What Johnny said was quite true. When the man was again in the cool out-of-doors, he was able to give a full account of his life with the Orientals. They had made him prisoner because they feared to have him at large. Other white men might appear, as indeed they had, and he might reveal their plans. He had known in a vague sort of way that some mysterious deathtrap had been set in Mine No. 1, and when, through a crack in the wall to his prison, he saw the white men arrive, he determined to attempt to warn them. This he did by singing songs to the Orientals and, at the same time, making phonographic records to be sent rolling down the hill later.
“But you don’t actually know how Frank Langlois was killed?” There was disappointment in Dave’s tone.
“No, I do not,” said the professor.
“Oh, as to that,” said Johnny. “Didn’t Pant tell you?”
“Pant? I haven’t seen Pant since the fight to save Mazie.”
“Isn’t he with the bunch?”
“No—nor hasn’t been. Jarvis says his goggles were smashed in the fight. Says he saw him without them. No one’s seen him since.”
“You don’t think they got him?”
“Not Pant. He can’t be got, not by a mere band of Orientals. But what’s this he told you about Langlois?”
“Oh! He stayed up there, you know. He went into Mine No. 1 and prowled round a bit. Found where the yellow bunch had run a high-tension insulated wire through a crevice in the rock to the head of that pool into which Langlois drove his pick. They ran a second wire to the base of the pool and connected the two to a heavy battery circuit. They had discovered that the pool rested upon a chalk rock which was good insulation. There was, therefore, no ground to it. But the damp spot on which Langlois was standing when he swung the pick was grounded. The minute he struck the pool the whole current passed through his body.”