Once I myself went through a very tragic experience in one of these pits, as any who may read the history of my first wife, that I have called _Marie_, can see for themselves.
Soon we cleared the place and had lifted the stone, with ventilating holes in it--well was it for Sammy that those ventilating holes existed; also that the stone did not fit tight.

Beneath was a bottle-shaped and cemented structure about ten feet deep by, say, eight wide.

Instantly through the mouth of this structure appeared the head of Sammy with his mouth wide open like that of a fish gasping for air.

We pulled him out, a process that caused him to howl, for the heat had made his skin very tender, and gave him water which one of the Mazitu fetched from a spring.

Then I asked him indignantly what he was doing in that hole, while we wasted our tears, thinking that he was dead.
"Oh! Mr.Quatermain," he said, "I am a victim of too faithful service.
To abandon all these valuable possessions of yours to a rapacious enemy was more than I could bear.