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290 "All right!" came back her answer coolly; she had quite command of herself. She turned the lamp downwards, so that we could see into the water, and I found I had stumbled against an iron box, beside which, in about two feet of water, lay my lamp. I picked this up first and shook the water from it and laid it on the shelf of rock. "Wait here a moment," I said, "I shall run back and get a torch." For I had left the tin box on the top of the heap of debris when we had scrambled through the hole. I was starting back at once when she said after me, and in that cave the voice came after me "monotonous and hollow like a ghost's:"

"Take my lamp with you dear. How can you find the box, or even the way to it, in the dark?"

"But I can't leave you alone here; all in the dark, too."

"Oh, I'm all right," she answered gaily, "I don't mind a bit! And besides it will be a new sensation to be here alone—with Olgaref and the treasure. You won't be long, will you, dear?" I felt that her query almost belied her brave words; but I knew that behind the latter lay her pride which I must not offend; so I took the lamp she was holding out to me and hurried on. In a few minutes I had found the box and brought it back; but I could see that even those minutes had been a trying time to Marjory, who was deathly white. When I came close, she clung to me; after a second or two she said, as she drew herself away, looking at me diffidently as though to excuse herself, or rather to account for her perturbation:

"The moment you had gone and I was alone in the dark with the treasure, all the weird prophecying of Gormala came back to me. The very darkness itself made light patches, and I saw shrouds floating everywhere. But it's all right now that you are here. Light a torch, and we shall look at the Pope's treasure." I took a torch out of the box and lit it; she laid it so that the lighted end