s the very place."

As he spoke he turned to look at the curtain which he had let fall
behind him, and very nearly tumbled from the ledge in amazement at
what he saw. Instead of the sheet of dingy canvas that he expected, he
was confronted by a sheer wall of cliff, stained the same rusty red as
that extending for miles on either side, and apparently not differing
from it in any particular. He was compelled to reach out his hand and
touch it before he could dispel the illusion and convince himself that
only a sheet of painted canvas separated him from the cavern he had
just left.

"It is one of the very cleverest things in the way of a hiding-place I
ever heard of," he said, half aloud; "and now I understand the
disappearance of that girl. But where on earth did she come from? How
did she get here? and where did she go to? Could it have been she whom
I heard singing a little while ago? If so, where is she now? Not in
the cavern. That I'll swear to."

Peveril might have speculated at much greater length concerning this
mystery had not the sight of water that he could not reach so
aggravated his thirst that for the moment he could think of little
else. All at once he hit upon a plan, and two minutes later had drawn
aside the curtain, swung out the little derrick, and was letting
himself down towards the ledge by means of its tackle.

Lying flat on the rough rocks, he drank and drank of the delicious
water, lifting his head for breath or to gaze ecstatically about him,
and then thrusting it again into the cool flood for the pleasure of
feeling the water on his hot cheeks.

At length a slight sound caused him to turn quickly and look upward.
To his dismay and astonishment the tackle by which he had lowered
himself had disappeared. Unless he could make up his mind to swim for
miles through water of icy coldness, he was as truly a prisoner on
that ledge of rock as ever he had been in the underground depths from
which he had so recently escaped.

CHAPTER XIX

"DARRELL'S FOLLY" AND ITS OWNER

Ralph Darrell was possessed by a passion for accumulating wealth, and,
not satisfied with the certain but slow gains of his legitimate
business of banking, was always on the lookout for extraordinary
investments, in which he was willing to take great risks on the chance
of receiving proportionate returns. During an excitement caused by
marvellous finds of copper in the upper peninsula of Michigan, he,
too, caught the feve