good the discovery did us, I reflected bitterly. A thousand, two, three thousand yards—in that thin atmosphere it was impossible to gauge distances accurately—of pathless mountain lay between us and the idol. Indeed, I hardly gave the solving of the riddle more than a passing thought now; for my mind was engaged in the more urgent problem of how to extricate Marjorie in safety from the perilous pass to which I had brought her.
We could not remain on the rock indefinitely; that much was clear to me. Already, under the influence of the sun's rays beating ever more fiercely down on that exposed ledge, the pangs of thirst were making themselves felt. It was Marjorie who mentioned it first. She asked if we could find water anywhere. At our level I thought it was doubtful and told her so. Marjorie Garth, I discovered, was a girl who liked to be told the truth.
“What about that cave beyond the pillar?” she asked, leaning across me to point at the low opening I had remarked in the back wall of our ledge.
“While it's light,” I answered, “one of us must remain and guard the path. I don't know what their inaction means ... but we must be prepared for anything. Why don't you have a look at the cave? But go carefully; the roof seems very low.”
I gave her my hand and helped her up. She stepped across me, turned round and gave me a little smile, then bending down disappeared into the cave opening. And I, with my automatic in my hand, whilst I keenly watched the two little ribands of path below me, racked my brains to find a way out of our impasse. I would try and hold out till dark. If, by then, the Naomi had not come, we would endeavour, under cover of the night, to reach our cave on the shore and wait for her. If we were overpowered, I would capitulate and tell Clubfoot all I knew. In the meantime I should have to abandon my hunt for the treasure.
A faint sound behind me made me start. It was shrill but distant. I listened. I heard it again, and this time I recognized the call.
“Coo ... eee!”
It was Marjorie calling from the interior of the cave. With a quick glance at the path below, I scrambled to my feet. The entrance to the cave was not more than four feet high, and I had to bend almost double to enter. Within, for a few feet from the opening, there was enough light to see that the floor, brittle and crumbly, sloped down into a dark void. I felt my way cautiously along the side of the cave foot by foot, stooping low to avoid the roof and seeing nothing. Then, from somewhere far below, as it seemed at my very feet, the girl's cry went forth again:
“Coo ... eee!”
I stopped.
“Right!” I shouted. “Where are you?”
From far below the cry came up, faint and a little quavery.
“Down here in the dark and I don't like it! But I've found water! There are some steps cut in the rock!”
The lure of the water was irresistible. I glanced at the path, above which hung a trembling curtain of heat. It was still deserted. I judged that I might safely risk a quick dash into the cave to quench my burning thirst.
The cave narrowed as it receded into the rock and presently my foot shot out into space. I groped a bit and struck a shallow step. Then I suddenly remembered that I had a stump of candle in my pocket. I had picked it up on the previous evening when we had been loading the launch. An old campaigner never leaves candle-ends lying about. They are apt to come in useful—as witness this case.
So I struck a match and lit my bit of candle and peered down. The feeble ray only illumined a black void, a dark narrow shaft; but I saw that the steps descended almost sheer down one side. I was now able to stand erect, so, clutching the side of the rock with one hand and bearing my lighted candle in the other, I started the descent. And I counted as I went.
I had counted fourteen steps when suddenly the ground appeared to give beneath my feet, I clutched wildly at the side of the rock, my hand slipped over the smooth surface and with a soft rumble the whole of the steps seemed to slip away. My light was extinguished and in a shower of crumbling rock and a cloud of acrid dust, I slithered into the black shaft.
Well, I was blown sky-high once by a shell in France, and I remember struggling madly with mind and body, as it seemed when I looked back on the incident afterwards, against the invincible force which bore me upwards until I gave up the struggle ... and never even remembered the subsequent bump. But in this case, though I fought all the way to check my fall, I never lost consciousness, and I felt in every bone of my body the terrific jar I received on landing on my back on a hard rocky floor.