ich burned brightly, showing us that we
stood on a ledge some fifty feet above where there was the flash of
water and many a grotesque rock.

"Why, Tom?"

"Why, Mas'r Harry?"

"Down on your knees!" I cried joyfully as I set the example.

For we were in the first extensive widening out of the cave, at about
five hundred yards from its mouth, having emerged through an opening
hitherto unknown to us from its being upon a ledge forty or fifty feet
above the floor, where in that part it ran on a level with the little
river.

We rose from our knees, weak as two children, and contrived to scramble
down to the bottom, along which we stumbled slowly and without energy
towards the cave's mouth, going back first to where we had left our
guns. Turn after turn, winding after winding, we traversed, and there
was the faint dawning of light in the distance--light which grew more
and more bright and glorious as we advanced, shading our eyes with our
hands, till, utterly worn out, we sank down close to the entrance
amongst the soft, warm, luxurious sand, when I gazed at the pale,
haggard, blood-smeared face beside me, to exclaim:

"Tom, is that you?"

"Mas'r Harry," he replied hoarsely, "poor Missus wouldn't know you if
she was here."

It was the noon of the third day, we afterwards learned, that we had
spent in these realms of darkness, and never did the bright face of
nature look more glorious than it did to our aching eyes. But in spite
of the intense sensation of gnawing hunger we could not proceed till we
had rested. Then after bathing our faces, hands, and feet in the cold
stream, we slowly journeyed to the hacienda.

"Don't say a word about the cave, Tom," I said, as we neared home.

"No, Mas'r Harry, not if you don't wish it," he rejoined, looking at me
wonderingly.

"I have a reason, Tom," I said. "We can say that we have been
exploring, and that will be true, and will satisfy them."

"You ain't done with the cave yet, then, Mas'r Harry?"

"No, Tom," I said, "not yet."

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

A QUESTION.

The look I received from Lilla that evening was one which, while it
reproached me, made my heart leap. But all the same, I did not respond
to it: I dared not; and I sat there answering my uncle's questions and
telling him of our discovery of the ruined temple, but no more; while
Garcia, who was present, smiled a contemptuous smile that was most
galling.

For that smile seemed to mean so much, an