive?”
The boys didn’t know. They watched the shimmering, flickering stars, that seemed to go in and out like elfin lights. “Might be a kind of glowworm,” said Jack. “Aren’t they lovely?”
He put on his torch again and the roof shone brightly in the yellow-white light. The stars disappeared.