nd level with the sea
floor, she saw a huge opening. As she approached, it widened, grew
higher, until she round herself peering into the yawning mouth of a sea
cavern fifty feet wide and half that in height. Like monster peas in a
giant's open mouth lay the spherical boulders on the bottom of the cave.

She was frightened, yet fascinated by her discovery. She hesitated a
moment then advanced slowly into the cool dampness of the place. As
far ahead as her eye could pierce the dimness, the balls of stone lay
catching the light on their rounded surfaces. The walls closed in
about her, as she walked. Water dripped on her. Her feet splashed
through puddles in the uneven, hard bottom, but here there was no trace
of the seaweed that draped the rocks in all other parts of the Island.

The sound of breakers booming against the reefs came to her in the
cavern with a strange reverberating effect. The underground way ran on
apparently with an upward slant as far as she could see. She longed
for a light so that she might explore further. . . . After some
minutes advance into the deepening gloom, a feeling of timidity began
to assail her. She paused leaning against a lobsided boulder. The
absence of life, the stillness, the Stygian darkness ahead seemed
suddenly ominous. She turned and saw the mouth of the cavern far back
of her. Like an oblong frame it enclosed a small bright picture of
beach and sunlit sea. Undoubtedly, she thought, when the tide was
full, the ocean rushed in along the floor of the cave. Perhaps, when
it was stormy, it rolled the giant balls of stone backward and forward.

Once more she glanced toward the unknown inner recesses of the cavern;
then, with a little shiver, began making her way back toward the light
again.

Her foot went down with a quick splash into a water-filled depression,
and in shaking the drops from her moccasin she noted that the strings
were untied. She stooped to fasten them; her eyes now perfectly
accustomed to the dim light, caught a dull gleam at the edge of the
pool. She was conscious of a wild thumping of her heart--an eager
trembling of the hand she instinctively reached forward.

"No, no! It _can't_ be," she temporized aloud, as if to fortify
herself against disappointment. She forced herself to finish tying her
moccasin, and even looked to the security of the other one before she
hesitantly reached over and put her fingers on the object that had
attracted her