and swung himself down into the gloom.

The walls of the crevice were so close together that he was able to
steady his knees against them, but as he neared the bottom they
widened perceptibly. His first act on setting foot to the stone
flooring was to open the tarpaulin, draw forth a candle and a box
of matches, and strike a light. The chamber of granite in which he
stood was indeed narrow, but full of interest and romance. The
floor was about the same width in all its length, wide enough for
Willock, tall as he was, to stretch across the passage. It extended
perhaps a hundred feet into the heart of the rock, showing the same
smooth walls on either side. The ceiling, however, was varied, as
the outward examination had promised. Overhead the stars were seen
at ease through the two feet of space at the top; but as he carried
his candle forward, this opening decreased, to be succeeded
presently by a roof, at first of jumbled stones crushed together by
outward weight, then of a smooth red surface extending to the end.

The floor was the same everywhere save at its extremities. At the
point of Willock's descent, it dipped away in a narrow line that
would not have admitted a man's body. At the other end, where he
now stood, it suddenly gave way to empty space. It came to an end
so abruptly that there was no means of discovering how deep was the
narrow abyss beyond. Possibly it descended a sheer three hundred
feet, the depth of the ridge at that place. On the smooth floor
which melted to nothingness with such sinister and startling
suddenness, the candlelight revealed the skeleton of a man lying at
the margin of the unknown depths. Mingled with the bones that had
fallen apart with the passing of centuries, was a drawn sword of
blackened hilt and rusted blade--a sword of old Spanish make--and