The floor of the cave was of clay, and at one spot it appeared to have been recently disturbed.  Here Langley began to dig with a pick, which, just below the surface, struck against some hard substance.  This, when uncovered, proved to be a bone.  He threw it to one side and dug deeper, uncovering more bones—­some old, and others comparatively fresh, but emitting a horrible smell.  He stooped and picked one up, but dropped it immediately, as if it burned him.  It was the lower jawbone of a human being.

“Great God!” he gasped.  “What is the meaning of this?”

“It means,” said Whitson, “that we are in a nest of bloody cannibals!”

Langley dropped like a stone, in a dead faint; so Whitson dragged him outside, and, leaving him to recover in the open air, returned to the cave.  He then seized the pick and began digging, unearthing some new horror at every stroke.  A glittering object caught his eye; he picked this up and found it to be the steel buckle of a woman’s belt.  He glanced toward the cleft in the rock where the lumps of flesh were hanging, and caught his breath short.  Going outside he made another torch, which he lit; and then he returned and carefully examined the loosened surface.  Another glittering object caught his eye.  This, when examined, proved to be an old silver watch, the appearance of which seemed familiar.  He forced open the case, and saw, roughly scratched on the inside, the letter D. He now recognised it; he remembered having once fixed a glass in this very watch for Dollond, about a month before the latter’s disappearance.  Continuing his search Whitson found the iron heel-plate of a boot, and a small bunch of keys.

Whitson drew his revolver, and picking up the torch went into the terminal chamber.  Four shots, fired in quick succession, reverberated immediately afterward through the cavern.

Whitson then went outside to Langley, whom he found sitting down near the fire, looking if possible, more ghastly than before.  The presence of Whitson seemed, however, to act on him as a kind of tonic, and he soon pulled himself together sufficiently to assist in piling a quantity of fuel upon the already sinking fire, which soon blazed brightly, lighting up the mouth of the cavern and the space in front of it.  One of the bodies of the men who had been shot was lying on its side, with the face toward the fire.  Whitson examined the mouth, pushing back the upper lip with a piece of stick.  He found that the shape of the mouth and the development of the teeth were the same as Ghamba’s.  The other bodies were lying on their faces, so he did not trouble to examine them.