He was a German, but a good miner for all that, and quite right about an ‘iron hat,’ for them’s the best reefs. But,” Williams goes on as he heaves a sigh, “blest if this is a real gozzen out-crop either. And, moreover, it ain’t likely-looking to my thinking.”
“Well, it can’t be helped,” says Claude, watching the stalwart old miner’s face with some amusement as he stands rubbing his stubby chin, and screwing up his mouth and eyebrows, like some art-critic engaged in reviewing an enormous piece of sculpture. “I’ll carry out the instructions in the letter, and if it all turns out to be nothing,—well, I can’t help it.”
Both men hear a shout at this instant, and Billy, who has climbed up the cliff a little way, is seen waving excitedly to the white men, and calling to them to follow him to his elevated perch. Claude is not long in scrambling up, but he has to descend again to assist Williams, whose knees are getting a bit stiff with age, although the muscles of his arms and shoulders are as good as ever. Arrived at Billy’s post of vantage, the black proudly shows them a remarkable tunnel opening into the cliff: it has smooth, shiny walls, and is evidently not the result of human labour.
“Look!” the dark youth shouts, stooping and pointing to the floor of the cavern, upon which the winds of heaven have spread a thin covering of desert sand; “look!”
A compound exclamation of surprise and annoyance bursts from two pairs of lips, for there, stamped into the soft, yellow carpeting of silicious particles, are the marks of numerous human feet. Not those that wandering natives might have made, but boot-marks, and, what is worst of all, apparently quite fresh.
“Somebody been here afore us,” exclaims Williams. Claude simply looks downwards, and whistles a musical execration.
Billy, who stands behind, grins extensively as he sees the discomfited faces of his white companions, and hesitates for the best part of a minute before he proceeds to relieve their minds. Then he whispers huskily,—
“That been the doctor come along here.”
“Dr. Dyesart! What on earth do you mean?” exclaims Claude excitedly, as the wild hope of his uncle still being alive flashes through his brain. Billy, like most persons possessed of some superior instinct or talent, can hardly appreciate the fact that others may be deficient in the same, so he grins again when he finds that the white men are still unable to distinguish between an ancient and a recent footmark.
“How long since my uncle was here?” asks Angland sharply. But our hero’s hopes are dashed out of sight as Billy replies sadly,—