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Only one can pass at a time: you first." Mark led, and passed through a rift, to see a feeble glow upon his left, where a candle was stuck against the rock, and beneath it lay a figure, very dimly-seen, while, apparently coming through an opening farther on, they heard the low hoarse sound of voices; and words came suggesting that the speakers were engaged in some game of chance.

Don looked at him wildly, and then in a fit of desperation he lowered himself over the edge, felt a pair of great hands grasp him by the loins, and, as he loosened his hold, he was dropped upon a rough ledge of rock, where he stood giddy and confused, with the torrent rushing furiously along beneath his feet, and in front, dimly-seen through a mist which rose from below, he caught a glimpse of a huge fall of water which came from high up, behind some projecting rocks, and disappeared below.

A moment later, the Falcon, meanwhile having been allowed to drift as close as possible to the dimly-seen line of prisoners, Tom set in motion the great motor, the propeller blades heating the air fiercely.

After about fifteen minutes we began to pick up lights ahead, then to pass dimly-seen garden walls with trees whose brilliant flowers the lantern revealed fitfully. At last we made out white stucco houses, and shortly drew up with a flourish before the hotel itself. This was a two-story stucco affair, with deep verandas sunken in at each story.

I watched it as it rose, fully expecting to see the sails burst into flame; but there it came in heavy folds, dimly-seen here, black in shadow there, and the fiery-looking clouds proved to be only visible vapours, water perfectly harmless, while the real flames caused by the fire having reached something specially combustible, never rose many feet in the hold, and by degrees began to yield to the powerful jet of water Mr Frewen poured down.

Moreover, when he awkwardly dangled his rope into the abyss with one hand, and kept his light upon it with the other, he found to his disappointment that not even a single length would reach to the dimly-seen floor below. He sat there for a while, chewing at a bit of jerked beef, trying to get his strength back, racking his brains for a plan.

Far away on the plain, like puppets in the distance, went the swiftly gliding figures of man and horse. In front of them dimly-seen objects tore through the grass; every now and again out went an arm, there was a spurt of smoke, and another buffalo fell.

The midshipman pointed towards the dimly-seen submerged arch. "Can you swim?" he said. "Of course. Pretty well." "And dive?" "Yes." "Then my notion is that we take it as coolly as we can till we think it's a suitable time. Then we'll strip, make a couple of bundles of our clothes, go in as near to that arch as we can, and then try to dive under and out to the daylight."

As they did so, John Steele, unobserved, stepped forward; in the semi-darkness the party passed through the entrance into the street. Taking his place among the last of the laughing, dimly-seen figures, John Steele walked boldly on and found himself a moment later on the sidewalk of Surrey Road.

The lanthorns' light gleamed further on the sea as those who held them clambered up the shrouds and held them at arms' length, and then dimly-seen were the backs of the heads of the two swimmers, who made the water swirl as they struck out with all their might. "Do you hear, you scoundrels?" roared the captain again. "Come back, or I fire."