suffering. I
had forgotten that I was a Pennington, forgotten that I was a gentleman.

But what could I do? Houseless, homeless, friendless, except for the
friendship of Eli Fraddam and his mother, and practically outlawed, what
was there that I, Jasper Pennington, could put my hand to? I could not
tell. The possibility of honourably making my way back to fortune seemed
a dream impossible to be fulfilled.

For a long time I sat brooding, while the candle which Eli had brought
burnt lower and lower, and finally went out. The darkness stirred new
thoughts within me. Hitherto I had not troubled about Granfer Fraddam's
ghost haunting the cave. The wind which wailed its way up through the
cave till it found vent in the copse above explained the sounds which
had been heard. But now all the stories which I had heard came back to
me. Did Granfer Fraddam die there? and did his ghost haunt this dreary
cavern? Even then I might be sitting on the very spot where he had died.

I started up and lit another candle. I looked around me, and shuddered
at the black, forbidding sides of the cavern, then leaving the candle to
cast its ghostly light around I crept toward the entrance. I saw the sea
lapping the black rocks around, and heard its dismal surge. Then I heard
a rushing noise whir past me, and it seemed as though a ghostly hand had
struck my face. Directly afterward I heard a cry which made the blood
run cold in my veins. Most likely it was only a seagull which I had
frightened from its resting-place among the rocks, but to me it was the
shriek of a lost soul.

Trembling, I found my way back to the cave again, where the candle still
burnt, and cast its flickering light around. I was afraid to stay there
any longer, and determined to get out by way of the copse. I had gone
but a few steps in this direction, when I saw what had hitherto escaped
my notice. It was a hole in the side of the cave, large enough for
anybody to pass easily. For a moment curiosity overcame my fears, and I
made my way toward it. Holding my candle close to the hole, I found that
I was out of the current of air, and I saw that this was the entrance to
another cave. But it was different from the one in which I had been
hiding. It looked as though it had been hollowed out by the hands of man
rather than by nature. This fact lessened my ghostly fears, and I
entered it, and in doing so thought I detected a strange smell. A minute
later, and my astonishment knew