Once or twice we had made fancied discoveries which we called off the other to see, and once or twice we had tried some blasting on rocks that seemed to suggest mysterious tunnellings into the earth.  But it had all proved a vain thing and a weariness of the flesh.  And the ghost of John P. Tobias still kept his secret.

CHAPTER XI

An Unfinished Game of Cards.

One evening, as I returned to the ship unusually worn-out and disheartened, I asked Tom how the stores were holding out.  He answered cheerfully that they would last another week, and leave us enough to get home.

“Well, shall we stick out the other week, or not, Tom?  I don’t want to kill you, and I confess I’m nearly all in myself.”

“May as well stick it out, sar, now we’ve gone so far.  Then we’ll have done all we can, and there’s a certain satisfaction in doing that, sar.”

Good old Tom! and I believe that the wise old man had the thought behind, that, perhaps, when there was evidently nothing more to be done, I might get rid of the bee in my bonnet, and once more settle down to the business of a reasonable being.

So next morning we went at it again; and the next, and the next again, and then on the fourth day, when our week was drawing to its close, something at last happened to change the grim monotony of our days.

It was shortly after the lunch hour.  Tom and I, who were now working too far apart to hear each other’s halloes, had fired our revolvers once or twice to show that all was right with us.  But, for no reason I can give, I suddenly got a feeling that all was not right with the old man, so I fired my revolver, and gave him time for a reply.  But there was no answer.  Again I fired.  Still no answer.  I was on the point of firing again, when I heard something coming through the brush behind me.  It was Sailor racing toward me over the jagged rocks.  Evidently there was something wrong.

“Something wrong with old Tom, Sailor?” I asked, as though he could answer me.  And indeed he did answer as plainly as dog could do, wagging his tail and whining, and turning to go back with me in the direction whence he had come.

But I stopped to shoot off my revolver again.  Still no answer.

“Off we go then, old chap,” and as he ran ahead, I followed him as fast as I could over those damnable rocks.

It took me the best part of an hour to get to where Tom had been working.  It was an extent of those more porous limestone rocks of which I have spoken, almost cliff-like in height, and covering a considerable area.  Sailor brushed his way ahead, pushing through the scrub with canine importance.  Presently, at the top of a slight elevation, I came among the bushes to a softer spot where the soil had given way, and saw that it was the mouth of a shaft like a wide chimney flue, the earth of which had evidently recently fallen in.  Here Sailor stopped and whined, pawing the earth, and, at the same time, I heard a moaning underneath.