agues away from it.

[Illustration: "We halted at midday in an ugly-looking spot far up
the shoulder of the mountain."]

"This horrible silence makes me long for the clean sound of the waves,"
she whispered, as I rolled a stone over to make her a seat. "This
stillness stops one from speaking. Do you know that Barbara and I
haven't spoken a word during the last hour? We simply hadn't the courage
to make the effort."

Under the watchful eye of Leith I endeavoured to cheer her up, while
inwardly I cursed the prattling old Professor who chattered of the
honours he expected as the rewards of his discoveries. The affair was
enough to bring tears to the eyes of a man with a heart of stone.

"I'm just thinking we should have stopped this business before it got
this far," muttered Holman, as he reached closer to get a light for his
cigarette.

"What should we have done?" I asked.

"I don't know," he growled. "We should have done something though. Pity
we didn't lose Leith overboard with your friend Toni."

"What's wrong now? Has anything happened?"

"No, nothing has happened," he replied. "I wish something would. This
silence is beginning to put my nerves on edge, but I'm afraid to yell
out for fear that I might wake something that has been dead for
centuries. Does it strike you that way?"

"Very much."

"Well, it's the same with the girls," muttered Holman. "The stillness of
the place has brought their ordinary conversational tone down to a
whisper."

Leith lurched across and interrupted our conversation. "Get the boys
going, Mr. Verslun," he said. "We want to cross the Vermilion Pit while
the light is good, and it is hard going from here on."

We started forward up the boulder-strewn slope, and with each step the
difficulties of the ascent became greater. I took an axe and helped Soma
chop a path which would make it easier for the two sisters, but no
matter what amount of trouble we took, they found it a difficult matter
to follow. Once, goaded into fury by Leith's attempts to hurry the girls
when Holman was assisting them over a particularly rough stretch, I
turned upon the old scientist who was puffing along with the natives in
the lead.

The half-insane ancient heard my outburst to the end, staring at me
through the thick lenses of his glasses as if I was some new kind of a
bug whose appearance he wished to implant firmly within his mind.

"Science calls for sacrifices," he squeaked. "If my daughters are