At length, when I was almost tired out and Maqueda was so breathless that she was obliged to lean on Oliver, dragging me behind her like a dog on a string, of a sudden we saw a glimmer of daylight that crept into the tunnel through a small hole.

By the mouth of yet another pit or shaft, we found Shadrach and the others waiting for us.

Saluting, he said that we must unrope, leave our lamps behind, and follow him.

Oliver asked him whither this last shaft led.
"To a still lower level, lord," he answered, "but one which you will scarcely care to explore, since it ends in the great pit where the Fung keep their sacred lions." "Indeed," said Oliver, much interested for reasons of his own, and he glanced at Quick, who nodded his head and whistled.
Then we all followed Shadrach to find ourselves presently upon a plateau about the size of a racquet court which, either by nature or by the hand of man, had been recessed into the face of that gigantic cliff.

Going to the edge of this plateau, whereon grew many tree-ferns and some thick green bushes that would have made us invisible from below even had there been any one to see us, we saw that the sheer precipice ran down beneath for several hundred feet.