, and demonstrated the fact with a degree of effusion
that prompted me to leave them alone together. But I did not go far; a
hundred paces made me sit down to rest before returning, so weak was I
from wounds and fasting.

Harry's spirits were high, for no apparent reason other than that we
were still alive, for that was the best that could be said for us. So
I told him; he retorted with a hearty clap on the back that sent me
sprawling to the ground.

"What the deuce!" he exclaimed, stooping to help me up. "Are you as
weak as that? Gad, I'm sorry!"

"That is the second fall he has had," said Desiree, with a meaning
smile.

Indeed, she was having her revenge!

But my strength was not long in returning. Over a long stretch our
diet would hardly have been conducive to health, but it was exactly
what I needed to put blood and strength in me. And Harry and Desiree,
too, for that matter.

Again I had to withstand Harry's eager demands for action. He began
within two hours to insist on exploring the cave, and would hardly take
a refusal.

"I won't stir a foot until I am able to knock you down," I declared
finally and flatly. "Never again will I attempt to perform the feats
of a Hercules when I am fit only for an invalid's chair." And he was
forced to wait.

As I say, however, my strength was not long in returning, and when it
started it came with a rush. My wounds were healing perfectly; only
one remained open. Harry, with his usual phenomenal luck, had got
nothing but the merest scratches.

Desiree improved very slowly. The strain of those four days in the
cavern had been severe, and her nerves required more pleasant
surroundings than a dark and damp cavern and more agreeable diet than
raw meat, to adjust themselves.

Thus it was that when Harry and I found ourselves ready to start out to
explore the cavern and, if possible, find an exit on the opposite side
from the one where we had entered, we left Desiree behind, seated on a
pile of skins, with a spear on the ground at her side.

"We'll be back in an hour," said Harry, stooping to kiss her; and the
phrase, which might have come from the lips of a worthy Harlem husband
leaving for a little sojourn with friends on the corner, brought a
smile to my face.

We went first toward the spot where lay the remains of "our friend with
the eyes," as Harry called him, and we were guided straight by our
noses, for the odor of the thing was beginning to be--to u