At length I saw daylight ahead of me—and there was no sound of the torrents.
Fortune had led us where I had wanted her to lead—into the open space where the gold was. From there I knew that I could strike the passage which led into the sleigh road under the hills. Half an hour's travel ought to bring us to the rocking stone at the entrance, and safety.
But I found that I had entered the mine from a third point, and that some forty feet away from the place where I had emerged before. This time we were inside the cave in which Leroux and Lacroix had piled the sacks of earth.
I was looking out beyond them toward the rivulet, and on my right hand and on my left the tunnel stretched away, leading respectively toward the château and to the rocking stone at the entrance.
I left Jacqueline in the cave for a few moments and went into the smaller one near by, where I had seen the provisions on the preceding day. I found a small box of hard biscuit, with which I stuffed the pockets of my coat, and, happier still, a small revolver and some cartridges, to which I helped myself liberally.
Then I went back to Jacqueline.
We must go on. Half an hour more should see us outside the tunnel beyond the mountains. And this was the day on which Père Antoine would be expecting me.
It seemed incredible that so much could have happened in four-and-twenty hours.
But there was no sign of Charles Duchaine. And I did not intend to jeopardize our future for the sake of the crazed old man.
"Jacqueline," I said, "let us go on. Perhaps your father is on his way outside the tunnel."