"Who is it?" she called wildly. "M. Hewlett! My father!"
I caught her as she swayed toward me. "He has gone, Jacqueline," I said. "I went into the tunnel to try to find the way. He had been feigning sleep, and he crept after me. I tried to stop him. He was so frightened that I thought it best to let him go. He ran on into the tunnel——"
"We must find him," she said.
"He will come back, Jacqueline."
"He will never come back!" she answered. "He must have been planning this and waiting for me to sleep. For years he brooded over his danger, suspecting everybody, and the shock of last night unhinged his mind. He may be hiding somewhere. We must search for him."
"Let us go, then, Jacqueline," I answered.
In fact, there seemed to be no use in remaining any longer. If Pierre were on his way back, we ought to meet him in the tunnel; and if he had been captured, delay spelled ruin.
So I led her back into the tunnel on what was to be, I hoped, our final journey. We reached the ledge. The star had faded now, and the whole sky was bright with the red clouds of dawn.
Very cautiously we picked our way across the platform, clinging to the wall. It was a hideous journey over the slippery ice, beneath the thunder of the cataract; and when at length we reached the tunnel on the other side, I was shaking like a man with a palsy.
But, thank God, that nightmare was past. And with renewed confidence I went on through the darkness, with Jacqueline at my side, feeling my way by the deeper depression in the ground along the centre of the tubular passage.