's possible.... He might...."

The idea jumped into my mind at almost the same moment, but it seemed
too preposterous for belief.

"No," I interrupted. "It isn't. He couldn't. Moira, I tell you he was as
dead as a door-nail when I reached him."

She made a little gesture of despair as she realised to the full the
bitter futility of attempting to solve the puzzle, yet I had a feeling
that she had not quite given up hope. She did not make any further
remark on the way back to the cave, and she certainly wasn't as much
thrilled by my discovery of the ruins of the hut as I had expected her
to be. I let her be; it's never safe to divert the current of a woman's
thoughts.

I stepped into the cave ahead of her, and no sooner had I passed from
the light outside into the interior darkness than a crisp voice snapped
at me.

"Hands up!" it said tersely.

I shot my hands into the air more as a measure of precaution than
anything else, for I recognised the voice--the voice that I thought had
been silenced for ever.

"Cumshaw!" I ejaculated.

I could not see him since he was lurking right in the interior shadows,
but some electric quality in the air convinced me that his astonishment
was as great as mine. Nevertheless he answered me in tones that were as
calm as could be.

"So it's yourself, Carstairs," he said. "I'll have to apologise for
being a little previous with you, but you must remember that you are
standing in your own light and I can only see your outline. And----Ah!
here is Miss Drummond too."

He came towards us at that, a dark figure looming out of the gloom. And
the next instant we had him one by each hand and pelted him with
questions.

"I thought you were dead," I said. "How did you come alive again?"

"What happened?" Moira asked.

"How did you get here and what were you doing all night?"

"One question at a time," he said laughingly. "It seems pretty obvious
that I'm not dead, doesn't it?"

"It does," I admitted. "But you were dead, or you appeared to be, when I
left you last night."

"I don't quite understand," he said. "What do you mean?"

I told him then how I had stumbled across his body on my return the
previous evening, how I had identified him, and, satisfied that he was
dead, had left him to attend to more pressing business. I related how I
had scoured the valley that very morning and failed to find the least
trace of him. What was the explanation of the seeming miracle? I asked.

"T