poked about,
and came at last on the hole below the slab. "Come on, John ... can't be
far away.... Big hole"--as he kicked about down below--"no bottom, far
as I can see."

"Best wait for daylight, to see where we're getting."

"Oui gia! Man doux, it's not me's going down here till I know what's
below."

So they sat and kicked their heels and waited for the day, certain in
their own minds that their quarry was run to earth and as good as
caught.

Gard had swept down both his coat and his cloth full of eggs in his
sudden entrance. He stood at the bottom of the well to see if they would
follow, while Peter's long legs kicked about for foothold. He heard them
decide to wait for daylight, and then he noiselessly picked up his coat
and his soppy bundle of broken eggs, pushed them into the tunnel, and
crawled in after them.

He was trapped, indeed, but he doubted very much if any fisherman on
Sark would venture down that tunnel. They were brawny men, used to leg
and elbow room, and, as a rule, heartily detested anything in the shape
of underground adventure. They might, of course, get over some miners to
explore for them. Or they might content themselves with sitting down on
top of his hole until he was starved out. In any case, his rope was
nearly run; but yet he was not disposed to shorten it by so much as an
inch.

As he wormed his way along the tunnel, the recollection of those other
openings off the dead man's cave came back to him. He would try them. He
pushed on with a spurt of hope.

The tunnel was not nearly so long now that he knew where he was going;
in fact, now that nothing but it stood between him and capture, it
seemed woefully inadequate.

When his head and elbows no longer grazed rock he dropped his coat and
crawled into the chamber. He felt his way round to the dried packages,
and cautiously emptied half-a-dozen and prepared them for his use.

This set him sneezing so violently that it seemed impossible that the
watchers outside should not hear him. It also gave him an idea.

He struck a light and kindled one of his torches, and the dead man
leaped out of the darkness at him as before. That gave him another idea.

Propping up his light on the floor, he emptied package after package of
the powdered tobacco into the tunnel, and wafted it down towards the
entrance with his jacket. Then with his knife he cut the lashings from
the dead man's hands and feet, and carried him across--he was very
light