Page:White and Hopkins--The mystery.djvu/271

Rh poisonous vapours from the volcano had not spread their blight here, for the face of the precipice was bright with many flowers. So close in moved the boat that its occupants could even see butterflies fluttering above the bloom. But that which their eager eyes sought was still denied them. No opening offered in that smiling cliff-side. Not by so much as would admit a terrier did the mass of rock and rubble gape.

"And Slade described the cave as big enough to ram the Wolverine into," muttered Trendon.

Up to the point of the headland, and back, passed the boat. Blank disappointment was the result.

"What is your opinion now, Dr. Trendon?" asked the captain of the older man.

"Don't know, sir," answered the surgeon hopelessly. "Looks as if the cave might have been a hallucination."

"I shall have something to say to Mr. Slade on our return," said the captain crisply. "If the cave was an hallucination, as you suggest, the seal-murder was fiction."

"Looks so," agreed the other.

"And the murder of the captain. How about that?"

"And the mutiny of the men," added the surgeon.

"And the killing of the doctor. Your patient seems to be a romantic genius."

"And the escape of Darrow. Hold hard," quoth Trendon. "Darrow's no romance. Nothing fictional about the flag and ledger."

"True enough," said the captain, and fell to consideration.