'You two dogs lead the way.'
'Oh, thank you very much.'
Ginger clung to him as they lurched back up the aisle. Despite the incipient terror, Victor had to admit that it was a very pleasant sensation. He looked around at the occasional occupants of the seats and shuddered.
'It looks as though they died watching a click,' he said. 'Yeah. A comedy,' said Gaspode, trotting ahead of him.
'Why do you say that?'
'They're all grinnin'.'
'Gaspode!'
'Well, you've got to look on the bright side, haven't you?' sneered the dog. 'Can't go around bein' miserable jus' because you're in some lost underground tomb with a mad cat lover an' a torch that's goin' to go out any minute-'
'Keep going! Keep going!'
They half-fell, half ran down the steps, skidded unpleasantly on the seaweed at the bottom, and headed for the little archway that led to the wonderful prospect of living air and bright daylight. The torch was beginning to scorch Victor's hand. He let it go. At least there had been no problems in the passage; if they kept to one wall and didn't do anything stupid they couldn't help but reach the door. And it must be dawn by now, which meant that it shouldn't be long before they could see the light.
Victor straightened up. This was pretty heroic, really. There hadn't been any monsters to fight, but probably even monsters would have rotted away centuries ago. Of course it had been creepy, but really it was only, well, archaeology. Now it was all behind him it didn't seem so bad at all . . .
Laddie, who had been running ahead of them, barked sharply.
'What's he saying?' said Victor.
'He's saying', said Gaspode, 'that the tunnel's blocked.'
'Oh, no!'
'It was prob'ly your organ recital that did it.'
'Really blocked?'
Really blocked. Victor crawled over the heap. Several large roof slabs had come down, bringing tons of broken rock with them. He pulled and pushed at one or two pieces, but this produced only further falls.
'Perhaps there's another way out?' he said. 'Perhaps you dogs could go and-'
right, all right,' said Victor. 'I'll go a little way in, perhaps.' He looked around desperately at the dried-up trees around the hollow. 'And I'll make a torch,' he added.
He'd expected spiders and dampness and possibly snakes, if nothing worse . . .
Instead, there was just a dry, roughly square passageway, leading slightly downwards. The air had a slightly salty smell, suggesting that somewhere the tunnel was connected to the sea.
Victor took a few paces along it, and stopped.
'Hang on,' he said. 'If the torch goes out, we could get horribly lost.'
'No, we can't,' said Gaspode. 'Sense of smell, see?'
'Gosh, that's clever.'
Victor went on a little further. The walls were covered with big versions of the square ideograms that featured in the book.
'You know,' he said, pausing to run his fingers over one, 'these aren't really like a written language. It's more as if-'
'Keep movin' and stop makin' excuses,' said Gaspode behind him.
Victor's foot kicked against something which bounced away into the darkness.