They did
not talk much, for they were too worried. Finally Ned gasped:
"I'd give a good deal for a drink of water."
"So would I," added his chum. "But what's the use of wishing? If there
was a spring down here it would be salt water. But I know what I would
do--if I could."
"What?" asked Mr. Damon.
"Go back to the prison. At least we wouldn't starve there, and we'd have
something to drink. If they kept us we know we could get
free--sometime."
"Perhaps never!" exclaimed Ivan Petrofsky. "It is better to keep on
here, and, as for me, I would rather die here than go back to a Russian
prison. We must--we shall get out!"
But it was idle talk. Gradually they lost track of time as they
staggered on, and they hardly knew whether a day had passed or whether
it was but a few hours since they had been lost.
Of their sufferings in that salt mine I shall not go into details. There
are enough unpleasant things in this world without telling about that.
They must have wandered around for at least a day and a half, and in all
that while they had not a drop of water, and not a thing to eat. Wait,
though, at last in their desperation they did gnaw the tallow candles,
and that served to keep them alive, and, in a measure, alleviate their
awful sufferings from thirst.
Back and forth they wandered, up and down in the galleries of the old
salt mine.
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