“It’s too thick with smoke to see yet, but it’s clearing fast.”
Wilton, who displayed more and more his disgust with the task his friends had set themselves, took the glass and began sweeping the sides of the depression, noting the cracks and gullies running up the cliff-face opposite in amongst the cell-like openings, all wonderfully clear and bright in the morning air, while Bourne and the doctor, encouraged by the discovery of the relic of the stone age, went on turning over the ashes in the next cell.
Meantime the party at the side of the square pit waited impatiently for the smoke to rise and float out beneath the overhanging portion of the cliff above the top range of cells, Griggs giving the lanthorn a wave now and then, sending it flying, pendulum-like, as far as he could reach without bringing it in contact with the smoothly-cut wall.
“Not much chance for anybody or anything to get out of here again if he was at the bottom, lads. It’s a regular trap,” he said.
“Yes, but take care, or you’ll be breaking the lanthorn,” said Chris warningly.
“Nay, I won’t do that, my lad,” replied Griggs quietly. “But I say, squire, did you aim at its head or its tail?”
“I aimed at the part I saw moving,” said Ned. “Can you see it yet?”
“Nay. Can you?”
“No.”
“I’m afraid you shot at nothing,” said Griggs, with a laugh, “and you haven’t killed it.”