Chapter XX. The Escape

For a space of several seconds no one moved or spoke. In the flickering light of the candle they looked at one another, and then at the fantastic pillars of salt all about them. Then Mr. Damon started forward.

"Bless my trolley car!" he exclaimed. "It isn't possible! There must be some mistake. If we'll keep on we'll come out all right. You know your way about, don't you, Mr. Petrofsky?"

"I thought I did, from what the guard told us. but it seems I must have taken a wrong turning."

"Then it's easily remedied," suggested Tom "All we'll have to do will be to go to the place where we started, and begin over again."

"Of course," agreed Ned, and they all seemed more cheerful.

"And if we start out once more, and get lost again, then what?" asked Mr. Damon.

"Well, if worst comes to worst, we can go, back in the tunnel, go to our cells and ask the guard to come with us and show us the way went on Tom.

"Never!" cried the exile. "It would be the most dangerous thing in the world to go back to the prison. Our escape has probably been discovered by this time, and to return would only be to put our heads in the noose. We must keep on at any cost!"

"But if we can't get out," suggested Tom, "and if we haven't anything to eat or drink, we--"

He did not finish, but they all knew what he meant.

"Oh, we'll get out!" declared Ned, who was something of an optimist. "You've been in salt mines before, haven't you, Mr. Petrofsky?"

"Yes, I was condemned to one once, but it was not in this part of the country, and it was not an abandoned one. I imagine this was only an isolated mine, and that there are no others near it, so when they abandoned it, after all the salt was taken out, most people forgot about it. I remember once a party of prisoners were lost in a large salt mine, and were missed for several days."

"What happened to them?" asked Tom.

"I don't like to talk about it," replied the Russian with a shudder.

"Bless my soul! Was it as bad as that?" asked Mr. Damon.

"It was," replied the exile. "But now let's see if we can find our way back, and start afresh. I'll be more careful next time, and watch the turns more closely."

But he did not get the chance. They could not find the tunnel whence they had started. Turn after turn they took, down passage after passage sometimes in such small ones that they almost had to crawl.

But it was of no use. They could not find their way back to the starting place, and they could not find the opening of the mine. They had used two of the slow burning candles and they had only half a dozen or so left. When these were gone--

But they did not like