amp Mark
perceived a trail of other drops extending irregularly toward the
back of the cavern. From the mark of the fallen body a ridge
ploughed through the shingle extending rearward, and he judged that
one of the two men had certainly felled the other and then drawn him
toward the chimney, or tunnel that opened at the back of the cave.
Spots of blood and the dragged impression of some heavy body
stretched along the ground to the stone steps and there disappeared.

The detective stopped here and inquired the length of the staircase
and whither it led; but for a time his companion appeared too dazed
to answer him. Giuseppe showed a good deal of the white feather,
combined with sincere emotion at the implicit tragedy.

"This is death--death!" he kept repeating, and between his words his
mouth hung open and his eyes rolled fearfully over the shadowy
places round about him.

"Pull yourself together and help me if you can," said. Brendon.
"Every moment may make all the difference. It looks to me as though
somebody had been dragged up here. Is that possible?"

"To a very powerful man it might be. But he was weak--no good."

"Where does this place lead?"

"There are many shallow steps, then a long slope and, after that,
you have to bend your head and scramble out through a hole. You are
then on a plateau halfway up the cliff. It is a broad ledge and from
it one only track, rough and steep, rises up zigzag, like our
hairpin roads in Italy, till you reach the summit of the cliff. But
it is rough and broken--impossible by night."

"We must go that way all the same and make it possible. Is the boat
fast?"

"If you will help me, we will pull her up into the cave. Then we can
hunt and she will not take harm."

Lamenting the loss of time, Mark lent a hand and the launch was soon
above high-water mark. Then, with Brendon in front and the light
from his torch upon the steps, they began their ascent. Save for a
drop of blood here and there, the stone stairway gave no clue; but
when they had reached its summit and the subterranean path turned to
the left, still in a tunnel of the solid rock, they marked on the
ascending slope, slippery with percolations from the roof, a
straight smear dragged over the muddy surface. Pursued for fifty
yards the tunnel began to narrow and the roof descend, but still the
smooth track of a heavy object being dragged upward was evident.
Save for an occasional word the men proceeded in silence, bu