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56 "get up." I pointed to my legs and shaking my head replied, "non possum" "I cannot."

He evidently comprehended, for he at once beckoned to six of the others, who walked towards me, as I thought to kill me.

Two lifted me under the shoulders, two took my legs, and two clasped each others hands under my back.

I felt a horrible sensation of repulsion as they touched me, but as I could do nothing I lay still.

The one, who had spoken, sent some of them in front, for what reason I could not at first make out, but after a time I saw it was to drive away the snakes.

He walked after them in the space they cleared, then came those carrying me, then the smaller, and lastly the larger creatures bearing on their backs the nets filled with fungi.

In this way we traversed part of the cave, occasionally passing beds of fungi, and seeing in the distance patches of light caused by them.

They were of a smaller kind than those near where I had been lying, and the further we proceeded the smaller they became.

Overhead I now and then saw flashes of light shooting like rockets across the darkness, caused by the birds flying from one part of the cave to another.