Lives of Alcyone

which proved on their return to the upper world to be of great rarity.
These people, who might be said to be a little more advanced,
sometimes smeared themselves with colour, for there was coloured
mud to be found in connection with the boiling springs. We noticed a
sort of rose-colour, green, and yellow (which may have been
sulphur); it was something like the “ paint-pots” in the Yellowstone
Park. To swoop out the mud these people used flat stones.
Eventually our friends found their way back, with great
difficulty, to the hoe by which they had entered the cavity. They had
still some of their original food, though it was hard and dry, and they
also took with some of the fungus. They made a fresh bundle of
torches out of the bamboo, but they were not satisfactory, as they
often went out. However, they were able to relight them, as they
carried with them the primitive instrument for fire-making which they
had brought with them—a stick and string and a little cup. At last
they struggled up to the surface again, but with great difficulty in
climbing, and came out into the daylight dazzled and bewildered.
Indeed, they had to remain in the cavern for more than a day, in
order to get their eyes gradually used to the daylight. They had a
curious feeling of sickness, arising apparently from the change in the
density of the air; this sickness, lasted for a good many hours, but
they were thankful indeed to get back again.
The voice told Alcyone that this experience was necessary for
him, that now he had a wider knowledge of the possibilities of life
and evolution, so that he might understand and sympathise more
fully, and that later on he would know more about all this. But now
he was to go home again, to rejoin his family, and to prepare himself
for another great trial which was to come. The two friends agreed to
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