quietly took her share of the work, she had become sad and
silent--caring little apparently for what was going on around her, and
never indulging in those prolonged observations of an irrelevant nature,
to which she had been addicted before her husband's disappearance.

Things were in this state when, about two months after their landing, a
boat-voyage to the western cliffs of the island was arranged for
purposes of further exploration.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER 11.

Within the dark recesses of a great cavern in the western cliffs, in the
midst of a mass of wreckage, there sat one morning a man whose general
appearance might have suggested to a beholder "the wild man of the
cave"--or, at the least, an unhappy maniac--for his grey locks were long
and unkempt, his eyes bloodshot and wild, his garments torn, so that his
wasted limbs were exposed in numerous places, and his beard and
moustache dishevelled and bristling.

No one looking at that gaunt creature--not even the mother who bore
him--would have easily recognised John Mitford; yet it was he.

On the day when he mysteriously disappeared he had come upon a great
hollow, or hole, of about sixty yards in diameter, which appeared to
descend into the very depths of the earth. The sides of the hollow
sloped towards the centre, and were covered with bushes. Noting this,
our romantic friend resolved to explore the spot. He descended
cautiously till he came to a place where the hole had narrowed to about
twenty feet in diameter, and the herbage ceased because of the absence
of the earth to sustain it. Filled with eager curiosity, the reckless
man held on to a branch and stretched his head over the edge of the
hole. He saw nothing but blackness. He soon felt something, however,
for the branch suddenly broke off, and John went headlong down into that
hole!

Then and there he would certainly have paid for his curiosity with his
life, had not a mass of earth, a few feet further down, and against
which he struck, broken his fall in some measure, and shunted him off to
the opposite wall of the rock. This latter proved to be a slope so
steep that it let him slide, like lightning, to the bottom, a depth of
about thirty feet or more, where he was stopped with such violence that
he lay stunned for a considerable time.

Recovering, he found that no bones were broken, and that, indeed, he was
not much damaged considering the violence of the fall; but the
satisfaction and th