nvocation. Then he leaped across with the agility of a wild sheep and
rushed on into the tunnel beyond.

I drew my breath thickly and leaned against the wall, overcome with
nausea. The physical shock of the struggle was, however, less
appalling than the thought of Jacqueline.

I had no hope that the old man would ever return, or that his crazed
brain remembered the way home to the cave. He would wander on through
the tunnels, either to perish in them miserably, or to emerge at last
into the snow beyond and die there.

Unless Leroux found him.

I started back, keeping this time to the right side of the tunnel,
until I heard the gurgling of the brook. Then I heard Jacqueline's
footstep.

"Who is it?" she called wildly. "M. Hewlett! My father!"

I caught her as she swayed toward me. "He has gone, Jacqueline," I
said. "I went into the tunnel to try to find the way. He had been
feigning sleep, and he crept after me. I tried to stop him. He was so
frightened that I thought it best to let him go. He ran on into the
tunnel----"

"We must find him," she said.

"He will come back, Jacqueline."

"He will never come back!" she answered. "He must have been planning
this and waiting for me to sleep. For years he brooded over his
danger, suspecting everybody, and the shock of last night unhinged his
mind. He may be hiding somewhere. We must search for him."

"Let us go, then, Jacqueline," I answered.

In fact, there seemed to be no use in remaining any longer. If Pierre
were on his way back, we ought to meet him in the tunnel; and if he had
been captured, delay spelled ruin.

So I led her back into the tunnel on what was to be, I hoped, our final
journey. We reached the ledge. The star had faded now, and the whole
sky was bright with the red clouds of dawn.

Very cautiously we picked our way across the platform, clinging to the
wall. It was a hideous journey over the slippery ice, beneath the
thunder of the cataract; and when at length we reached the tunnel on
the other side, I was shaking like a man with a palsy.

But, thank God, that nightmare was past. And with renewed confidence I
went on through the darkness, with Jacqueline at my side, feeling my
way by the deeper depression in the ground along the centre of the
tubular passage.

At length I saw daylight ahead of me--and there was no sound of the
torrents.

Fortune had led us where I had wanted her to lead--into the open space
where the