She replied, “That is also probable, though not certain. We do not know that they patrol the whole coast. This region may be their headquarters, as I believe it to be. The work you mention is great, but so are their skill and knowledge. Their methods may be beyond our imagination. Or they may have worked through the agency of subject creatures. “It seems that we have little certainty. Our safety must be in assuming nothing, so that we may understand the true significance of the facts that meet us. “But our first purpose must be to gain the entrance of the tunnel by which we propose to descend. To do this we may retrace the path we came. But is this necessary? “Our Leaders wished to recover the body which we are now seeking, and for that reason they had to go as far north as the second tunnel. “They may have had other reasons, but, if so, I do not know them. If we choose to explore the one by which you descended, the distance must be much shorter across the wide valley which lies beneath us, and the way does not appear impracticable. The crossing of the further hills, and the descent of the cliffs, may be difficult, and in this strange world there may be dangers in a new way of which we can have no foresight. It is certainly shorter. It will avoid the long transit of the opal path which is perilous if they be watching to take us. But I do not pretend that I think it the safer way. It is the doubt that calls me.” I answered, “I do not think it the safer way either. I have lost the axe on which you have seen that I relied for any defence I could make against the creatures which threatened me. I have also lost my knapsack, and with it all the necessities I carried, except such small things as my pockets held. I have a damaged arm, and a lame foot. I think that I shall be unable to move more than slowly, however urgent the call. But if you are not afraid to venture with one so useless beside you, it is the doubt of the unknown way that calls me also.” She answered generously, “You are too good for the body in which you live. I have the javelin still, and, as I said before, we will pass in peace, or there will be one that will sorrow.” CHAPTER II THE UNKNOWN WAY I did not ask, for I remembered our compact, and I closed my mind securely against her doubt of my welfare, but there are times, with thought as with the spoken word, when silence is of an equal significance. “It is in my mind,” she told me, “that the intention which we have formed to feed your body when next we may, will give it no strength beforehand. It is in my mind, also, that the food of the Killers would hardly please you, if we could find it amid the ashes. “Beyond this, I think that the Dwellers may return very early to resume their investigation of events which (I hope) are still of some mystery to them, and that it is well that we should be clear of this place before the darkness leaves us.”