They hurried into the open air and examined the fragment with curious eyes. The sailor picked it with his knife, and the substance in the vein came off in laminated layers, small, brittle scales.
"Is it silver?" Iris was almost excited.
"I do not think so. I am no expert, but I have a vague idea—I have seen—"
He wrinkled his brows and pressed away the furrows with his hand, that physical habit of his when perplexed.
"I have it," he cried. "It is antimony."
Miss Deane pursed her lips in disdain. Antimony! What was antimony?
"So much fuss for nothing," she said.
"It is used in alloys and medicines," he explained. "To us it is useless."
He threw the piece of rock contemptuously among the bushes. But, being thorough in all that he undertook, he returned to the cave and again conducted an inquisition. The silver-hued vein became more strongly marked at the point where it disappeared downwards into a collection of rubble and sand. That was all. Did men give their toil, their lives, for this? So it would appear. Be that as it might, he had a more pressing work. If the cave still held a secret it must remain there.
Iris had gone back to her sago-kneading. Necessity had made the lady a bread-maid.