red Holman. "I counted right, didn't I?"

"I think so," I answered huskily.

"Sixty paces exactly, and here's the wall alongside us."

My fingers groped along the moist rock. I felt stunned. Now that the
test had been made it seemed insanity to connect a chant that I heard at
Levuka with a waterfall in a cavern on the Isle of Tears. But why had
Toni been killed? Why had Leith exhibited such curiosity about the song
when he heard me relating the incident to the two sisters on board the
yacht?

My fingers came to a crevice in the wall as the question presented a
bold front to the doubt that had gripped me. The fissure was some four
feet wide, and my exclamation made Holman put a question.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Nothing," I answered. Wrecked hopes had made me cautious. Still I felt
certain that I had remembered those words for some purpose. I recalled
how they had puzzled me on that hot day, and how I had questioned Holman
concerning "Pilgrim's Progress" when he had roused me from my sleep.

"Well, if there's nothing here I'm going back to get a drink," said
Holman.

"Hold on!" I stammered, as I uncoiled the piece of spare rope from my
shoulders; "I want you a minute. There's a split in this rock, and I'm
going to explore it. Take the end of this rope and hang on."

"Hadn't I better go with you?" he asked.

"Not this trip," I answered. "I've just got a feeling that I'd like to
see where it leads to. Hold tight!"

I stepped cautiously into the narrow passage and immediately found that
it narrowed to such an extent that I had to turn sideways to squeeze
through. The floor sloped upward, and as the rock was damp and slippery,
I dropped upon my knees so that I could climb more rapidly. The place
seemed a narrow chute. My knees were skinned from the rough bottom, but
I scratched desperately to obtain a footing. Hope was still alive. The
Maori had said that the road to heaven was sixty paces from the White
Waterfall, and if an all-seeing Providence had guided Edith to the
waterfall, it was surely decreed that we would make our escape from the
clutches of the devil who had us at his mercy.

"We will surely escape," I muttered, as I scratched and clawed in an
effort to drag myself up the slippery path. "We will escape! I know it!
We will escape! I know--"

The muttered words died upon my lips. The crevice turned and then
broadened suddenly, and a blinding flash of light forced me to fling
myself face downward u