d been stripped of his valuables, and had worn it. They
had been dispatched with a bomb each, which they were to introduce into
the hold of the Jasper B., retiring through the tunnel after they had
started the clockwork mechanism going. It was known that one of them
owed the other money; they had been quarreling about it as they entered
the tunnel from the cellar of Morris's. It was conjectured that the
quarrel had progressed and that the debtor had endeavored, by the light
of his pocket lantern in the tunnel, to palm off a counterfeit bill in
settlement of the debt. This may have led to a blow, or more likely
only to an argument during which a bomb was dropped and exploded,
followed quickly by the other explosion. Dead hand, counterfeit bill
and ring were flung whimsically to the surface of the earth together,
and the leaning rocks had been astonishingly broken from beneath
through this trivial quarrel. Had it not been for this squabble the
Jasper B. and all on board must have been destroyed. Verily, the minds
of wicked men compass their own downfall, and retribution can sometimes
be an artist.

But Cleggett, as he crawled forward through the darkness and the damp,
thought little of these things that had so mystified him at the time.
He was alert for what the immediate future might hold, not doubting
that Loge had retreated to the tunnel. He had too strong a sense of
the man's powerful and iniquitous personality to suppose that Loge
would kill himself while one chance remained, however remote, of
injuring his enemies. Loge was the kind of dog that dies biting.

Suddenly, after pressing forward for several minutes, he ran against an
obstruction. The tunnel seemed to come to an end. He did not dare
show his light. But he felt with his hands. It was rock that blocked
his way. Cleggett understood that this barrier was the result of the
explosion. Groping and exploring with his hands, he found that the
passage turned sharply to the left. It was more narrow and curving,
for the distance of a few yards, and the earth beneath was fresher.
When the tunnel had been blocked by the explosion, Loge and his men had
burrowed around the obstruction.

Cleggett judged that he must be at about the middle of the tunnel. He
felt the more solid earth beneath his hands again, and knew that he had
passed the rock. The passage now descended deeper into the ground,
slanting steeply downward. This incline was twenty feet in