I had lost all trace of Holman. With extreme caution I crawled
toward what I thought to be the spot where I had left him, but my
groping fingers found only the fragments of bone that covered the dusty
floor of the charnel house.
I sat in the dust and endeavoured to make my addled brains direct me as
to the best course to pursue. The silence led me to infer that Leith and
his party, who were evidently familiar with the cave, were making for
the passage by which we had entered the place, and a cold chill passed
over me as my imagination pictured Leith, One Eye, and the oily dancers
waiting for Holman and me in the narrow corridor. To escape from the
place immediately was our only chance, and with a courage born of terror
conjured up by the thoughts of imprisonment in that place of skulls, I
started to crawl rapidly into the dark.
I had not proceeded half a dozen yards when my hand touched a bare leg,
and I drew back hastily. With madly pounding heart I crouched in the
dust, waiting for an attack, but as I waited I convinced myself that the
leg had not been drawn back when my fingers encountered it.
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