Something lying on the rock-ledge, near the fire, caught his eye. He snatched it up.
“What--what can this mean?”
The colonists stood, frightened and confused, peering at him in the dark. His face, in the ruddy fire-glow, as he studied the thing he now held in his hand, must have been very terrible.
“Cloth! Torn! But--but then--”
He flung from him the bit of the girl's cloak which, ripped and shredded as though by a powerful hand, cried disaster.
“Beatrice!” he shouted. “Where are you? Beatrice!”
To the doorway in the cliff he ran, shaken and trembling.
The stone had been pushed away; it lay inside the cave. Ominously the black entrance seemed staring at him in the dull gleam of the firelight.
On hands and knees he fell, and hastily crawled through. As he went, he flashed his lamp here, there, everywhere.
“Beatrice! Beatrice!”