Chariots to Jordan by James E. Harrison

Author:James E. Harrison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bible, Kings, Miracle, Leprosy, Heal, Naaman, God, LDS, Christian, Disease, Jordan, River, Salvation, Elisha, Prophet, Faith, Historical
Publisher: Covenant Communications, Inc.
Published: 2014-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Not a particle of sunlight permeated the black rock of the cavern, and Miriam waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim light of the lamps. She couldn’t see the small stream on the far side of the cave, but she could hear the water trickling over small rocks. She held her lamp high above her head, expanding the fragile circle of light to reveal black walls and a domed ceiling twenty feet above her. The room was roughly rectangular, much wider than deep, and larger than she expected. It was probably three or four times the size of the home they had just left. A slight draft kissed the back of her neck, and she watched the small flame of the lamp dance to confirm there was air moving through the darkness.

She shuffled cautiously toward the back of the cave until the light illuminated the rear wall. Piles of rock were strewn against the lower portions of the wall, but above them she was surprised to see what resembled a series of chiseled steps that disappeared up into the darkness. “That’s our back door,” Gideon said from the shadows. “Climb up those steps, and you’ll find a narrow shaft leading outside.”

The thought of a second way out of the cave was somehow reassuring to her. “How large is the shaft?” she asked.

“You can get through it easily, Mother,” came Uzzi’s voice.

“How do you know?” Miriam asked.

Uzzi chuckled. “Hanan, Caleb, and I have explored all these caves many, many times. We know them all, and this is by far the best.”

“What makes it the best?” Gili asked innocently. “To me it’s dark and scary.”

“Well,” Uzzi said, suddenly proud to be an authority on the caves, “first of all, it has not two but three ways out.” He walked forward with his lamp until its pale yellow light shone on a dark hole into which the small stream disappeared. “If you don’t mind getting a little wet, you can scoot on your back into the next cave. It’s too small to belly-crawl; you must go on your back. You’re in total darkness, but it’s only about thirty feet. Inside the next cave is a small opening in the roof, and you can climb a pile of rocks and get outside.”

“You’ve done that?” Miriam felt a sense of claustrophobia sweep over her at the thought of inching her way through a tunnel in total darkness, on her back, with her nose and shoulders only inches from solid rock.

“Oh sure,” Uzzi replied, “we all have.”

“What else makes this ideal?” Miriam asked.

“You can’t see it and no sunlight comes in, but there’s a natural vent in the ceiling. When you light a fire in just the right place, the smoke rises in a column and goes outside.”

“How do you know that?” Miriam asked in amazement.

Caleb let out a short exasperated sigh. “Because we’ve done it,” he said. “What do you think we did when we came down to these caves, just walked

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.