When they reached the waiting explorers, who being without adequate light could not come to meet them, Lucia was no longer walking with her cousin's arm, but following, as he preceded her, swinging the lantern. The way had grown rough and unequal; sudden unexpected descents made the walking difficult amidst the jagged edges of the crag and fragments long ago fallen from the roof; climbing the acclivity, on which they still stood, she was now and again fain to clutch at a projection of rock to assist her steps, and, although she was rarely light and active, and kept up well with Frank's long stride, he carefully handled the lantern to afford her all the light possible. It seemed to Lloyd, however, that she needed more effective assistance, and, as soon as their proximity made it possible, he advanced to meet them, as the crafty Frank had anticipated, and offered her his arm. Frank turned for a moment, surveying this arrangement, as if he had not expected it; then, addressing the mountaineer, but still keeping the lantern in his own hands, he said bluffly, "Come on, old Sport—we'll take the lead. Guide us to that marble palace we were thinking of buying when we turned back."
"It has got marble palaces beat to a frazzle," Lloyd chimed in enthusiastically.
She noted with a pang, half gratulation, half grief, that he asked no questions as to the others. He had no curiosity as to their reasons for declining the excursion. He seemed not even aware of their absence—to him all had come since she was here. She felt the strength of his support, his sure-footed agility, and moved on swiftly and easily on his arm. But she could not, by lagging, find an opportunity for her confidential whisper. When sharp, jagged rocks intervened in the path, and she slackened her pace, the mountaineer seemed to observe it immediately, and accommodated his gait to theirs, although, once or twice, Frank, forging on with the lantern, the way being obvious, a canon-like interval, between great, beetling cliffs, left them so far behind that Lloyd called a halt.
"Remember Miss Laniston," he admonished the youth. "You are not walking for a purse." Then, jocularly, "That lantern is not your personal property—it doesn't look well for you to make off with it like that."
Somehow, on Lloyd's arm, Lucia forgot to be afraid. The terrible glooms had a certain gruesome picturesqueness that no longer appalled her. She could look up into the infinite vaults of the darkness, and her hope, her soul, no longer fainted within her. The lantern, like a tiny star, lucently white, with a rayonnant halo about its focus, showed vast, rugged, crag-shaped forms looming indistinctly in these undreamed-of subterranean realms, and now the path skirted an abyss of unimagined depth, and now toiled up an ascent, mountain-like in its vague immensity, but she had no tremors, no thought of regret for the bland outer air, and the bliss of the candid sunshine. She trusted implicitly to him. She knew that he was ignorant, all untrained mentally, sadly neglected, hardly used by Fate, but she relied on the inherent strength of his judgment, his fine, bright, native intellect, his optimism, his simple valiance in the fight of life. She did not doubt that she would have presently an opportunity to disclose the facts to him, to communicate her warning, and she was sure that he would instantly know the best course to pursue, and that he would have the courage and the dexterity to make it effective. She realised his high moral qualities, so rare in these days that they seemed like a special gift. His unselfishness would take due account of her, of Frank—his magnanimity would even spare the murderous mountaineer, unless, indeed, their safety, their lives were the price of his.
So restored, indeed, were her faculties, that she was the first to note the sudden responsive light, as the far-reaching gleam of the lantern struck out the glitter of calc-spar. "See there!" she cried. "What is that?"
"We are coming again to the palace, I do believe," said Frank, as if surprised.
"Wa-al," observed the surly guide, stopping short, "warn't ye lowin' ez ye wanted ter go the same way? I kin show ye other ways—ef so be ye'd like ter travel 'em; a short cut ter nowhar."
Frank was conscious of having expressed unintentionally, in his surprise, his lurking suspicions, and his answer was not readily forthcoming. But Lloyd discriminated the note of offence in the guide's voice, and sought to re-establish harmonious relations.
"That is all right—just what we want to show the lydy," he said cheerily. "But I don't call it the marble palace," he continued, addressing himself directly to Lucia; "it is the 'Hall of Heroes'—you will see why directly,—and, oh, what a stage-setting it would make."