He had now recognized Maku, and was lost in amazement. The whole party set off along the tunnel. Elizabeth guessed that the ascent of the wall would offer no difficulties to men practised in climbing cocoa-nut palms, and though she was urging her friends towards the pit she had no hope of ultimate escape.
The light soon failed. They had perforce to move slowly, and Mary warned the missionary that presently when the roof became lower he would have to crawl on hands and knees. She stretched her arms above her head so that she might know when the time for stooping came. The rest followed close behind, Elizabeth bringing up the rear.
The lowest part of the tunnel was about one-third of its length from the gap. As she crawled through this with Tommy immediately in front of her, Elizabeth had a sudden thought which turned despair into hope. The roof was no more than three feet above the floor. If only the narrow space could be blocked, an effective obstacle to pursuit would be set up. Was it possible? This portion of the tunnel was but a few yards in length. As soon as she was able to stand again she called to the rest to halt.
"Have you your knives?" she asked her sisters when they came to her.
"Come with me, Mary," she said, taking Tommy's knife from her. "Go on with the others; we will follow soon."
Mary and she returned to the point where the roof sloped, and Elizabeth, slipping to her knees, began to prod at it with the knife. To her great joy a shower of loose shale fell.
"Help me, Mary; work as hard as you can."
They plied their knives energetically. The missionary, anxious to learn what they were about, joined them, and, having no other implement, lifted a piece of hard rock and prodded at the roof with that. Soon a considerable heap of earth and shale was piled up on the floor. But their tools were poor substitutes for pickaxes, and Elizabeth feared that there would not be time to block the tunnel effectively before the savages arrived.
All at once there was a tremendous crash, and the girls started back in alarm, not quickly enough to escape some clods of earth that struck them heavily. The loosening of the under layer of the roof had disturbed the mass above, and there had now fallen upon the floor an immense quantity of debris which completely blocked the tunnel, and could only be removed with long labour.