of John
Bumpus and his companions.

Here they sat down to hold a palaver. While this was going on, Keona
carried Alice in his unwounded arm to the other end of the cave, and,
making his exit through a small opening at its inner extremity, bore his
trembling captive to a rocky eminence, shaped somewhat like a
sugar-loaf, on the summit of which he placed her. So steep were the
sides of this cone of lava, that it seemed to Alice that she was
surrounded by precipices over which she must certainly tumble if she
dared to move.

Here Keona left her, having first, however, said, in a low stern voice--

"If you moves, you dies!"

The poor child was too much terrified to move, even had she dared, for
she, too, had heard the unaccountable cries of Poopy, although, owing to
distance and the wild nature of these cries, she had failed to recognise
the voice. When, therefore, her jailer left her with this threat, she
coiled herself up in the smallest possible space, and began to sob
quietly.

Meanwhile, Keona re-entered the cavern with a diabolical grin on his
sable countenance, which, although it savoured more of evil than of any
other quality, had in it, nevertheless, a strong dash of ferocious
jovialty, as if he were aware that he had got his enemies into a trap,
and could amuse himself by playing with them as a cat does with a mouse.

Soon the savage began to step cautiously, partly because of the rugged
nature of the ground, and the thick darkness that surrounded him, and
partly in order to avoid alarming the three adventurers who were
advancing towards him from the other extremity of the cavern. In a few
minutes he halted, for the footsteps and the whispering voices of his
pursuers became distinctly audible to him, although all three did their
best to make as little noise as possible.

"Wot a 'orrid place it is!" exclaimed Bumpus, in a hoarse angry whisper,
as he struck his shins violently, for at least the tenth time, against a
ledge of rock--

"I do b'lieve, boy, that there's nobody here, and that we'd as well
'bout ship and steer back the way we've comed; tho' it _is_ a 'orrible
coast for rocks and shoals."

To this, Corrie, not being in a talkative humour, made no reply.

"D'ye hear me, boy?" said Jo, aloud, for he was somewhat shaken again by
the dead silence that followed the close of his remark.

"All right, I'm here," said Corrie, meekly.

"Then why don't ye speak," said Jo, tartly.

"I'd advise _you