“Not room for a rat, sir. Seems as if he must have been left behind and felt his way in there to sleep. Look here, sir; I found these too.”
The speaker held out a short black pipe with a little blackened, lately-smoked tobacco at the bottom, and a tin box containing plenty of matches.
“Why, he had all these and never said a word when I was so hard pushed,” cried Dickenson.
“I expect he was in too much of a stoo to remember them, sir,” said the sergeant. “He must have been precious queer, or he wouldn’t have left these and his helmet behind.”
“He was nearly off his chump, sergeant, with having to come down,” said the man with the short memory.
“Then he has been here!” cried Captain Roby. “But where is he now?”
As if moved by one impulse, every one present turned sharply round to look in the direction of the archway beyond which the sloping continuation of the entrance-pit went on down to the running water. No one spoke, but all thought horrors; and Lennox acted, for, snatching a lantern from the nearest bearer, he ran as fast as the rugged floor would let him, back to the archway, took hold of the tree-trunk, and leaned over the horrible hole, swinging the light downward, while those who watched him, looking weird and strange in the distance, heard him shout loudly, and listened to hear, very faintly rising from far below, a faintly uttered, hollow moan.