" said Chris. "Why, there may be quite a nest of
the brutes down there."

"P'r'aps so. But if there is it must have made some of them sneeze when
all that dust went down with a rush yesterday."

Just then Wilton leaned in at the window-opening of the cell where the
doctor and Bourne were examining a carefully-smoothed, elliptical,
cell-like stone with a hole through the thickest part as if for holding
a wooden handle.

"What have you found?" he said.

"A stone battle-axe, without doubt."

"Ah, it does look like it. You must save that. You have your glasses
with you?"

"Yes," said the doctor. "Want them?"

"Please. I want to look round."

The doctor slipped the strap of the case over his head and passed it to
his friend.

"Give a look at the mules and ponies," he said. "If there's anything
wrong they'll seem uneasy."

"Snake in the grass, eh?"

"Yes."

"All right.--I say, you within there, what have you shot?"

"Don't know yet," replied Chris. "Ned thought he saw a thumping great
rattler."

"Did he?"

"It's too thick with smoke to see yet, but it's clearing fast."

Wilton, who displayed more and more his disgust with the task his
friends had set themselves, took the glass and began sweeping the sides
of the depression, noting the cracks and gullies running up the
cliff-face opposite in amongst the cell-like openings, all wonderfully
clear and bright in the morning air, while Bourne and the doctor,
encouraged by the discovery of the relic of the stone age, went on
turning over the ashes in the next cell.

Meantime the party at the side of the square pit waited impatiently for
the smoke to rise and float out beneath the overhanging portion of the
cliff above the top range of cells, Griggs giving the lanthorn a wave
now and then, sending it flying, pendulum-like, as far as he could reach
without bringing it in contact with the smoothly-cut wall.

"Not much chance for anybody or anything to get out of here again if he
was at the bottom, lads. It's a regular trap," he said.

"Yes, but take care, or you'll be breaking the lanthorn," said Chris
warningly.

"Nay, I won't do that, my lad," replied Griggs quietly. "But I say,
squire, did you aim at its head or its tail?"

"I aimed at the part I saw moving," said Ned. "Can you see it yet?"

"Nay. Can you?"

"No."

"I'm afraid you shot at nothing," said Griggs, with a laugh, "and you
haven't killed it."

"I'm sure I saw something movin