"He pulled the ladder and all up with him," I reported.
"And where is the polecat running to, do you suppose?" queried Ray.
And no one had an answer to that which he thought fit to give voice to. I doubt not, each one of us had pretty much the same thought, one that he dreaded to hear echoed by some other.
We were properly immured in this sink, of that we were all well assured. For we had Andy Hawkins' story of the times—in the two years—that he had made the round of those craggy walls in search of a possible escape.
It was a silent cavalcade that marched back to the clearing, and up to where Hawkins and the black boy were busy in the diggings. We gave them the news of Duran's precipitate flight, and Hawkins gave it little more thought than to "'ope 'ee didn't carry hoff the brown stuff," (meaning the opium) and "Hi'd give my 'and to know where 'ee keeps it."
Carlos, I noticed, had some private word with the black boy, and the two soon were gone into the brush together. The lad soon came back, and I egged on Jean Marat to question him as to what Carlos might be up to. For answer he led the two of us to where we found Carlos kneeling beside the skeleton of a human—it was in a patch of vines.
When finally Carlos discovered us, looking on wonderingly, he beckoned us. "My father," he said, in explanation. And he held up a gold cross that was on a chain that still hung on the ghastly figure.
And then Carlos got to his feet. "Duran—" he began, but the rest of the speech stuck in his throat. And I saw a look in his face that I had seen there before, and which boded ill for Duran.
With the black boy's help he had at last found the grave of his father. And such a grave! It went indeed hard with the elder Brill. The spoiler of his mine, and his murderer, had not even given him decent burial. We sent for the others; and then and there we dug a grave, and Norris was able to summon out of his memory a few words of the burial service. We left Carlos kneeling beside the mound. And when he rejoined us, much comfort showed in his face.
That bit of experience somehow drove, in large part, the gloom from our spirits, and we went about our further doings with more semblance of cheer.