if all was well
with the others; for we had arranged that the door of each of our rooms
should be left slightly open so that any sound of disturbance would be
easily and distinctly heard.

One and all slept; I could hear the regular breathing of each, and my
heart rejoiced that this miserable night of anxiety was safely passed.
As I knelt in my own room in a burst of thankful prayer, I knew in the
depths of my own heart the measure of my fear. I found my way out of
the house, and went down to the water by the long stairway cut in the
rock. A swim in the cool bright sea braced my nerves and made me my
old self again.

As I came back to the top of the steps I could see the bright sunlight,
rising from behind me, turning the rocks across the bay to glittering
gold. And yet I felt somehow disturbed. It was all too bright; as it
sometimes is before the coming of a storm. As I paused to watch it, I
felt a soft hand on my shoulder; and, turning, found Margaret close to
me; Margaret as bright and radiant as the morning glory of the sun! It
was my own Margaret this time! My old Margaret, without alloy of any
other; and I felt that, at least, this last and fatal day was well
begun.

But alas! the joy did not last. When we got back to the house from a
stroll around the cliffs, the same old routine of yesterday was
resumed: gloom and anxiety, hope, high spirits, deep depression, and
apathetic aloofness.

But it was to be a day of work; and we all braced ourselves to it with
an energy which wrought its own salvation.

After breakfast we all adjourned to the cave, where Mr. Trelawny went
over, point by point, the position of each item of our paraphernalia.
He explained as he went on why each piece was so placed. He had with
him the great rolls of paper with the measured plans and the signs and
drawings which he had had made from his own and Corbeck's rough notes.
As he had told us, these contained the whole of the hieroglyphics on
walls and ceilings and floor of the tomb in the Valley of the Sorcerer.
Even had not the measurements, made to scale, recorded the position of
each piece of furniture, we could have eventually placed them by a
study of the cryptic writings and symbols.

Mr. Trelawny explained to us certain other things, not laid down on the
chart. Such as, for instance, that the hollowed part of the table was
exactly fitted to the bottom of the Magic Coffer, which was therefore
intended to be placed on it.