Quickly Elaine reached into her pocket and drew out something.

“Here, Walter, take this,” she cried.  I seized the object.  It was the searchlight gun.

Hastily I aimed it, the spot of light glowing brightly.  Indeed, I doubt whether I could have shot very accurately otherwise.  As the man approached cautiously down the passageway the bright disc of light danced about until finally it fell full on his breast.  I fired.  The man fell forward instantly.

Again I fired, this time at the man in the cave entrance.  He jumped back, dropping his gun which exploded harmlessly.  His hand was wounded.  Quickly he drew back and disappeared among the trees.

We waited in tense silence, and then cautiously looked out of the mouth of the cave.  No one seemed to be about.

“Come—­let’s make a dash for it,” urged Elaine.

We ran out and hurried on down the ravine, apparently not followed.

Back among the trees, however, the man had picked up a rifle which he had hidden.  While he was binding up his hand with a handkerchief, he saw us.  Painfully he tried to aim his gun.  But it was too heavy for his weakened arm and the pain was too great.  He had to lower it.  With a muttered imprecation, he followed us at a distance.

Evidently, to us, we had eluded the pursuers, for no one seemed now to be following, at least as far as we could determine.  We kept on, however, until we came to the water’s edge.  There, down the bay, we could see Professor Arnold’s yacht.

“Let us see Professor Arnold, anyhow,” said Elaine, leading the way along the shore.

We came at last, without being molested, to a little dock.  A sailor was standing beside it and moored to it was a swift motor-boat.  Out at anchor was the yacht.

“You are Professor Arnold’s man?” asked Elaine.

“Yes’m,” he replied, remembering her.

“Is the Professor out on his boat?” we asked.

He nodded.  “Did you want to see him?”

“Very much,” answered Elaine.

“I’ll take you out,” he offered.

We jumped into the motor-boat, he started the engine and we planed out over the water.

Though we did not see him, the man whom I had wounded was still watching us from the shore, noting every move.  He had followed us at a distance across the woods and fields and down along the shore to the dock, had seen us talking to Arnold’s man, and get into the boat.

From the shore he continued to watch us skim across the bay and pull up alongside the yacht.  As we climbed the ladder, he turned and hurried back the way he had come.

. . . . . . .

Elaine and I climbed aboard the yacht where we could see the Professor sitting in a wicker deck chair.

“Why, how do you do?” he welcomed us, adjusting his glasses so that his eyes seemed, if anything, more opaque than before.