But his gaping lordship was not to be left behind. He followed hot-foot, uttering foolish oaths as he barked an elbow on the rock wall.
Carthew stopped suddenly. He could hear voices not very far ahead and the movement of some heavy weight. The tunnel curved a little there, and he knew he must be near the bridge that crosses the oubliette. He went on again, very cautiously, keeping close to one wall and shading the lamp as well as he could, till he came to a point where further precaution was idle. For, fifty yards away, straight ahead, he could see Slyne holding a candle beside Captain Dove, who was stooping over the roughly carpentered tree-trunk which still stretched from lip to lip of the intervening chasm. Its former neighbour had disappeared.
Captain Dove looked up and caught sight of Carthew in his turn. He had got his hands under the heavy trunk, and staggered sideways, straddling it, till its butt-end was close to the brink. Carthew had all but reached the opposite edge of the pit between them when he let it go with a breathless grunt and it fell almost soundlessly into the void below.
Slyne blew out his candle then, with a bitter, mocking laugh, but not before Carthew had observed Mr. Jobling and Ambrizette in the background, with a drooping figure between them.
CHAPTER XXXI
"AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE"
Captain Dove looked across at Carthew with a hoarse chuckle, no less malicious. He was evidently in that mordant, capricious humour most common with him at moments when his potations had merely begun their evil work on his wits.
"Light that candle again, Slyne, confound you!" he ordered sharply. "His noble lordship, our American friend, can scarcely see us—to say good-bye."
"Oh, come on," Slyne urged, obviously almost at the end of his patience. "We've no more than time to get safely away before we'll have the hue and cry after us in the fishermen's boats—and they're faster than you imagine."