breadth.

Big cold drops of rain were beginning to fall as Jeremy resumed his
cutting. He made the opening longer as well as wider, and at last was
able by hard tugging to get the box through. He thrust it into his pouch
and they recommenced the filling of their pockets with goldpieces.

Before a dozen coins had been removed a sudden red glare on the walls of
the chasm caused the three to leap to their feet. At the same instant
the rain increased to a downpour, and they looked up to see a pine-knot
torch in the opening above them splutter and go out. The wet darkness
came down blacker than before.

But in that second of illumination they had seen framed in the torchlit
cleft a pair of gleaming light eyes and a cruelly snarling mouth set in
a face made horrible by the livid scar that ran from chin to eyebrow
across its broken nose.

Jeremy clutched at Bob and his father. "This way!" he gasped through the
hissing rain, and plunged along the black chasm toward the southern end,
where it debouched upon the hillside. They clambered over some boulders
and emerged in the undergrowth, a score of yards from the point where
the barrel had been found.

"Come on," whispered Jeremy hoarsely, and started eastward along the
slope. Burdened as they were, they ran through the woods at desperate
speed, the noise of their going drowned by the descending flood.

In the haste of flight it was impossible to keep together. When Jeremy
had put close to half a mile between himself and the chasm, he paused
panting and listened for the others, but apparently they were not near.
He decided to cut across the ridge, and started up the hill, when he
heard a crash in the brush just above him. "Father?" he called under his
breath. To his dismay he was answered by a startled oath, and the next
moment he saw a tall figure coming at him swinging a cutlass. The pirate
was a bare ten feet away. Jeremy aimed his pistol and pulled the
trigger, but only a dull click responded. The priming was wet.

[Illustration: A sudden red glare on the walls of the chasm.]

At that instant the cutlass passed his head with an ugly sound and
Jeremy, desperate, flung his pistol straight at the pirate's face. As it
left his hand he heard it strike. Then as the man went down with a
groan, he doubled in his tracks like a hare, and ran back, heading up
across the hill.

It was not till he was over the ridge and well down the slope toward
home that he dropped to a walk. H