"We brought it," he explained, "so as not to break our shins over bits of long Mabel among the rhododendrons."
"Now," said Gerald very firmly, striking a match and opening the thick, rounded glass front of the bicycle lamp, "I don't know what the rest of you are going to do, but I'm going down these steps and along this passage. If we find the good hotel--well, a good hotel never hurt any one yet."
"It's no good, you know," said Jimmy weakly; "you know jolly well you can't get out of that Temple of Flora door, even if you get to it."
"I _don't_ know," said Gerald, still brisk and commander-like; "there's a secret spring inside that door most likely. We hadn't a lamp last time to look for it, remember."
"If there's one thing I do hate it's under-groundness," said Mabel.
"_You're_ not a coward," said Gerald, with what is known as diplomacy. "_You're_ brave, Mabel. Don't I know it! You hold Jimmy's hand and I'll hold Cathy's. Now then."
"I won't have _my_ hand held," said Jimmy, of course. "I'm not a kid."
"Well, Cathy will. Poor little Cathy! Nice brother Jerry'll hold poor Cathy's hand."
Gerald's bitter sarcasm missed fire here, for Cathy gratefully caught the hand he held out in mockery. She was too miserable to read his mood, as she mostly did. "Oh, thank you, Jerry dear," she said gratefully; "you _are_ a dear, and I _will_ try not to be frightened." And for quite a minute Gerald shamedly felt that he had not been quite, quite kind.
So now, leaving the growing goldness of the sunrise, the four went down the stone steps that led to the underground and underwater passage, and everything seemed to grow dark and then to grow into a poor pretence of light again, as the splendour of dawn gave place to the small dogged lighting of the bicycle lamp. The steps did indeed lead to a passage, the beginnings of it choked with the drifted dead leaves of many old autumns. But presently the passage took a turn, there were more steps, down, down, and then the passage was empty and straight--lined above and below and on each side with slabs of marble, very clear and clean. Gerald held Cathy's hand with more of kindness and less of exasperation than he had supposed possible.
And Cathy, on her part, was surprised to find it possible to be so much less frightened than she expected.