I told him that I forbade him to go, and that it was madness to suppose that the sentry would stand there alone. He did not hear me, disappearing immediately upon his words, and being lost to our view as completely as though the earth had opened and swallowed him up. I shall always say that a quicker, surer-footed, or more faithful fellow never lived to earn the gratitude of an unemotional master. My own confidence in him found its best expression in the complacency with which I waited for his news. He would kill the sentry if need be—of that I felt sure—and there was something horrible in the thought that a living man, whose figure we could see in the dim light beyond the cavern, stood upon the very brink of eternity and might have spoken his last word on earth. This reflection was my own. The stolid boatswain made nothing of it. He covered the lantern methodically and squatted back against the rock. “Yon yellow laddie’s fine,” he whispered. “’Twould be as good as dead the man were. Has your honour such a thing as a bit of baccy upon ye? No; well, I’ll do well wanting it.” I smiled, but did not answer him. In truth, I had begun to find the minutes of waiting intolerable. What with the oppressive atmosphere of the tunnel, the heated, steam-laden air, and upon this the ghostly fascination of the spectre at the cavern’s mouth, it came to me that my own strength might not carry me safely through the ordeal. What kept Okyada? The sentry, on his part, did not appear to have moved since I had first seen him. There was no sound in the cave save that of the hissing steam behind us. I could not discover the little figure of my servant, though I was looking from the darkness toward the light. Had he come to the conclusion that it was dangerous to go on? This seemed possible, and I had already taken a few steps towards the tunnel’s mouth when his figure suddenly emerged into the light, and standing side by side with the sentry, he uttered that soft, purring whistle which called to us to come on. “Yon’s one of our own, then,” the boatswain said, starting to his feet clumsily. “Then someone has gone under, and he is keeping watch over him,” I replied. “God send that it is not one of our crew.” “Amen to that, sir, though ’twere in a Christian man to say that we maun all die when the day comes.” “But not in this cursed island or at the hands of a rascally Jew. The day will be an unlucky one if it comes here, my man. Put your best foot foremost, and say that it shall not.”