Drusilla Browne was standing near by, cold and silent with dread, a set expression in her eyes.  Her lips moved slowly and Deppingham heard the bitter words: 

“You will find them, Lord Deppingham.  You will find them!”

He stopped and passed his hand over his eyes.  Then, without a word, he snatched a rifle from the hands of one of the patrol, and led the way up the ladder.  As he paused at the top to await the approach of his companions, Chase turned to the white-faced Princess and said, between his teeth: 

“If Skaggs and Wyckholme had been in the employ of the devil himself they could not have foreseen the result of their infernal plotting.  I am afraid—­mortally afraid!”

“Take care of him, Hollingsworth,” she whispered shuddering.

The last glow of sunset, reflected in the western sky, fell upon the tall figure of the Englishman in the mouth of the cavern.  Tragedy seemed to be waiting to cast its mantel about him from behind.

“Good-bye, Genevra, my Princess,” said Chase softly, and then was off with Britt and Selim.  As he passed Drusilla, he seized her hand and paused long enough to say: 

“It’s all right, little woman, take my word for it.  If I were you, I’d cry.  You’ll see things differently through your tears.”

The four men, with their lights, vanished from sight a few moments later.  Chase grasped Deppingham’s arm and held him back, gravely suggesting that Selim should lead the way.

They were to learn the truth almost before they had fairly begun their investigations.

The heirs already were in the hands of their enemies, the islanders!

The appalling truth burst upon them with a suddenness that stunned their sensibilities for many minutes.  All doubt was swept away by the revelation.

The eager searchers, shouting as they went, had picked their way down the steps in the sloping floor of the cavern, down through the winding galleries and clammy grottoes, their voices booming ever and anon against the silent walls with the roar of foghorns.  Now they had come to what was known as “the Cathedral.”  This was a wide, lofty chamber, hung with dripping stalactites, far below the level at which they began the descent.  The floor was almost as flat and even as that of a modern dwelling.  Here the cavern branched off in three or four directions, like the tentacles of a monster devilfish, the narrow passages leading no one knew whither in that tomb-like mountain.

Selim uttered the first shout of surprise and consternation.  Then the four of them rushed forward, their eyes almost starting from their sockets.  An instant later they were standing at the edge of a vast hole in the floor—­newly made and pregnant with disaster.

A current of air swept up into their faces.  The soft, loose earth about the rent in the floor was covered with the prints of naked feet; the bottom of the hole was packed down in places by a multitude of tracks.  Chase’s bewildered eyes were the first to discover the presence of loose, scattered masonry in the pile below and the truth dawned upon him sharply.  He gave a loud exclamation and then dropped lightly into the shallow hole.