“It means that we are deserted to perish on the bosom of this awful buried lake!” came from the professor, in something like a moan. “I am to blame! I brought you here!”
“But whatever could be the object?” questioned Brad, in a puzzled tone. “If it’s robbery——”
“It’s a plot—a plot, boys! We are objects of suspicion. That agent of the secret police suspected us of something. In this awful city to be suspected is to be doomed.”
“I can’t realize it yet,” muttered Dick. “How could the guide get out of the boat?”
“I’ll strike another match, pard,” said the Texan. “Keep your gun ready for use.”
“There are other torches,” reminded Dick. “We placed them in the bottom of the boat. Find them, Brad, and light one.”
During the interval that followed the Texan was heard feeling about the bottom of the boat. After a time he confessed:
“I can’t seem to get my paws on them. I’ll have to use another match. The light will show us where they are.”
Another match was lighted, but, though it was held and moved about to illumine the bottom of the boat, not a torch was discovered. When they realized that the extinguished torches were gone they sat up and looked into one another’s eyes by the last gleams of the exhausted match, which Buckhart held until the blaze scorched his fingers.
For some moments silence followed.