sound.

The silence was broken by a pattering sound like hail. He lowered his
hands and saw that earth was still falling from the hole he had made. It
came in little starts and spurts.

The captive of the cave sprang up once more. He thrust both arms up into
that hole and tore with his fingers. This he continued until the nails
were worn away to the quick and his hands were cut and sticky with blood
and dirt.

Finally he stopped from sheer exhaustion. Even his frantic energy was
beginning to fail.

Then he heard something like a soft movement above him. He rolled his
eyes upward and beheld the roof of the cave directly above him moving
the least bit. At first he thought this movement was not actually taking
place, but that he imagined it.

Only an instant; then he saw that a part of the roof was settling and
seemed about to fall.

He leaped backward to escape from beneath it.

Barely in time.

It fell, and a portion of it hurled him down and caught his feet and
legs, pinning him fast.

The torch was extinguished.

At first Del Norte thought the end had come. As he lay with the weight
of earth holding his legs fast, he fully expected another mass to follow
the first and end his life without delay.

A sudden feeling of indifference came over him, and calmly he waited for
the end.

"Come, death!" he urged. "Get it over quickly!"

But no more of the roof fell.

After a little he found himself looking upward into the opening, and
far, far away, seemingly miles distant, he imagined he could detect a
ray of light.

Lifting the upper part of his body, he began dragging away, with his
hands, the earth and stones which had fallen on his legs. It did not
take him long to clear his feet.

Next he sought for the torch, but it was buried and lost beneath the
fallen mass.

This mass had made a great mound almost as high as the roof of the
passage.

He crawled upon it and finally succeeded in straightening up in the
opening left when it fell. This opening was plenty large enough for his
body; he could move his arms freely; and with his outstretched elbows he
was able to touch either side.

Standing there, he tipped back his head and looked upward.

His heart gave a fearful throb as if bursting, and through it shot a
sharp pain.

It was no fancy, no hallucination of his deranged brain; away up there
he could see light!

"If I could climb up there I might escape!" he whispered. "But how can I
do it--how?