Now go and see to the preparations, and find out the plan of campaign, for I want to rest and keep quiet.

I daresay the whole thing is humbug, and we shall see nothing of the Professor; still, one may as well be prepared." So Quick and I went to superintend the lashing of two of the light ladders together and the securing of some planks which we had brought with us upon the top of the rungs, so as to make these ladders easy to walk on.

I asked who would be of the party besides Shadrach and Orme, and was told no one, as all were afraid.

Ultimately, however, a man named Japhet, one of the Mountaineers, volunteered upon being promised a grant of land from the Child of Kings herself, which grant she proclaimed before them all was to be given to his relatives in the event of his death.
At length everything was ready, and there came another spell of silence, for the nerves of all of us were so strained that we did not seem able to talk.

It was broken by a sound of sudden and terrible roaring that arose from the gulf beneath.
"It is the hour of the feeding of the sacred lions which the Fung keep in the pit about the base of the idol," explained Shadrach.