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er the great beyond after an audacious atteo out like a dishrag, he concluded Perhaps other adventurous explorers would give up everything they owned for the honor of entering this ical sanctuet out He rose to his feet, inflated the buoyancy compensator with his breath and walked into the water until he was adrift in the current that carried hi

Just take it one cavern at a tiht on the water ahead There was no relying on eternal vigilance He was too weak to fight rapids and fend off rocks He could only be calo wherever the current took hiallery to another for a lifetime

The roof of the caverns and galleries rose and fell with ularity for the next 10

kilometers (62rapids Thankfully, the first chute Pitt encountered was of ainst his face and he went under churning froth several tiain

He was granted a coh one long canyon in an iallery When he reached the end nearly an hour later, the roof gradually sloped down until it touched the water He filled his lungs to the last crowdedhis swiged rock roof and swaen, but he swaht revealed an air pocket He shot to the surface and htily inhaled the pure, unpolluted air that had been trapped deep beneath the earth o

The s arched beyond the beaht

The river ravel Pitt crawled painfully onto the dry area to rest He turned off the light to prolong the life of the batteries

Abruptly, he flicked the flash on again Soht blinked out So was there, not 5 ht line aberrant to natural geometrics

Pitt's spirits soared as he recognized the battered re Incredibly, the Hovercraft had coh the horrific fall over the cataract and had been cast up here after drifting nearly 40 kiloravel beach to the rubber hull and exaht

The engine and fan had been torn fro Two of the air cha six still held firm Some of the equipment ept away, but four air tanks, the first-aid kit, Duncan's plastic ball of colored water dye tracer, one of Giordino's paddles, two extra flashlights, and the waterproof container with Adna sandwiches had miraculously survived

"It seems my state of affairs has considerably improved," Pitt said happily to nobody but the empty cavern

He began with the first-aid kit After liberally soaking the shoulder wound with disinfectant, he aardly applied a crude bandage on it inside his tattered wet suit Knowing it was useless to bind fractured ribs, he gritted his teeth, set his wrist and taped it

The coffee had retained most of its heat inside the ther the sandwiches No nac, tasted better than this bologna, Pitt decided Then and there he vowed never to coain

After a brief rest, a goodly h to resecure the equipment and break open Duncan's plastic dye container He scattered Fluorescein Yelloith Optical Brightener into the water Under the beaht he watched until the dye stained the river with a vivid yellow luminescence He stood and watched until the current swept it out of sight

"That should tell theht aloud