“We couldn’t tell that this infernal trench was in front,” I grumbled.

“Then we shouldn’t have chased him like a brace of madmen.  I wonder if Maru and Kaipi came near it?”

“We might call out, perhaps they’d hear.”

Holman yelled the names of the two natives into the gloom above us, but his yells only started a million echoes rolling through the tremendous fissure in which we were prisoners.

“They turned back,” said Holman.  “They had sense enough to stay with One Eye; we hadn’t.”

It was no use arguing with the youngster.  He denounced our stupidity till his tongue was too dry to utter the charges his half-crazed brain made against us.

To divert his thoughts I proposed that we make an attempt to explore the place, and without making any choice regarding direction we moved into the inky darkness.

“We’ll take it in turns to lead,” said Holman gruffly.  “Then if one of us topples over a precipice the other has a chance to save himself.  I’ll take first try at it, and if I find that I have pushed my foot into a hole I’ll yell out a warning.”

I agreed, and we moved forward slowly.  The chances of ever finding our way out of that place seemed small at that moment.  Leith had put us in a spot where we would not be likely to trouble him for some time, and with bitterness in our hearts we staggered along in the dark, alternately damning the treachery of the ruffian and our own stupidity.  We had tried to exercise caution, but when we reviewed our actions, it seemed, as Holman had remarked, that we had used the judgment of children.

“Why didn’t we wait at the door of that place till the brute came out?” he asked.

I had no answer to give to the question, and after an interval of silence he fired others at me.

“Why did you let go of One Eye?  Why didn’t we examine the cavern near the fire before chasing him?  The girls might have been somewhere near the fire!  Do you think they were?”

“I don’t think so,” I answered, trying to soothe him.  “I think Leith was the only person at the fire.  He picked Soma up just before we reached the gulf.”

“But where are they?  Where has the devil put them?”

“God alone knows!” I cried.  “Here, it’s my turn to take the lead.”

In silence we went stumbling on into the appalling blackness.  We could not see the dim outlines of each other when we stood only a few inches apart.  The darkness of the Cavern of Skulls had been relieved by the silver skewers of moonlight, but in the night that rolled around us there was not a single gleam of light.

We had no matches.  Everything that was in our pockets had been jolted out during the mad jaunt to the stone table, and now the revolver and cartridges which we had taken from One Eye had been lost by Holman during the slide down the mountain of volcanic ash that brought us to the bottom of the underground prison.