Then again for an instant he remembered where he was, and staggering about on the rocky floor, called, “Where are you, Sep?” in a husky, weak whisper. He felt his limbs give way under him, and, sinking on the floor, he had just strength left to reach his friend’s motionless body, when his senses left him. CHAPTER X. Sep was the first to recover consciousness. Little by little, beginning by half-opening his eyes in the darkness only to shut them again, without thought, without memory, he at last woke with a start to the knowledge that he was lying on something very hard, in a cold, dark place, that his teeth were chattering, and that he was very badly bruised on his right arm and side. Then, turning, he saw the pale remains of the daylight, or the pale beginnings of the moonlight, coming through the deep embrasure of the window. Following the line of faint light with eyes in which the intelligence was scarcely yet awake, he saw on the floor, almost close to him, what looked like a tumbled heap of dark clothes. Then he remembered. Shaking off the stupor, which again seemed to be overpowering him, Sep turned his friend’s body so that he could dimly see the face. At first he thought he was dead, and with a shriek of horror Sep started to his feet. But Rees stirred at the sound, and in a moment his friend was again beside him, loosening his clothes, watching eagerly the first faint signs of returning life, and muttering curses on his own weakness in having helped him in this dangerous, mad enterprise. At last Rees, after uttering a few faint sighs, rolled over on his left side, and again his companion thought he was dying, if not dead. Springing up again with a despairing exclamation, Sep was on the point of risking discovery by rushing to the lodge to summon help, when Rees, as if instinctively knowing that his project was in danger, recovered himself quite suddenly, like a child waking out of sleep, and stopped him with a hoarse cry. “Where is it? What have you done with it, Sep?” he asked wildly, but in a weak voice. “Done with what?” asked Sep, startled by his friend’s tone, and fancying at first that the incidents of the night, whatever they might have been, had turned his brain. “The gold! You know,” said Rees mysteriously. Sep sat down beside him, much excited. “Gold. Did you really find any, Rees? Tell me just what happened. I only remember feeling giddy and then drowsy, and then the light went out.” “You fell down, and I went to bring you up. You were right deep down there, on the ground, insensible. I couldn’t see you, but I felt you, and I dragged you up. And then I saw gold, gold, shining all round us on the walls in the darkness; but when I touched it I found it all like dry powder. I suppose I was dreaming, Sep,” he added slowly. “Of course you were. And you went down to pull me up?” Sep went on wonderingly. “It was very silly; you might have been overcome just as I was, and then we should have lain dead together.”