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Rh lifted his hands to grasp the bottom rung, the opening at the top of the shaft was temporarily obscured.

Thrilled with apprehension, he hesitated, Marrophat was up there, he little doubted; it was hardly like that fiend to overlook the ladder-shaft in preparing the tunnel to be a living tomb.

Marrophat or no Marrophat at the top, there was nothing for him to do but to grasp the ladder with a steady hand. Even though he were shot dead on emerging from the shaft, it were better than to die down there. …

He had climbed not more than half a dozen rungs when a few drops of water spattered his fact, like heavy rain. Almost immediately the blue sky was permanently eclipsed, a cascade of water, almost a solid column, shot down the shaft with terrific force. Alan sought vainly to escape it, to mount against it. Before he knew it, his grasp had been wrenched away from the ladders and he was shooting feet first back into the tunnel.

Half drowned, he felt himself dragged out of the waterfall. Then he comprehended the fact that the tunnel was already filling; that, where they stood, it was already ankle-deep, while the water continued to fall without hint of let-up.