Hush! the earth is loosened without; Lee hears it faffing about the entrance. Some small stones come clattering down, and then there is silence.
The strong man’s heart beats, and he clutches the clasp-knife hanging round his neck, and tries to open it, but his hand trembles; a strong current of air rushes in, the fire flickers up, and the shadow of a man’s face is for an instant traced on the rocky side of the cave.
It is suddenly withdrawn.
Lee revolved the circumstances of his case in a few seconds. He felt sure it was a white man’s shadow, even at that momentary glance; the outline of the loose cap and prominent nose was unmistakeable. It might be a mend—a fellow-convict—a sailor; if the latter, Jack would die rather than betray the fugitive. But if it were any who might, after all, turn informer, he would doubtless report that the cave was tenanted, and bring down a file of soldiers upon him, unless the clasp-knife settled the question, which it was not likely to do in its rusty condition. Lee’s powers of body were a little impaired by the perils he had undergone, and the exertions he had been obliged to make in screening his hiding-place, as he hoped, from all observers.
But he was discovered, that was certain.
“Who comes there?” he cried, in a voice that shook more than he wished to confess to himself. “Enter, I am armed.”
“Lee,” hoarsely whispered a voice, issuing from lips within which the teeth chattered audibly,—“It is I, Martin Gray.”
“And where the devil did you cast up from?” asked Lee, in no very gracious voice, and sitting up with ears and eyes now wide open.
“I am starved, and miserable, and hungry,” was Gray’s reply, as he scrambled through all impediments in his path, and crawling into the cave, began unceremoniously to draw together the embers of the fire.
“Are there any more of you?” inquired Lee, hastily.