Page:Off For Hawaii.djvu/262

244 can put his share in his pocket. Then if one or the other drops into a hole" He did not finish, but all of us understood—and shivered.

The treasure was divided in silence, twenty-one pearls, large and small, to each. I tied mine in my handkerchief, pinning the whole inside of my vest. Vaguely I wondered what my share was worth and if I would live to take it to a place of safety.

An examination showed us that the cave ran back to a distance of several hundred yards further and there came to an abrupt ending. It was from fifty to sixty feet wide, and the ceiling sloped up like the dome of a large church, at the top of which was a narrow slit through which came a slanting streak of sunshine.

"We can't go forward and we can't go backward," said Dan dismally. "How we are to get out I don't know."

"We must get out," I said desperately. The thought of being buried alive in that lava tomb was too awful to contemplate.

But speaking in that fashion and escaping were two different things. One method after another was suggested, but without result. "We can't dig our way out, with nothing to dig with," said Oliver. "And what is more, we can't climb up these walls."

While he was speaking I was gazing upward