“Lucky I hadn’t this in my coat; for you don’t look as if you had a pocket of any sort on you, Frankie.”
The first match, damped by the moisture on his hands, sputtered and died out.
“Hurry up, Guvnor,” shouted Mephistopheles, cheerfully, from the bank. “Don’t keep us up all night with your firework display. It’s getting a bit chilly, paddling about amongst this sedge. Not at all the temperature I’m accustomed to at home.”
Michael felt for another match and lighted it successfully. Standing up on the raft, he held the light above his head and peered into the cavity in the rock. The Prehistoric Man heard him exclaim in amazement.
“Damnation, Frankie! He’s not here! It’s hardly a cave at all.”
He put his hands on the cave floor.
“Hold tight with the raft. I’m going in to make sure.”
He scrambled up into the hollow; but almost immediately his face appeared again in the moonlight.
“Nothing here. The hole’s barely big enough to take me in.”
“Then where’s he gone?” demanded the Prehistoric Man, who was a creature of few words.