rs of privation and ruthless bloodshed to
obtain--wealth, to wit. For these two unobtrusive pebbles were, in fact,
splendid diamonds!

More of them? Of course there were. The exploration could wait a little
longer. An accident might cut him off from this spot--might cut him off
from such a chance forever. The hands of the seasoned adventurer
trembled like those of a palsied old woman as he turned over the loose
soil with his foot, for instrument of any kind he had none; and indeed,
his agitation was not surprising, for in less than an hour Laurence was
in possession of eight more splendid stones as large as the first,
besides a number of small ones. He knew that he held that which should
enable him to pass the remainder of his life in wealth and ease, could
he once get safe away.

Could he? Ah, there came in the dead weight--the fulfilling of that
strange irony of fate which well-nigh invariably wills that the good of
life comes to us a trifle too late. For his search had brought him quite
into the open day once more. Before him lay a valley--or rather
hollow--of no great size, and--it was shut in--completely walled in by
an amphitheatre of lofty cliffs.

Cliffs on all sides--at some points smooth and perpendicular, at others
actually overhanging, at others, again, craggy and broken into terraces;
but, even with the proper appliances, probably unscalable; that detail
his practised eye could take in at a glance. How, then, should he hope
to scale them, absolutely devoid, as he was, of so much as a stick--let
alone a cord.

A cord? How had he been brought there? Had he been let down by a
cord--or brought in by some secret entrance? the latter appeared more
probable; and that entrance he would find,--would find and traverse, be
its risks, be its terrors what they might. He had that upon him now
which rendered life worth any struggle to preserve.

He stepped forth. The sky was over his head once more, clear and blue.
That was something. By the slant of the sunrays he judged it must be
about the middle of afternoon. The floor of the hollow was bumpy and
uneven. Sparse and half-dry grass bents sprung from the soil, but no
larger vegetation--no trees, no brush. Stranger still, there was no sign
of life--even of bird or insect life. An evil, haunted silence seemed to
brood over the great, crater-like hollow.

The silence became weighty, oppressive. Laurence, in spite of himself,
felt it steal upon his nerves, and began t