"Well, upon my word, Lucia Laniston," he said severely—and a hundred distant voices were repeating, "Lucia Laniston! Lucia Laniston!" while she hung upon his arm, vaguely flinching from the echoes and seeking to stop her ears. "I'll never take you with me anywhere again, as long as I live! There is no danger. What are you crying for—answer me that?"
And the darkness conjured her—"Answer me that?"
"Oh, Frank," she whispered: she could not speak aloud for the echoes—even the sibilance that followed her words made her now and then shrink away and look back. Then she put both hands on one of his shoulders, and stood on tip-toe to bring her lips close to his ear, "We must look out for that mountaineer. We have recognised him at last—both Ruth and I. He is the man whom we noticed in disguise at the concert where that girl sang and danced, and who afterward tried to kill Mr. Lloyd in the Ferris Wheel!"
"The devil he is!" exclaimed Frank, stopping short, disconcerted and dismayed.
"The devil he is—he is—he is—he is the devil!" The echoes reiterated the words with a distracting distinctness, and she put her hand over Frank's lips.
"The next time you speak—whisper," she admonished him. "I expected,—Mr. Jardine expected that he would kill Mr. Lloyd while you were gone."
"It must be that he has got no pistol," Frank surmised decisively. "And that's strange, for these fellows all carry their 'shootin' iron' in the leg of their left boot. That's the only reason, I dare swear. By sheer strength, he couldn't. Lloyd could throw him from here to New Helvetia. He doubtless expected to take Lloyd by surprise, and suddenly push him over into an abyss, and didn't get the opportunity. He saw enough of athletes at the carnival to know he would be outmatched in a fair fight. Treachery or a pistol was his only chance. But why on earth did not Jardine tell me?"
"He tried—he tried—but you wouldn't wait a minute—you wouldn't hear a word."
Even in the dim light Frank's face showed crestfallen, dispirited, mortified.
"I'm sorry you came—but we must make the best of it. See here, Lucia, when we join them, do you get close to Lloyd and very quietly tell him—don't choke him, like you did me; you've pretty near strangled me, clutching me by the collar that way—but whisper the facts to him. Very quietly, mind you. We mustn't excite the suspicions of that miscreant. Our safety may depend on his thinking that we do not recognise him. Let Lloyd know, and walk with him, and I'll keep right along with Mister Mountain-Man. We will only make a feint of seeing the cave—just to avoid precipitating some rascality—and take the first chance to get out of this as soon as possible."