.

WITHIN THE EARTH.
It was like a terrible dream, and, for an instant or more, during which Fred Munson was descending through the gloom and darkness, he believed it was such indeed; but he was quickly recalled from his error by his arrival at the end of his journey.

The truth was that the boy, in crawling beneath the clump of bushes for shelter, would have crawled head first into the mouth of the cave, but for the fact that the ground immediately surrounding the opening gave way beneath his weight before he reached it.
His fall was not very far, and when he struck the ground, it was so soft and yielding that he was scarcely conscious of a jar; but the nervous shock was so great that, for a few minutes, he believed that he was fatally injured.
When he was able to recall his scattered senses, he looked around him in the hope of gaining some idea of where he was; but he quickly saw that he was in a place where his eyes were of no service.

The darkness was as impenetrable as that which plagued Pharoah and his Egyptians.

Only when he looked upward was the blackness of darkness relieved.