“Perhaps he was not there,” I suggested.
“Perhaps not: I don’t know. I heard a noise in the grotto.”
“And you did not enter?” demanded Arthur Rance.
“No,” replied Rouletabille, quietly. “But you do not think that it was because I was afraid of him, do you?”
“Let us run!” we all cried in one breath, rising at the same moment. “Let us go and finish up the business immediately.”
“I don’t think that we shall ever have a better chance of meeting Larsan,” said Arthur Rance. “We can do what we like with him at the bottom of Rochers Rouges.”
Darzac and Arthur Rance were already starting off; I waited to see what Rouletabille would say. He calmed the two men with a gesture, and begged them to be seated again.
“It is necessary to remember,” he said, “that Larsan would have acted exactly as he has done if he had wished to lure us to-night to the grotto of Rochers Rouges. He has shown himself to us; he has landed almost under our eyes at the Point of Garibaldi; he might as well have shouted under our windows, ‘You know I am at Rochers Rouges. I’ll wait for you there.’ He would have been neither more explicit or more eloquent.”
“You went to Rochers Rouges,” resumed Arthur Rance, who I saw was deeply impressed with the arguments of Rouletabille—“and he did not show himself. He hid himself, meditating on some horrible crime to be committed to-night. We must have him out of that grotto.”
“Doubtless,” replied Rouletabille, “my promenade to Rochers Rouges produced no result because I was all alone—but if we all go, I can assure you that we shall find some results on our return.”