Both words and manner gave the keen-witted professor a clew to one mystery, and he quickly spoke:
“Then you were familiar with aerostatics, sir? Your name is—”
“Edgecombe,—Cooper Edgecombe.”
“What?” with undisguised surprise in face as in voice. “Professor Edgecombe, the celebrated balloonist who was lost so long ago?”
“Ay! lost here in this thrice accursed wilderness!” passionately cried the exile; then, as though abashed by his own outburst, he turned away, pausing again only when at the entrance to his dreary refuge of many years.
“Give the poor fellow his own way until he has had time to rally, boys,” muttered uncle Phaeton, in lowered tones, before following that lead. “I can understand it better, now, and this is—still is the terra incognita of which I have dreamed so long!”
That refuge proved to be a large, fairly dry cavern, the entrance to which was admirably masked by vines and creepers, while the stony soil just there retained no trace of footprints to tell dangerous tales.
Mr. Edgecombe vanished, but not for long. Then, showing a light, formed of fat and twisted wick in a hollowed bit of hardwood, he begged his rescuers to enter.
No second invitation was needed, for even the professor felt a powerful curiosity to learn what method had been followed by this enforced exile; how he had managed to live for so many weary years.
With only that smoky lamp to shed light around the place, critical investigation was a matter of time and painstaking, although a general idea of the cavern was readily formed.