I watched Andy Hawkins over there. That thin body of his squirmed with his infirmity, and made him seem to be in the throes of a heathen dance, as he plied the fire with the fuel. The volumes of yellow-white smoke continued to pour into the cave's mouth. It was burning sulphur, as I learned.
It may have been two hours that we lay behind that fallen tree, and the sun was mounted well on toward the zenith. Then Norris and Marat conferred, and decided that the enemy must be in a state beyond all power of striking back. So we approached the fire and pulled it away from the cave's mouth. But nearly another hour passed before we ventured in. Norris took the lead with a battery lamp, the rest of us following.
A little way within, we came upon a body that lay in a pool of blood. He was one that sought to rush out, and got a ball in his body. Then at various portions of the passage we saw three more blacks, all inanimate. And at the uttermost confines of the cave, just below that narrow opening out—the chimney, as it were—all the rest lay in various postures, where they fell, choked by the fumes.
"Well, they all got just what they earned," observed Norris. "The world would be better, if all of their kind were here with them."
"Yes," agreed Jean Marat, "but Duran, he ees not here. I am ver' sorry he ees not here weeth hees voodoo frien's."
I had not told of Duran's accident at the foot of the ladder. Now I told it.
"Ah! You don't say!" said Norris. "Are you sure he's dead?"
"Yes," I assured him. "His skull was fractured."
"We're in great luck," said Norris. "Now we've got the whole secret of this place among us. And Carlos, you had a narrow escape."
"Yes," said Carlos. "And my father, hees murderer, he dead."