There were other stone slabs like the one on which lay the headless body, but all of them were empty. They counted nine in all.
The cave ended abruptly a few paces beyond the last of the nine slabs. At least, that was Nick Carter’s first impression. Then he saw that there was a narrow passage which went on into the darkness, but how far he could not conjecture.
“Are we going to squeeze in there?” whispered Patsy.
“Yes.”
Nick Carter had already entered when he answered, and was working his way through, his elbows at his sides, so as to take up as little room as possible.
“Don’t make any noise,” he whispered to his followers. “We don’t know what we are going to run into. We may find a hundred men back in this place for anything we can tell.”
“I only hope that blackguard, Pike, will be among them,” growled Jefferson Arnold. “I wouldn’t care how many others there might be if I could get my fingers on him.”
“We must wait and see,” replied Nick.
He had gone about a hundred feet, the others close behind, when the floor sloped down steeply, and they had to walk on their heels to keep upright.
“I see a light a little distance ahead,” he whispered. “It is red, as if it came from a fire. Put out the lanterns, and don’t talk until we know what this is all about.”