This set him sneezing so violently that it seemed impossible that the watchers outside should not hear him. It also gave him an idea.
He struck a light and kindled one of his torches, and the dead man leaped out of the darkness at him as before. That gave him another idea.
Propping up his light on the floor, he emptied package after package of the powdered tobacco into the tunnel, and wafted it down towards the entrance with his jacket. Then with his knife he cut the lashings from the dead man's hands and feet, and carried him across—he was very light, for all his substance had long since withered out of him—and laid him in the tunnel as though he was making his way out.
If he knew anything of Sark men and miners, he felt fairly secure for some time to come, so he sat himself down, as far as possible from the snuff, and made such a meal as was possible off puffins' eggs, mixed good and bad and unredeemed by any palliating odour and flavour. They were not appetising, but they stayed his stomach for the time being.
It was only then that he remembered that he had left his gun and powder-flask behind him. He had placed them on a ledge just inside the mouth of the tunnel, and in his haste had forgotten to pick them up. He had no intention of using them, however, and he would not go back for them.
When his scanty meal was done, he cautiously emptied a number of the packages and rolled them into torches, and deliberated as to which of the black openings he should attempt first.
That one opposite, out of which the dead man's legs sprawled grotesquely, was the one by which he had entered. This one, then, near which he sat, must run on towards the centre of the island—if it ran on at all; and, since all were equally unknown and hopeful, he would try this first.
His tarred paper torches, though they burned with a clear flame, gave forth a somewhat pungent odour, so he kicked one of the small barrels to pieces, and with three of the staves and a piece of string made a holder which would carry the torch upright, and also permit him to lay it on the ground or push it in front of him, if need be.
The first tunnel ran in about thirty feet, and then the slant of the roof met the floor at so sharp an angle that further passage was impossible.
The second, third, and fourth the same; and he began to fear they were all blind alleys leading nowhere.