Suddenly he became conscious that they were no longer walking on a level floor of sand but that they were ascending, as the light had done.  Mukoki stopped and for a full minute they stood and listened.  The tumult of the fall came to them in a far, subdued murmur.  Beyond that there was not the breath of a sound in the strange world of gloom about them.  They were about to start on again when something held them, a whispering, sobbing echo, and Rod’s heart seemed to stop its beating.  It died away slowly, and a weird stillness fell after it.  Then came a low moaning cry, a cry that was human in its agony, and yet which had in it something so near the savage that even Wabigoon found himself trembling as he strained in futile effort to pierce the impenetrable gloom ahead.  Before the cry had lost itself in the distances of the cavern Mukoki was leading them on again.

Step by step they followed in the path taken by the strange light.  Rod knew that they were climbing a hill of sand, and that just beyond it they would see the light again, but he was not prepared for the startling suddenness with which the next change came.  As if a black curtain had dropped from before their eyes the three adventurers beheld a scene that halted them in their tracks.  A hundred paces away a huge pitch-pine torch a yard in length was burning in the sand, and crouching in the red glow of this, his arms stretched out as if in the supplication of a strange prayer, was John Ball!  Just beyond him was the gleam of water, inky-black in the weird flickerings of the torch, and toward this John Ball reached out in his grief.  His voice came up softly to the three watchers now, so low that even in the vast silence of the cavern it could barely be heard.  To Roderick Drew it was as if the strange creature below him was sobbing like a heart-broken child, and he whispered in Wabigoon’s ear.  Then, foot by foot, so gently that his moccasined feet made no sound, he approached the madman.

Half-way to him he paused.

“Hello, John Ball!” he called softly.

The faint light of the torch was falling upon him, and he advanced another step.  The murmuring of the wild man ceased, but he made no movement.  He still knelt in his rigid posture, his arms stretched toward the black chaos beyond him.  Rod came very close to him before he spoke again.

“Is that you, John Ball?”

Slowly the kneeling figure turned, and once more Rod saw in those wild eyes, gleaming brightly now in the torch-light, the softer, thrilling glow of recognition and returning reason.  He reached out his own arms and advanced boldly, calling John Ball’s name, and the madman made no retreat but crouched lower in the sand, strange, soft sounds again falling from his lips.  Rod had come within half a dozen feet of him when he sprang up with the quickness of a cat, and with a wailing cry plunged waist deep into the water.  With his arms stretched entreatingly into the mysterious world beyond the torch-light he turned his face to the white youth, and Rod knew that he was trying as best he could to tell him something.