Rattleton was frantic.
Frank was looking for some way of getting down into the chamber.
Before either of them could discover a means of going to the assistance of the girl, Carter Morris, the strange old hermit, rushed into the cavern.
Morris sprang to the aid of the girl, but it seemed Bernard Belmont had been waiting for such a thing to happen, for he leaped out of the darkness and grappled with the hermit.
Then a savage battle took place before the eyes of the boys.
“Furies!” roared the man of the cave, writhing to break the grasp of his assailant. “Who are you?”
The girl got her mouth free from Apollo’s hand and screamed:
“It is my stepfather—it is Bernard Belmont!”
It seemed that those words filled the hermit with a mad frenzy. He struggled furiously, and Belmont was forced to exert all his strength to prevent himself from being overcome, although he was the assailant.
“We must go to the rescue, Frank—we must!” palpitated Rattleton.