And do either of you know how to make acceptable explanations to a she-cobra whose young have been trodden on?
Therefore walk with care, observing the lantern light and remembering that as long as you injure none, none will injure you." At that he turned on his heel abruptly and walked forward, swinging the lantern so that its light swept to and fro.

We were walking through the heart of masonry whose blocks were nearly black with age; there was a smell of ancient sepulchers, and in places the walls were damp enough to be green and slippery.

Presently we came to the top of a flight of stone steps, each step being made of one enormous block and worn smooth by the sandalled traffic of centuries.

It grew damper as we descended, and those great blocks were tricky things for a man in boots to walk on; yet the Gray Mahatma, swinging his lantern several steps below us, kept calling back: "Have a care! Have a care! He who falls can do as much injury as he who jumps! Shall the injured inquire into reasons ?" We descended forty or fifty steps and I, walking last, had just reached the bottom, when something dashed between my feet, and another something flicked like a whip-lash after it.

As the Mahatma swung the lantern I just caught sight of an enormous rat closely pursued by a six-foot snake, and after that we might as well have been in hell for all the difference it would have made to me.
I don't know how long that tunnel was, but I do know I am not going back there to measure it.