No sooner had the demonstration ceased than I hastened up the rock-heap to the cave. I found the mouth of the place somewhat choked and hard to enter, but I forced my way over massed-in boulders to a vestibule of the great treasure-house itself. Then suddenly my hopes were blighted and failure loomed before me. It was as dark as tar and I had clean forgotten to fetch a torch! “But how could I have fetched a torch?” my brain demanded. I had no civilised matches; I could not have carried a brand all day, for the sake of having it now, and if I had, the smoke might have attracted the attention of the Blacks. Had they caught a bear with a torch in his hand they would unquestionably have desired an explanation. I thought of my knife, which was steel, and the flints on my arrows. Could I not produce a spark, ignite some tinder and then make some faggots take fire? Yes, I could, but the arrows were all in the boat and I had about as much tinder handy as a fellow could carry in his eye. In desperation I groped ahead for a rod and nearly broke my neck, by jolting down an unseen step in the floor. It was useless to tackle the cavern in this inky blackness; I might easily get boiled to death by the fountain of scalding water. In bitter regret, I reproached myself for having come away from camp without consulting the goddess and without maturing my plans. But any ass should have known the place would be dark! I acknowledged that I was a fool, and that after all this bother I should have to give it up. Even if I did come again next day, it would be no easy matter to fetch a torch, and I might try a hundred times and not have the luck I had this evening in avoiding those villains, the Blacks. More than ready to swear at my folly, mad as a hornet to think of abandoning all the gold, which was right there, almost within reach of my hands, I pinched myself viciously and groped my way out to the heap of rocks at the entrance. Already a star was shining in the heavens. What good were stars, I would have liked to know. It was fire I wanted—fire at the end of a stick. A crazy idea of hunting for something highly inflammable, on which to try my flint and steel, tried to get started in my brain. I rejected the notion with scorn. I might as well begin a search for glow-worms or incandescent electric globes. “Those fools of Links have got plenty of fire,” I grumbled, spitefully. “For about two cents I’d kick them all out of their camp and take all the torches I could carry.” This bit of pleasantry somewhat restored my humour. I started up from where I was sitting on the rocks, abruptly, possessed of a great idea. Why not make the trick worth the winning; why not steal their fire to light myself in robbing their cave?