Simon remained where he was. He had no desire to enter the cave alone. And anyway his will appeared to be drained out of him, just as his body was drained of strength. But he had to back into it as Koris gained the level and faced about to draw up Jivin.

“There is some trick to this place,” the Captain announced. “I could not see you from below until you waved. Someone has gone to great trouble to hide his doorway.”

“Meaning this is highly important?” Simon waved to the cave mouth. “I do not care if it is a treasure house of kings as long as it gives us a chance of reaching water!”

“Water!” Jivin echoed that feebly. “Water, Captain?” he appealed to Koris trustfully.

“Not yet, comrade. There is still a road to ride.”

They discovered that Simon’s chosen method of hands and knees was necessary to enter the cave door. And Koris barely scraped through, tearing skin on shoulders and arms.

There was a passage beyond, but so little light reached this point that they crept with their hands on the walls, Simon tapping before him.

“Dead end!” His outstretched hands struck against solid rock facing them. But he had given his verdict too soon, for to his right was a faint glimmer of light and he discovered that the way made a right-angled turn.

Here one could see a measure of footing and they quickened pace. But disappointment waited at the end of the passage. For the light did not increase and when they came out into an open space, it was into twilight and not the bright sun of day.

The source of that light riveted Simon’s attention and pulled him out of his preoccupation with his own aches and pains. Marching in a straight line across one wall were a series of perfectly round windows, not unlike ship’s portholes. Why they had not sighted them from the strand, for it was apparent that they must be in the outer surface of the cliff, he could not understand. But the substance which made them filtered the light in cloudy beams.

There was light enough, however, to show them only too clearly the single occupant of that stone chamber. He sat at ease in a chair carved of the same stone as that on which it was based, his arms resting upon its broad side supports, his head fallen forward on his breast as if he slept.

It was only when Jivin drew breath in a sound close to a sob, that Simon guessed they stood in a tomb. And the dusty silence of the chamber closed about them, as if they had been shut into a coffer with no escape.