Page:Taylor - In the Dwellings of the Wilderness.djvu/172

 with the hope that my good friend, Dr. Peabody, may, on examination, be enabled to analyse what it contains." For it was of the lamp he wrote, the lamp, which, cold and dead, later found its place in a glass case among old relics of bygone days, labelled with a card bearing an outline of its half-known strange history, of which the beginning was forever lost. He was deep in interested reviewal of its discovery, when a stumble at the door and a smothered curse announced the advent of Deane.

"Can I come in?" Deane asked, and entered hastily. He listened an instant to make sure of Merritt's position, and crossed the tent to him, feeling his way with the helpless awkwardness of the newly blind.