“The lid of this coffin works on hinges,” he said. “Here they are, fashioned of the crystal itself. A living person within could have pulled it down before the senses departed.” “No,” I answered; “for look, here is a crystal bolt at the end and it is shot from without.” This puzzled him; then as though struck by an idea, he began to examine the other coffin. “I’ve got it!” he exclaimed presently. “The old god in here” (somehow we all thought of this old man as not quite normal) “shut down the Glittering Lady’s coffin and bolted it. His own is not bolted, although the bolt exists in the same place. He just got in and pulled down the lid. Oh! what nonsense I am talking—for how can such things be? Let us get out and think.” So we crept from the sepulchre in which the perfumed air had begun to oppress us and sat ourselves down upon the floor of the cave, where for a while we remained silent. “I am very thirsty,” said Bastin presently. “Those smells seem to have dried me up. I am going to get some tea—I mean water, as unfortunately there is no tea,” and he set off towards the mouth of the cave. We followed him, I don’t quite know why, except that we wished to breathe freely outside, also we knew that the sepulchre and its contents would be as safe as they had been for—well, how long? It proved to be a beautiful morning outside. We walked up and down enjoying it sub-consciously, for really our—that is Bickley’s and my own—intelligences were concentrated on that sepulchre and its contents. Where Bastin’s may have been I do not know, perhaps in a visionary teapot, since I was sure that it would take him a day or two to appreciate the significance of our discoveries. At any rate, he wandered off, making no remarks about them, to drink water, I suppose. Presently he began to shout to us from the end of the table-rock and we went to see the reason of his noise. It proved to be very satisfactory, for while we were in the cave the Orofenans had brought absolutely everything belonging to us, together with a large supply of food from the main island. Not a single article was missing; even our books, a can with the bottom out, and the broken pieces of a little pocket mirror had been religiously transported, and with these a few articles that had been stolen from us, notably my pocket-knife. Evidently a great taboo had been laid upon all our possessions. They were now carefully arranged in one of the grooves of the rock that Bickley supposed had been made by the wheels of aeroplanes, which was why we had not seen them at once.