finished_summaries/gradesaver/King Solomon's Mines/section_9_part_0.txt
King Solomon's Mines.chapters 17-18
chapters 17-18
{"name": "Chapters 17 and 18", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200804024551/https://www.gradesaver.com/king-solomons-mines/study-guide/summary-chapters-17-and-18", "summary": "While the explorers recover from their fright at the sights before them, Gagool busies herself by climbing atop the large table and addressing the dead Twala. Then she makes her way around the room to address the other fallen kings, but her words are unintelligible to the others. Gagool then squats beneath the figure of the White Death, presumably praying to it. Quatermain reminds Gagool to lead them to the treasure chamber. Gagool taunts them by asking whether or not they are afraid. She leads them to an apparently blank wall, and she secretly trips a switch that causes the rock face of the wall to ascent into the ceiling above. Before letting them enter, Gagool tells the men of another traveler whom \"Gagaoola the old\" led into this chamber long ago. Quatermain identifies the treasure-seeker as da Silvestra, surprising Gagool. She continues the tale, in which the man and his female companion entered the treasure chamber with a goat skin bag Gagool told them about, confirming the witch's story. The sight of the skin full of diamonds awes the men for a moment. Sir Henry takes the lamp from Gagool, and the men enter the chamber. Within the chamber they find a ceiling-high stack of elephant tusks, extending back beyond sight into the chamber. On the opposite side of the chamber they see about twenty wooden boxes, each one full of gold coins with Hebrew letters stamped on them. At first they find no other diamonds than the ones in the goat skin, but Gagool directs them to a nook in which rest three stone chests, two sealed and one open. Investigating, the men find the open chest mostly full of uncut diamonds. Opening the second and third chests, the men find the second full to the top with diamonds and the third only partially full, but of the largest diamonds of the lot. Awed by their newfound wealth, the men do not notice Gagool's hasty departure. Only Foulata's cry of warning alerts them that she is escaping and has set the stone doorway to closing. Foulata attempts to stop Gagool's exit, but Gagool stabs her. Nonetheless, Foulata's efforts delay Gagool long enough that the witch does not make it through the door before the tons of stone drop upon her, killing her instantly. The fatally injured Foulata asks Quatermain to translate her dying words to Good. Quatermain does so, and Foulata declares her love and her understanding that Good's own adoration of her was not destined to last long; nevertheless, she is grateful for her time with him. Foulata dies and Good is upset, but he does not see the impending doom until Quatermain points out that Good's own death will likely follow Foulata's soon, for they are buried alive. The men take stock of their grim situation. They console themselves that Gagool has met with justice, but are nonetheless disheartened at their own apparent doom. They know Infadoos will search for them eventually, but know that he is not going to find the secret to opening a hidden door that he is not even aware exists. The men somberly divide their food and prepare for their deaths. Their lamp-flame suddenly grows brighter, illuminating Foulata's dead body, and goes out completely. Quatermain, Sir Henry, and Good settle into a state of despair over their situation. The utter darkness and complete silence unnerve them. They clutch at straws for hope in their dire circumstances, even going so far as sending Good to cry out at the stone doorway in the hope that Infadoos will hear them. There is no response, of course, so they divide up their food and eat a slight amount to sustain their seeming last hours. Overcome by desolation, Quatermain and Good rest their heads on Sir Henry's shoulders and weep. Sir Henry, mindless of his own despair, comforts them by telling them stories of men who had escaped from near-death circumstances and, when those fail to relieve their misery, reminds them that everyone dies some time and it is only the anticipation of that moment that is dreadful. Hours later, Quatermain observes that the air in this sealed chamber remains fresh; therefore there must be some way for air to enter. Seizing on this hope, the men scramble through the dark chamber in search of the airway. Sir Henry and Quatermain give up after several minor injuries, but Good locates the air flow. Lighting a match, the men find a stone ring inset into the floor. Sir Henry, with help from Quatermain and Good, pulls the stone ring up, revealing a stone trap door with stairs beneath. The men gather their remaining food and water and venture into the unknown depths. On their way out of the chamber, Quatermain grabs two handfuls of diamonds and places them in his coat pockets; Good and Sir Henry are too focused on survival to care about such things. At the bottom of the stairs the men find a tunnel extending both right and left. They decide to go against the flow of air, reasoning that air flows from the outside in and not the other way around. For a long time they follow the winding tunnel, fearful that it will only lead them back where they started. Then they hear the sound of running water and become excited at the prospect of escape. In the darkness, Good takes a misstep and falls into the underground river. Sir Henry pulls Good out, but Good's experience has convinced him that the river is too dangerous to be used as a means of escape. They retrace their steps and find a tunnel stretching out to the right. Resigned at the hopelessness of making a reasonable choice of direction, the men follow the tunnel. Soon they spy a glimmer of light ahead and make haste toward it. The hewn tunnel gives way to earth, and the find the light comes through a small hole, probably dug by some animal. They widen the hole and in a matter of minutes escape the dark tunnels into the bright world outside. When the Kukuanas see them rise from the earth, they are awed and frightened at these seemingly supernatural beings. Only after the men address Infadoos and explain who they are do the Kukuanas relax and help the men be restored from their perilous adventure.", "analysis": "The tone of Chapter 17 foreshadows the formula for Saturday matinee serials, which usually ended on a cliffhanger between episodes.  The treacherous villain, the discovery of treasure, the botched escape by the killer, the sacrifice of the innocent woman, and the impending doom on the protagonists are all used by later authors and film-makers as integral parts of adventure thrillers.  Haggard was not the first or only writer to use these motifs, but he did become the most popular--and therefore the most influential--writer of adventure tales in his time. Gagool experiences a moment of surprise when Quatermain correctly identifies Silvestra.  His knowledge, she must admit, can sometimes be a match for her own.  However, she still maintains the superior position in her knowledge of the secret entrance to the treasure chamber.  Information is the key to Gagool's power, but she has been displaced from influencing the king of all Kukuanaland to attempting to save her own life.  Her treachery casts her in the most evil light of all the characters--even Twala would not kill these men through deceit--but also results in her own destruction.  The innocent and beautiful Foulata is the agent of Gagool's death.  Her inability to keep up with the men proves fortunate, as she alone sees Gagool's hasty departure.  Her struggle with the crone keep Gagool from making her way through the door in time--the wise woman is crushed by her own deadly device. Just as honor and right conquered Twala in the previous battle, so does beauty and innocence crush the wicked Gagool. That the men did not noticed Gagool's escape at first is a testimony to her craftiness, but also an indication of the men's love of wealth.  They are distracted by the diamonds of King Solomon's mines--to busy picturing what they might do with such wealth to keep their eyes on the situation before them.  The next chapter will further develop the problem of material possessions for the men. Quatermain reiterates his own self-evaluation given their seemingly hopeless situation:  \"The bravest man on earth might well quail from such a fate as awaited us--and I never had any great pretensions to be brave\" .  All three men are given to despair at their imminent death by starvation of asphyxiation, but Sir Henry is able to rally himself and comfort the other two.  In an unusual and touching scene, Sir Henry attempts to assuage the two weeping men's fears:  \"Had we been two frightened children, and he our nurse, he could not have treated us more tenderly.  Forgetting his own share of miseries, he did all he could to soothe our broken nerves.\" .  Sir Henry's paternal treatment of the other two men leads Quatermain to declare, \"His is a beautiful character, very quiet, but very strong\" .  Since Sir Henry Curtis has been established as the ideal of manhood in the novel, this moment of nurturing shows another facet to the \"true man\" Haggard wishes to present.  Sir Henry is willing and able to fight when necessary--even to kill for a righteous cause--but he is equally able to put aside his own despair to tenderly care for others in pain.  In this moment Sir Henry changes from the two-dimensional warrior-hero into a more fully rounded character. Although the men panic and give in to depression at their plight, in the end, their own minds offer them the key to escape.  Through an application of basic science--identifying that there must be a source of air and then searching for it--the men find the passage out of the treasure chamber and to possible freedom.  Again, European scientific thinking has triumphed where sinister and secretive knowledge sought to prevail. The previous chapter and this one together form the \"belly of the whale\" or \"journey to the underworld\" phase of the heroic quest for Quatermain and his companions.  The men literally descend into the darkness under the earth, and then emerge through an animal's burrow.  The imagery is clearly one of rebirth, as the men leave the womb of earth and are born anew into the world of fresh air and starlight.  They have died--figuratively--and now have a second chance at a new life.  Quatermain, however, holds on to his old life in at least one aspect:  before leaving the treasure chamber, he grabs a handful of diamonds and secreted them in his coat pocket."}
While we were engaged in recovering from our fright, and in examining
the grisly wonders of the Place of Death, Gagool had been differently
occupied. Somehow or other--for she was marvellously active when she
chose--she had scrambled on to the great table, and made her way to
where our departed friend Twala was placed, under the drip, to see,
suggested Good, how he was "pickling," or for some dark purpose of her
own. Then, after bending down to kiss his icy lips as though in
affectionate greeting, she hobbled back, stopping now and again to
address the remark, the tenor of which I could not catch, to one or
other of the shrouded forms, just as you or I might welcome an old
acquaintance. Having gone through this mysterious and horrible
ceremony, she squatted herself down on the table immediately under the
White Death, and began, so far as I could make out, to offer up
prayers. The spectacle of this wicked creature pouring out
supplications, evil ones no doubt, to the arch enemy of mankind, was so
uncanny that it caused us to hasten our inspection.

"Now, Gagool," said I, in a low voice--somehow one did not dare to
speak above a whisper in that place--"lead us to the chamber."

The old witch promptly scrambled down from the table.

"My lords are not afraid?" she said, leering up into my face.

"Lead on."

"Good, my lords;" and she hobbled round to the back of the great Death.
"Here is the chamber; let my lords light the lamp, and enter," and she
placed the gourd full of oil upon the floor, and leaned herself against
the side of the cave. I took out a match, of which we had still a few
in a box, and lit a rush wick, and then looked for the doorway, but
there was nothing before us except the solid rock. Gagool grinned. "The
way is there, my lords. _Ha! ha! ha!_"

"Do not jest with us," I said sternly.

"I jest not, my lords. See!" and she pointed at the rock.

As she did so, on holding up the lamp we perceived that a mass of stone
was rising slowly from the floor and vanishing into the rock above,
where doubtless there is a cavity prepared to receive it. The mass was
of the width of a good-sized door, about ten feet high and not less
than five feet thick. It must have weighed at least twenty or thirty
tons, and was clearly moved upon some simple balance principle of
counter-weights, probably the same as that by which the opening and
shutting of an ordinary modern window is arranged. How the principle
was set in motion, of course none of us saw; Gagool was careful to
avoid this; but I have little doubt that there was some very simple
lever, which was moved ever so little by pressure at a secret spot,
thereby throwing additional weight on to the hidden counter-balances,
and causing the monolith to be lifted from the ground.

Very slowly and gently the great stone raised itself, till at last it
had vanished altogether, and a dark hole presented itself to us in the
place which the door had filled.

Our excitement was so intense, as we saw the way to Solomon's treasure
chamber thrown open at last, that I for one began to tremble and shake.
Would it prove a hoax after all, I wondered, or was old Da Silvestra
right? Were there vast hoards of wealth hidden in that dark place,
hoards which would make us the richest men in the whole world? We
should know in a minute or two.

"Enter, white men from the Stars," said Gagool, advancing into the
doorway; "but first hear your servant, Gagool the old. The bright
stones that ye will see were dug out of the pit over which the Silent
Ones are set, and stored here, I know not by whom, for that was done
longer ago than even I remember. But once has this place been entered
since the time that those who hid the stones departed in haste, leaving
them behind. The report of the treasure went down indeed among the
people who lived in the country from age to age, but none knew where
the chamber was, nor the secret of the door. But it happened that a
white man reached this country from over the mountains--perchance he
too came 'from the Stars'--and was well received by the king of that
day. He it is who sits yonder," and she pointed to the fifth king at
the table of the Dead. "And it came to pass that he and a woman of the
country who was with him journeyed to this place, and that by chance
the woman learnt the secret of the door--a thousand years might ye
search, but ye should never find that secret. Then the white man
entered with the woman, and found the stones, and filled with stones
the skin of a small goat, which the woman had with her to hold food.
And as he was going from the chamber he took up one more stone, a large
one, and held it in his hand."

Here she paused.

"Well," I asked, breathless with interest as we all were, "what
happened to Da Silvestra?"

The old hag started at the mention of the name.

"How knowest thou the dead man's name?" she asked sharply; and then,
without waiting for an answer, went on--

"None can tell what happened; but it came about that the white man was
frightened, for he flung down the goat-skin, with the stones, and fled
out with only the one stone in his hand, and that the king took, and it
is the stone which thou, Macumazahn, didst take from Twala's brow."

"Have none entered here since?" I asked, peering again down the dark
passage.

"None, my lords. Only the secret of the door has been kept, and every
king has opened it, though he has not entered. There is a saying, that
those who enter there will die within a moon, even as the white man
died in the cave upon the mountain, where ye found him, Macumazahn, and
therefore the kings do not enter. _Ha! ha!_ mine are true words."

Our eyes met as she said it, and I turned sick and cold. How did the
old hag know all these things?

"Enter, my lords. If I speak truth, the goat-skin with the stones will
lie upon the floor; and if there is truth as to whether it is death to
enter here, that ye will learn afterwards. _Ha! ha! ha!_" and she
hobbled through the doorway, bearing the light with her; but I confess
that once more I hesitated about following.

"Oh, confound it all!" said Good; "here goes. I am not going to be
frightened by that old devil;" and followed by Foulata, who, however,
evidently did not at all like the business, for she was shivering with
fear, he plunged into the passage after Gagool--an example which we
quickly followed.

A few yards down the passage, in the narrow way hewn out of the living
rock, Gagool had paused, and was waiting for us.

"See, my lords," she said, holding the light before her, "those who
stored the treasure here fled in haste, and bethought them to guard
against any who should find the secret of the door, but had not the
time," and she pointed to large square blocks of stone, which, to the
height of two courses (about two feet three), had been placed across
the passage with a view to walling it up. Along the side of the passage
were similar blocks ready for use, and, most curious of all, a heap of
mortar and a couple of trowels, which tools, so far as we had time to
examine them, appeared to be of a similar shape and make to those used
by workmen to this day.

Here Foulata, who had been in a state of great fear and agitation
throughout, said that she felt faint and could go no farther, but would
wait there. Accordingly we set her down on the unfinished wall, placing
the basket of provisions by her side, and left her to recover.

Following the passage for about fifteen paces farther, we came suddenly
to an elaborately painted wooden door. It was standing wide open.
Whoever was last there had either not found the time to shut it, or had
forgotten to do so.

_Across the threshold of this door lay a skin bag, formed of a
goat-skin, that appeared to be full of pebbles._

"_Hee! hee!_ white men," sniggered Gagool, as the light from the lamp
fell upon it. "What did I tell you, that the white man who came here
fled in haste, and dropped the woman's bag--behold it! Look within also
and ye will find a water-gourd amongst the stones."

Good stooped down and lifted it. It was heavy and jingled.

"By Jove! I believe it's full of diamonds," he said, in an awed
whisper; and, indeed, the idea of a small goat-skin full of diamonds is
enough to awe anybody.

"Go on," said Sir Henry impatiently. "Here, old lady, give me the
lamp," and taking it from Gagool's hand, he stepped through the doorway
and held it high above his head.

We pressed in after him, forgetful for the moment of the bag of
diamonds, and found ourselves in King Solomon's treasure chamber.

At first, all that the somewhat faint light given by the lamp revealed
was a room hewn out of the living rock, and apparently not more than
ten feet square. Next there came into sight, stored one on the other to
the arch of the roof, a splendid collection of elephant-tusks. How many
of them there were we did not know, for of course we could not see to
what depth they went back, but there could not have been less than the
ends of four or five hundred tusks of the first quality visible to our
eyes. There, alone, was enough ivory to make a man wealthy for life.
Perhaps, I thought, it was from this very store that Solomon drew the
raw material for his "great throne of ivory," of which "there was not
the like made in any kingdom."

On the opposite side of the chamber were about a score of wooden boxes,
something like Martini-Henry ammunition boxes, only rather larger, and
painted red.

"There are the diamonds," cried I; "bring the light."

Sir Henry did so, holding it close to the top box, of which the lid,
rendered rotten by time even in that dry place, appeared to have been
smashed in, probably by Da Silvestra himself. Pushing my hand through
the hole in the lid I drew it out full, not of diamonds, but of gold
pieces, of a shape that none of us had seen before, and with what
looked like Hebrew characters stamped upon them.

"Ah!" I said, replacing the coin, "we shan't go back empty-handed,
anyhow. There must be a couple of thousand pieces in each box, and
there are eighteen boxes. I suppose this was the money to pay the
workmen and merchants."

"Well," put in Good, "I think that is the lot; I don't see any
diamonds, unless the old Portuguese put them all into his bag."

"Let my lords look yonder where it is darkest, if they would find the
stones," said Gagool, interpreting our looks. "There my lords will find
a nook, and three stone chests in the nook, two sealed and one open."

Before translating this to Sir Henry, who carried the light, I could
not resist asking how she knew these things, if no one had entered the
place since the white man, generations ago.

"Ah, Macumazahn, the watcher by night," was the mocking answer, "ye who
dwell in the stars, do ye not know that some live long, and that some
have eyes which can see through rock? _Ha! ha! ha!_"

"Look in that corner, Curtis," I said, indicating the spot Gagool had
pointed out.

"Hullo, you fellows," he cried, "here's a recess. Great heavens! see
here."

We hurried up to where he was standing in a nook, shaped something like
a small bow window. Against the wall of this recess were placed three
stone chests, each about two feet square. Two were fitted with stone
lids, the lid of the third rested against the side of the chest, which
was open.

"_See!_" he repeated hoarsely, holding the lamp over the open chest. We
looked, and for a moment could make nothing out, on account of a
silvery sheen which dazzled us. When our eyes grew used to it we saw
that the chest was three-parts full of uncut diamonds, most of them of
considerable size. Stooping, I picked some up. Yes, there was no doubt
of it, there was the unmistakable soapy feel about them.

I fairly gasped as I dropped them.

"We are the richest men in the whole world," I said. "Monte Christo was
a fool to us."

"We shall flood the market with diamonds," said Good.

"Got to get them there first," suggested Sir Henry.

We stood still with pale faces and stared at each other, the lantern in
the middle and the glimmering gems below, as though we were
conspirators about to commit a crime, instead of being, as we thought,
the most fortunate men on earth.

"_Hee! hee! hee!_" cackled old Gagool behind us, as she flitted about
like a vampire bat. "There are the bright stones ye love, white men, as
many as ye will; take them, run them through your fingers, _eat_ of
them, _hee! hee! drink_ of them, _ha! ha!_"

At that moment there was something so ridiculous to my mind at the idea
of eating and drinking diamonds, that I began to laugh outrageously, an
example which the others followed, without knowing why. There we stood
and shrieked with laughter over the gems that were ours, which had been
found for _us_ thousands of years ago by the patient delvers in the
great hole yonder, and stored for _us_ by Solomon's long-dead overseer,
whose name, perchance, was written in the characters stamped on the
faded wax that yet adhered to the lids of the chest. Solomon never got
them, nor David, or Da Silvestra, nor anybody else. _We_ had got them:
there before us were millions of pounds' worth of diamonds, and
thousands of pounds' worth of gold and ivory only waiting to be taken
away.

Suddenly the fit passed off, and we stopped laughing.

"Open the other chests, white men," croaked Gagool, "there are surely
more therein. Take your fill, white lords! _Ha! ha!_ take your fill."

Thus adjured, we set to work to pull up the stone lids on the other
two, first--not without a feeling of sacrilege--breaking the seals that
fastened them.

Hoorah! they were full too, full to the brim; at least, the second one
was; no wretched burglarious Da Silvestra had been filling goat-skins
out of that. As for the third chest, it was only about a fourth full,
but the stones were all picked ones; none less than twenty carats, and
some of them as large as pigeon-eggs. A good many of these bigger ones,
however, we could see by holding them up to the light, were a little
yellow, "off coloured," as they call it at Kimberley.

What we did _not_ see, however, was the look of fearful malevolence
that old Gagool favoured us with as she crept, crept like a snake, out
of the treasure chamber and down the passage towards the door of solid
rock.

      *      *      *      *      *

Hark! Cry upon cry comes ringing up the vaulted path. It is Foulata's
voice!

"_Oh, Bougwan! help! help! the stone falls!_"

"Leave go, girl! Then--"

"_Help! help! she has stabbed me!_"

By now we are running down the passage, and this is what the light from
the lamp shows us. The door of the rock is closing down slowly; it is
not three feet from the floor. Near it struggle Foulata and Gagool. The
red blood of the former runs to her knee, but still the brave girl
holds the old witch, who fights like a wild cat. Ah! she is free!
Foulata falls, and Gagool throws herself on the ground, to twist like a
snake through the crack of the closing stone. She is under--ah! god!
too late! too late! The stone nips her, and she yells in agony. Down,
down it comes, all the thirty tons of it, slowly pressing her old body
against the rock below. Shriek upon shriek, such as we have never
heard, then a long sickening _crunch_, and the door was shut just as,
rushing down the passage, we hurled ourselves against it.

It was all done in four seconds.

Then we turned to Foulata. The poor girl was stabbed in the body, and I
saw that she could not live long.

"Ah! Bougwan, I die!" gasped the beautiful creature. "She crept
out--Gagool; I did not see her, I was faint--and the door began to
fall; then she came back, and was looking up the path--I saw her come
in through the slowly falling door, and caught her and held her, and
she stabbed me, and _I die_, Bougwan!"

"Poor girl! poor girl!" Good cried in his distress; and then, as he
could do nothing else, he fell to kissing her.

"Bougwan," she said, after a pause, "is Macumazahn there? It grows so
dark, I cannot see."

"Here I am, Foulata."

"Macumazahn, be my tongue for a moment, I pray thee, for Bougwan cannot
understand me, and before I go into the darkness I would speak to him a
word."

"Say on, Foulata, I will render it."

"Say to my lord, Bougwan, that--I love him, and that I am glad to die
because I know that he cannot cumber his life with such as I am, for
the sun may not mate with the darkness, nor the white with the black.

"Say that, since I saw him, at times I have felt as though there were a
bird in my bosom, which would one day fly hence and sing elsewhere.
Even now, though I cannot lift my hand, and my brain grows cold, I do
not feel as though my heart were dying; it is so full of love that it
could live ten thousand years, and yet be young. Say that if I live
again, mayhap I shall see him in the Stars, and that--I will search
them all, though perchance there I should still be black and he
would--still be white. Say--nay, Macumazahn, say no more, save that I
love--Oh, hold me closer, Bougwan, I cannot feel thine arms--_oh! oh!_"

"She is dead--she is dead!" muttered Good, rising in grief, the tears
running down his honest face.

"You need not let that trouble you, old fellow," said Sir Henry.

"Eh!" exclaimed Good; "what do you mean?"

"I mean that you will soon be in a position to join her. _Man, don't
you see that we are buried alive?_"

Until Sir Henry uttered these words I do not think that the full horror
of what had happened had come home to us, preoccupied as we were with
the sight of poor Foulata's end. But now we understood. The ponderous
mass of rock had closed, probably for ever, for the only brain which
knew its secret was crushed to powder beneath its weight. This was a
door that none could hope to force with anything short of dynamite in
large quantities. And we were on the wrong side!

For a few minutes we stood horrified, there over the corpse of Foulata.
All the manhood seemed to have gone out of us. The first shock of this
idea of the slow and miserable end that awaited us was overpowering. We
saw it all now; that fiend Gagool had planned this snare for us from
the first.

It would have been just the jest that her evil mind would have rejoiced
in, the idea of the three white men, whom, for some reason of her own,
she had always hated, slowly perishing of thirst and hunger in the
company of the treasure they had coveted. Now I saw the point of that
sneer of hers about eating and drinking the diamonds. Probably somebody
had tried to serve the poor old Dom in the same way, when he abandoned
the skin full of jewels.

"This will never do," said Sir Henry hoarsely; "the lamp will soon go
out. Let us see if we can't find the spring that works the rock."

We sprang forward with desperate energy, and, standing in a bloody
ooze, began to feel up and down the door and the sides of the passage.
But no knob or spring could we discover.

"Depend on it," I said, "it does not work from the inside; if it did
Gagool would not have risked trying to crawl underneath the stone. It
was the knowledge of this that made her try to escape at all hazards,
curse her."

"At all events," said Sir Henry, with a hard little laugh, "retribution
was swift; hers was almost as awful an end as ours is likely to be. We
can do nothing with the door; let us go back to the treasure room."

We turned and went, and as we passed it I perceived by the unfinished
wall across the passage the basket of food which poor Foulata had
carried. I took it up, and brought it with me to the accursed treasure
chamber that was to be our grave. Then we returned and reverently bore
in Foulata's corpse, laying it on the floor by the boxes of coin.

Next we seated ourselves, leaning our backs against the three stone
chests which contained the priceless treasure.

"Let us divide the food," said Sir Henry, "so as to make it last as
long as possible." Accordingly we did so. It would, we reckoned, make
four infinitesimally small meals for each of us, enough, say, to
support life for a couple of days. Besides the "biltong," or dried
game-flesh, there were two gourds of water, each of which held not more
than a quart.

"Now," said Sir Henry grimly, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
die."

We each ate a small portion of the "biltong," and drank a sip of water.
Needless to say, we had but little appetite, though we were sadly in
need of food, and felt better after swallowing it. Then we got up and
made a systematic examination of the walls of our prison-house, in the
faint hope of finding some means of exit, sounding them and the floor
carefully.

There was none. It was not probable that there would be any to a
treasure chamber.

The lamp began to burn dim. The fat was nearly exhausted.

"Quatermain," said Sir Henry, "what is the time--your watch goes?"

I drew it out, and looked at it. It was six o'clock; we had entered the
cave at eleven.

"Infadoos will miss us," I suggested. "If we do not return to-night he
will search for us in the morning, Curtis."

"He may search in vain. He does not know the secret of the door, nor
even where it is. No living person knew it yesterday, except Gagool.
To-day no one knows it. Even if he found the door he could not break it
down. All the Kukuana army could not break through five feet of living
rock. My friends, I see nothing for it but to bow ourselves to the will
of the Almighty. The search for treasure has brought many to a bad end;
we shall go to swell their number."

The lamp grew dimmer yet.

Presently it flared up and showed the whole scene in strong relief, the
great mass of white tusks, the boxes of gold, the corpse of the poor
Foulata stretched before them, the goat-skin full of treasure, the dim
glimmer of the diamonds, and the wild, wan faces of us three white men
seated there awaiting death by starvation.


Then the flame sank and expired.


I can give no adequate description of the horrors of the night which
followed. Mercifully they were to some extent mitigated by sleep, for
even in such a position as ours wearied nature will sometimes assert
itself. But I, at any rate, found it impossible to sleep much. Putting
aside the terrifying thought of our impending doom--for the bravest man
on earth might well quail from such a fate as awaited us, and I never
made any pretensions to be brave--the _silence_ itself was too great to
allow of it. Reader, you may have lain awake at night and thought the
quiet oppressive, but I say with confidence that you can have no idea
what a vivid, tangible thing is perfect stillness. On the surface of
the earth there is always some sound or motion, and though it may in
itself be imperceptible, yet it deadens the sharp edge of absolute
silence. But here there was none. We were buried in the bowels of a
huge snow-clad peak. Thousands of feet above us the fresh air rushed
over the white snow, but no sound of it reached us. We were separated
by a long tunnel and five feet of rock even from the awful chamber of
the Dead; and the dead make no noise. Did we not know it who lay by
poor Foulata's side? The crashing of all the artillery of earth and
heaven could not have come to our ears in our living tomb. We were cut
off from every echo of the world--we were as men already in the grave.

Then the irony of the situation forced itself upon me. There around us
lay treasures enough to pay off a moderate national debt, or to build a
fleet of ironclads, and yet we would have bartered them all gladly for
the faintest chance of escape. Soon, doubtless, we should be rejoiced
to exchange them for a bit of food or a cup of water, and, after that,
even for the privilege of a speedy close to our sufferings. Truly
wealth, which men spend their lives in acquiring, is a valueless thing
at the last.

And so the night wore on.

"Good," said Sir Henry's voice at last, and it sounded awful in the
intense stillness, "how many matches have you in the box?"

"Eight, Curtis."

"Strike one and let us see the time."

He did so, and in contrast to the dense darkness the flame nearly
blinded us. It was five o'clock by my watch. The beautiful dawn was now
blushing on the snow-wreaths far over our heads, and the breeze would
be stirring the night mists in the hollows.

"We had better eat something and keep up our strength," I suggested.

"What is the good of eating?" answered Good; "the sooner we die and get
it over the better."

"While there is life there is hope," said Sir Henry.

Accordingly we ate and sipped some water, and another period of time
elapsed. Then Sir Henry suggested that it might be well to get as near
the door as possible and halloa, on the faint chance of somebody
catching a sound outside. Accordingly Good, who, from long practice at
sea, has a fine piercing note, groped his way down the passage and set
to work. I must say that he made a most diabolical noise. I never heard
such yells; but it might have been a mosquito buzzing for all the
effect they produced.

After a while he gave it up and came back very thirsty, and had to
drink. Then we stopped yelling, as it encroached on the supply of water.

So we sat down once more against the chests of useless diamonds in that
dreadful inaction which was one of the hardest circumstances of our
fate; and I am bound to say that, for my part, I gave way in despair.
Laying my head against Sir Henry's broad shoulder I burst into tears;
and I think that I heard Good gulping away on the other side, and
swearing hoarsely at himself for doing so.

Ah, how good and brave that great man was! Had we been two frightened
children, and he our nurse, he could not have treated us more tenderly.
Forgetting his own share of miseries, he did all he could to soothe our
broken nerves, telling stories of men who had been in somewhat similar
circumstances, and miraculously escaped; and when these failed to cheer
us, pointing out how, after all, it was only anticipating an end which
must come to us all, that it would soon be over, and that death from
exhaustion was a merciful one (which is not true). Then, in a diffident
sort of way, as once before I had heard him do, he suggested that we
should throw ourselves on the mercy of a higher Power, which for my
part I did with great vigour.

His is a beautiful character, very quiet, but very strong.

And so somehow the day went as the night had gone, if, indeed, one can
use these terms where all was densest night, and when I lit a match to
see the time it was seven o'clock.

Once more we ate and drank, and as we did so an idea occurred to me.

"How is it," said I, "that the air in this place keeps fresh? It is
thick and heavy, but it is perfectly fresh."

"Great heavens!" said Good, starting up, "I never thought of that. It
can't come through the stone door, for it's air-tight, if ever a door
was. It must come from somewhere. If there were no current of air in
the place we should have been stifled or poisoned when we first came
in. Let us have a look."

It was wonderful what a change this mere spark of hope wrought in us.
In a moment we were all three groping about on our hands and knees,
feeling for the slightest indication of a draught. Presently my ardour
received a check. I put my hand on something cold. It was dead
Foulata's face.

For an hour or more we went on feeling about, till at last Sir Henry
and I gave it up in despair, having been considerably hurt by
constantly knocking our heads against tusks, chests, and the sides of
the chamber. But Good still persevered, saying, with an approach to
cheerfulness, that it was better than doing nothing.

"I say, you fellows," he said presently, in a constrained sort of
voice, "come here."

Needless to say we scrambled towards him quickly enough.

"Quatermain, put your hand here where mine is. Now, do you feel
anything?"

"I _think_ I feel air coming up."

"Now listen." He rose and stamped upon the place, and a flame of hope
shot up in our hearts. _It rang hollow._

With trembling hands I lit a match. I had only three left, and we saw
that we were in the angle of the far corner of the chamber, a fact that
accounted for our not having noticed the hollow sound of the place
during our former exhaustive examination. As the match burnt we
scrutinised the spot. There was a join in the solid rock floor, and,
great heavens! there, let in level with the rock, was a stone ring. We
said no word, we were too excited, and our hearts beat too wildly with
hope to allow us to speak. Good had a knife, at the back of which was
one of those hooks that are made to extract stones from horses' hoofs.
He opened it, and scratched round the ring with it. Finally he worked
it under, and levered away gently for fear of breaking the hook. The
ring began to move. Being of stone it had not rusted fast in all the
centuries it had lain there, as would have been the case had it been of
iron. Presently it was upright. Then he thrust his hands into it and
tugged with all his force, but nothing budged.

"Let me try," I said impatiently, for the situation of the stone, right
in the angle of the corner, was such that it was impossible for two to
pull at once. I took hold and strained away, but no results.

Then Sir Henry tried and failed.

Taking the hook again, Good scratched all round the crack where we felt
the air coming up.

"Now, Curtis," he said, "tackle on, and put your back into it; you are
as strong as two. Stop," and he took off a stout black silk
handkerchief, which, true to his habits of neatness, he still wore, and
ran it through the ring. "Quatermain, get Curtis round the middle and
pull for dear life when I give the word. _Now._"

Sir Henry put out all his enormous strength, and Good and I did the
same, with such power as nature had given us.

"Heave! heave! it's giving," gasped Sir Henry; and I heard the muscles
of his great back cracking. Suddenly there was a grating sound, then a
rush of air, and we were all on our backs on the floor with a heavy
flag-stone upon the top of us. Sir Henry's strength had done it, and
never did muscular power stand a man in better stead.

"Light a match, Quatermain," he said, so soon as we had picked
ourselves up and got our breath; "carefully, now."

I did so, and there before us, Heaven be praised! was the _first step
of a stone stair._

"Now what is to be done?" asked Good.

"Follow the stair, of course, and trust to Providence."

"Stop!" said Sir Henry; "Quatermain, get the bit of biltong and the
water that are left; we may want them."

I went, creeping back to our place by the chests for that purpose, and
as I was coming away an idea struck me. We had not thought much of the
diamonds for the last twenty-four hours or so; indeed, the very idea of
diamonds was nauseous, seeing what they had entailed upon us; but,
reflected I, I may as well pocket some in case we ever should get out
of this ghastly hole. So I just put my fist into the first chest and
filled all the available pockets of my old shooting-coat and trousers,
topping up--this was a happy thought--with a few handfuls of big ones
from the third chest. Also, by an afterthought, I stuffed Foulata's
basket, which, except for one water-gourd and a little biltong, was
empty now, with great quantities of the stones.

"I say, you fellows," I sang out, "won't you take some diamonds with
you? I've filled my pockets and the basket."

"Oh, come on, Quatermain! and hang the diamonds!" said Sir Henry. "I
hope that I may never see another."

As for Good, he made no answer. He was, I think, taking his last
farewell of all that was left of the poor girl who had loved him so
well. And curious as it may seem to you, my reader, sitting at home at
ease and reflecting on the vast, indeed the immeasurable, wealth which
we were thus abandoning, I can assure you that if you had passed some
twenty-eight hours with next to nothing to eat and drink in that place,
you would not have cared to cumber yourself with diamonds whilst
plunging down into the unknown bowels of the earth, in the wild hope of
escape from an agonising death. If from the habits of a lifetime, it
had not become a sort of second nature with me never to leave anything
worth having behind if there was the slightest chance of my being able
to carry it away, I am sure that I should not have bothered to fill my
pockets and that basket.

"Come on, Quatermain," repeated Sir Henry, who was already standing on
the first step of the stone stair. "Steady, I will go first."

"Mind where you put your feet, there may be some awful hole
underneath," I answered.

"Much more likely to be another room," said Sir Henry, while he
descended slowly, counting the steps as he went.

When he got to "fifteen" he stopped. "Here's the bottom," he said.
"Thank goodness! I think it's a passage. Follow me down."

Good went next, and I came last, carrying the basket, and on reaching
the bottom lit one of the two remaining matches. By its light we could
just see that we were standing in a narrow tunnel, which ran right and
left at right angles to the staircase we had descended. Before we could
make out any more, the match burnt my fingers and went out. Then arose
the delicate question of which way to go. Of course, it was impossible
to know what the tunnel was, or where it led to, and yet to turn one
way might lead us to safety, and the other to destruction. We were
utterly perplexed, till suddenly it struck Good that when I had lit the
match the draught of the passage blew the flame to the left.

"Let us go against the draught," he said; "air draws inwards, not
outwards."

We took this suggestion, and feeling along the wall with our hands,
whilst trying the ground before us at every step, we departed from that
accursed treasure chamber on our terrible quest for life. If ever it
should be entered again by living man, which I do not think probable,
he will find tokens of our visit in the open chests of jewels, the
empty lamp, and the white bones of poor Foulata.

When we had groped our way for about a quarter of an hour along the
passage, suddenly it took a sharp turn, or else was bisected by
another, which we followed, only in course of time to be led into a
third. And so it went on for some hours. We seemed to be in a stone
labyrinth that led nowhere. What all these passages are, of course I
cannot say, but we thought that they must be the ancient workings of a
mine, of which the various shafts and adits travelled hither and
thither as the ore led them. This is the only way in which we could
account for such a multitude of galleries.

At length we halted, thoroughly worn out with fatigue and with that
hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, and ate up our poor
remaining piece of biltong and drank our last sup of water, for our
throats were like lime-kilns. It seemed to us that we had escaped Death
in the darkness of the treasure chamber only to meet him in the
darkness of the tunnels.

As we stood, once more utterly depressed, I thought that I caught a
sound, to which I called the attention of the others. It was very faint
and very far off, but it _was_ a sound, a faint, murmuring sound, for
the others heard it too, and no words can describe the blessedness of
it after all those hours of utter, awful stillness.

"By heaven! it's running water," said Good. "Come on."

Off we started again in the direction from which the faint murmur
seemed to come, groping our way as before along the rocky walls. I
remember that I laid down the basket full of diamonds, wishing to be
rid of its weight, but on second thoughts took it up again. One might
as well die rich as poor, I reflected. As we went the sound became more
and more audible, till at last it seemed quite loud in the quiet. On,
yet on; now we could distinctly make out the unmistakable swirl of
rushing water. And yet how could there be running water in the bowels
of the earth? Now we were quite near it, and Good, who was leading,
swore that he could smell it.

"Go gently, Good," said Sir Henry, "we must be close." _Splash!_ and a
cry from Good.

He had fallen in.

"Good! Good! where are you?" we shouted, in terrified distress. To our
intense relief an answer came back in a choky voice.

"All right; I've got hold of a rock. Strike a light to show me where
you are."

Hastily I lit the last remaining match. Its faint gleam discovered to
us a dark mass of water running at our feet. How wide it was we could
not see, but there, some way out, was the dark form of our companion
hanging on to a projecting rock.

"Stand clear to catch me," sung out Good. "I must swim for it."

Then we heard a splash, and a great struggle. Another minute and he had
grabbed at and caught Sir Henry's outstretched hand, and we had pulled
him up high and dry into the tunnel.

"My word!" he said, between his gasps, "that was touch and go. If I
hadn't managed to catch that rock, and known how to swim, I should have
been done. It runs like a mill-race, and I could feel no bottom."

We dared not follow the banks of the subterranean river for fear lest
we should fall into it again in the darkness. So after Good had rested
a while, and we had drunk our fill of the water, which was sweet and
fresh, and washed our faces, that needed it sadly, as well as we could,
we started from the banks of this African Styx, and began to retrace
our steps along the tunnel, Good dripping unpleasantly in front of us.
At length we came to another gallery leading to our right.

"We may as well take it," said Sir Henry wearily; "all roads are alike
here; we can only go on till we drop."

Slowly, for a long, long while, we stumbled, utterly exhausted, along
this new tunnel, Sir Henry now leading the way. Again I thought of
abandoning that basket, but did not.

Suddenly he stopped, and we bumped up against him.

"Look!" he whispered, "is my brain going, or is that light?"

We stared with all our eyes, and there, yes, there, far ahead of us,
was a faint, glimmering spot, no larger than a cottage window pane. It
was so faint that I doubt if any eyes, except those which, like ours,
had for days seen nothing but blackness, could have perceived it at all.

With a gasp of hope we pushed on. In five minutes there was no longer
any doubt; it _was_ a patch of faint light. A minute more and a breath
of real live air was fanning us. On we struggled. All at once the
tunnel narrowed. Sir Henry went on his knees. Smaller yet it grew, till
it was only the size of a large fox's earth--it was _earth_ now, mind
you; the rock had ceased.

A squeeze, a struggle, and Sir Henry was out, and so was Good, and so
was I, dragging Foulata's basket after me; and there above us were the
blessed stars, and in our nostrils was the sweet air. Then suddenly
something gave, and we were all rolling over and over and over through
grass and bushes and soft, wet soil.

The basket caught in something and I stopped. Sitting up I halloed
lustily. An answering shout came from below, where Sir Henry's wild
career had been checked by some level ground. I scrambled to him, and
found him unhurt, though breathless. Then we looked for Good. A little
way off we discovered him also, hammed in a forked root. He was a good
deal knocked about, but soon came to himself.

We sat down together, there on the grass, and the revulsion of feeling
was so great that really I think we cried with joy. We had escaped from
that awful dungeon, which was so near to becoming our grave. Surely
some merciful Power guided our footsteps to the jackal hole, for that
is what it must have been, at the termination of the tunnel. And see,
yonder on the mountains the dawn we had never thought to look upon
again was blushing rosy red.

Presently the grey light stole down the slopes, and we saw that we were
at the bottom, or rather, nearly at the bottom, of the vast pit in
front of the entrance to the cave. Now we could make out the dim forms
of the three Colossi who sat upon its verge. Doubtless those awful
passages, along which we had wandered the livelong night, had been
originally in some way connected with the great diamond mine. As for
the subterranean river in the bowels of the mountain, Heaven only knows
what it is, or whence it flows, or whither it goes. I, for one, have no
anxiety to trace its course.

Lighter it grew, and lighter yet. We could see each other now, and such
a spectacle as we presented I have never set eyes on before or since.
Gaunt-cheeked, hollow-eyed wretches, smeared all over with dust and
mud, bruised, bleeding, the long fear of imminent death yet written on
our countenances, we were, indeed, a sight to frighten the daylight.
And yet it is a solemn fact that Good's eye-glass was still fixed in
Good's eye. I doubt whether he had ever taken it out at all. Neither
the darkness, nor the plunge in the subterranean river, nor the roll
down the slope, had been able to separate Good and his eye-glass.

Presently we rose, fearing that our limbs would stiffen if we stopped
there longer, and commenced with slow and painful steps to struggle up
the sloping sides of the great pit. For an hour or more we toiled
steadfastly up the blue clay, dragging ourselves on by the help of the
roots and grasses with which it was clothed. But now I had no more
thought of leaving the basket; indeed, nothing but death should have
parted us.

At last it was done, and we stood by the great road, on that side of
the pit which is opposite to the Colossi.

At the side of the road, a hundred yards off, a fire was burning in
front of some huts, and round the fire were figures. We staggered
towards them, supporting one another, and halting every few paces.
Presently one of the figures rose, saw us and fell on to the ground,
crying out for fear.

"Infadoos, Infadoos! it is we, thy friends."

He rose; he ran to us, staring wildly, and still shaking with fear.

"Oh, my lords, my lords, it is indeed you come back from the
dead!--come back from the dead!"

And the old warrior flung himself down before us, and clasping Sir
Henry's knees, he wept aloud for joy.



Chapters 17 and 18
While the explorers recover from their fright at the sights before them, Gagool busies herself by climbing atop the large table and addressing the dead Twala. Then she makes her way around the room to address the other fallen kings, but her words are unintelligible to the others. Gagool then squats beneath the figure of the White Death, presumably praying to it. Quatermain reminds Gagool to lead them to the treasure chamber. Gagool taunts them by asking whether or not they are afraid. She leads them to an apparently blank wall, and she secretly trips a switch that causes the rock face of the wall to ascent into the ceiling above. Before letting them enter, Gagool tells the men of another traveler whom "Gagaoola the old" led into this chamber long ago. Quatermain identifies the treasure-seeker as da Silvestra, surprising Gagool. She continues the tale, in which the man and his female companion entered the treasure chamber with a goat skin bag Gagool told them about, confirming the witch's story. The sight of the skin full of diamonds awes the men for a moment. Sir Henry takes the lamp from Gagool, and the men enter the chamber. Within the chamber they find a ceiling-high stack of elephant tusks, extending back beyond sight into the chamber. On the opposite side of the chamber they see about twenty wooden boxes, each one full of gold coins with Hebrew letters stamped on them. At first they find no other diamonds than the ones in the goat skin, but Gagool directs them to a nook in which rest three stone chests, two sealed and one open. Investigating, the men find the open chest mostly full of uncut diamonds. Opening the second and third chests, the men find the second full to the top with diamonds and the third only partially full, but of the largest diamonds of the lot. Awed by their newfound wealth, the men do not notice Gagool's hasty departure. Only Foulata's cry of warning alerts them that she is escaping and has set the stone doorway to closing. Foulata attempts to stop Gagool's exit, but Gagool stabs her. Nonetheless, Foulata's efforts delay Gagool long enough that the witch does not make it through the door before the tons of stone drop upon her, killing her instantly. The fatally injured Foulata asks Quatermain to translate her dying words to Good. Quatermain does so, and Foulata declares her love and her understanding that Good's own adoration of her was not destined to last long; nevertheless, she is grateful for her time with him. Foulata dies and Good is upset, but he does not see the impending doom until Quatermain points out that Good's own death will likely follow Foulata's soon, for they are buried alive. The men take stock of their grim situation. They console themselves that Gagool has met with justice, but are nonetheless disheartened at their own apparent doom. They know Infadoos will search for them eventually, but know that he is not going to find the secret to opening a hidden door that he is not even aware exists. The men somberly divide their food and prepare for their deaths. Their lamp-flame suddenly grows brighter, illuminating Foulata's dead body, and goes out completely. Quatermain, Sir Henry, and Good settle into a state of despair over their situation. The utter darkness and complete silence unnerve them. They clutch at straws for hope in their dire circumstances, even going so far as sending Good to cry out at the stone doorway in the hope that Infadoos will hear them. There is no response, of course, so they divide up their food and eat a slight amount to sustain their seeming last hours. Overcome by desolation, Quatermain and Good rest their heads on Sir Henry's shoulders and weep. Sir Henry, mindless of his own despair, comforts them by telling them stories of men who had escaped from near-death circumstances and, when those fail to relieve their misery, reminds them that everyone dies some time and it is only the anticipation of that moment that is dreadful. Hours later, Quatermain observes that the air in this sealed chamber remains fresh; therefore there must be some way for air to enter. Seizing on this hope, the men scramble through the dark chamber in search of the airway. Sir Henry and Quatermain give up after several minor injuries, but Good locates the air flow. Lighting a match, the men find a stone ring inset into the floor. Sir Henry, with help from Quatermain and Good, pulls the stone ring up, revealing a stone trap door with stairs beneath. The men gather their remaining food and water and venture into the unknown depths. On their way out of the chamber, Quatermain grabs two handfuls of diamonds and places them in his coat pockets; Good and Sir Henry are too focused on survival to care about such things. At the bottom of the stairs the men find a tunnel extending both right and left. They decide to go against the flow of air, reasoning that air flows from the outside in and not the other way around. For a long time they follow the winding tunnel, fearful that it will only lead them back where they started. Then they hear the sound of running water and become excited at the prospect of escape. In the darkness, Good takes a misstep and falls into the underground river. Sir Henry pulls Good out, but Good's experience has convinced him that the river is too dangerous to be used as a means of escape. They retrace their steps and find a tunnel stretching out to the right. Resigned at the hopelessness of making a reasonable choice of direction, the men follow the tunnel. Soon they spy a glimmer of light ahead and make haste toward it. The hewn tunnel gives way to earth, and the find the light comes through a small hole, probably dug by some animal. They widen the hole and in a matter of minutes escape the dark tunnels into the bright world outside. When the Kukuanas see them rise from the earth, they are awed and frightened at these seemingly supernatural beings. Only after the men address Infadoos and explain who they are do the Kukuanas relax and help the men be restored from their perilous adventure.
The tone of Chapter 17 foreshadows the formula for Saturday matinee serials, which usually ended on a cliffhanger between episodes.  The treacherous villain, the discovery of treasure, the botched escape by the killer, the sacrifice of the innocent woman, and the impending doom on the protagonists are all used by later authors and film-makers as integral parts of adventure thrillers.  Haggard was not the first or only writer to use these motifs, but he did become the most popular--and therefore the most influential--writer of adventure tales in his time. Gagool experiences a moment of surprise when Quatermain correctly identifies Silvestra.  His knowledge, she must admit, can sometimes be a match for her own.  However, she still maintains the superior position in her knowledge of the secret entrance to the treasure chamber.  Information is the key to Gagool's power, but she has been displaced from influencing the king of all Kukuanaland to attempting to save her own life.  Her treachery casts her in the most evil light of all the characters--even Twala would not kill these men through deceit--but also results in her own destruction.  The innocent and beautiful Foulata is the agent of Gagool's death.  Her inability to keep up with the men proves fortunate, as she alone sees Gagool's hasty departure.  Her struggle with the crone keep Gagool from making her way through the door in time--the wise woman is crushed by her own deadly device. Just as honor and right conquered Twala in the previous battle, so does beauty and innocence crush the wicked Gagool. That the men did not noticed Gagool's escape at first is a testimony to her craftiness, but also an indication of the men's love of wealth.  They are distracted by the diamonds of King Solomon's mines--to busy picturing what they might do with such wealth to keep their eyes on the situation before them.  The next chapter will further develop the problem of material possessions for the men. Quatermain reiterates his own self-evaluation given their seemingly hopeless situation:  "The bravest man on earth might well quail from such a fate as awaited us--and I never had any great pretensions to be brave" .  All three men are given to despair at their imminent death by starvation of asphyxiation, but Sir Henry is able to rally himself and comfort the other two.  In an unusual and touching scene, Sir Henry attempts to assuage the two weeping men's fears:  "Had we been two frightened children, and he our nurse, he could not have treated us more tenderly.  Forgetting his own share of miseries, he did all he could to soothe our broken nerves." .  Sir Henry's paternal treatment of the other two men leads Quatermain to declare, "His is a beautiful character, very quiet, but very strong" .  Since Sir Henry Curtis has been established as the ideal of manhood in the novel, this moment of nurturing shows another facet to the "true man" Haggard wishes to present.  Sir Henry is willing and able to fight when necessary--even to kill for a righteous cause--but he is equally able to put aside his own despair to tenderly care for others in pain.  In this moment Sir Henry changes from the two-dimensional warrior-hero into a more fully rounded character. Although the men panic and give in to depression at their plight, in the end, their own minds offer them the key to escape.  Through an application of basic science--identifying that there must be a source of air and then searching for it--the men find the passage out of the treasure chamber and to possible freedom.  Again, European scientific thinking has triumphed where sinister and secretive knowledge sought to prevail. The previous chapter and this one together form the "belly of the whale" or "journey to the underworld" phase of the heroic quest for Quatermain and his companions.  The men literally descend into the darkness under the earth, and then emerge through an animal's burrow.  The imagery is clearly one of rebirth, as the men leave the womb of earth and are born anew into the world of fresh air and starlight.  They have died--figuratively--and now have a second chance at a new life.  Quatermain, however, holds on to his old life in at least one aspect:  before leaving the treasure chamber, he grabs a handful of diamonds and secreted them in his coat pocket.