Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/104

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN fainted. She simply stood still and exclaimed, "Gold! What does it mean?"

"What is it all about?" exclaimed Ralph. "It looks like petrified honey. This never could have been a beehive."

Without answering, Captain Horn knelt at the edge of the aperture, and taking the lantern from the boy, he let it down as far as it would go, which was only a foot or two.

"Ralph," he said hoarsely, as he drew himself back, "hold this lantern and get down out of my way. I must cover this up, quick." And seizing the stone slab by the handle, he lifted it as if it had been a pot-lid, and let it down into its place. "Now," said he, "get down, and let us all go away from this place. Those negroes may be back at any moment."

When Ralph found that his sister had fainted, and that Mrs. Cliff did not know it, there was a little commotion at the foot of the mound. But some water in a pool near by soon revived Edna, and in ten minutes the party was on the plateau outside the caverns. The new moon was just beginning to peep over the rocks behind them, and the two ladies had seated themselves on the ground. Ralph was pouring out question after question, to which nobody paid any attention, and Captain Horn, his hands thrust into his pockets, walked backward and forward, his face flushed and his breath coming heavily, and, with his eyes upon the ground, he seemed to think himself entirely alone among those desolate crags.

"Can any of you tell me what it means?" cried Mrs. Cliff. "Edna, do you understand it? Tell me quickly, some of you!" 92