"Confound it, Walter," exclaimed Kennedy.

Down the passageway the figure was now thoroughly on the alert,
staring with his goggle-like eyes into the blackness in our
direction. It was not the roof above him that was unsafe. He was
watched, and he did not hesitate a minute to act.

He seized the bag and picked his way quickly through the passage
as if thoroughly familiar with every turn of the walls and
roughness of the floor.

We were discovered and if we were to accomplish anything, it was
now or never.

Kennedy dashed forward and I followed close after him.

We were making much better time than our strange visitor and were
gaining on him rapidly. Nearer and nearer we came to him, for, in
spite of his familiarity with the cavern he was hampered by the
outlandish head-gear that he wore.

It was only another instant, when Kennedy would have laid his
hands on him.

Suddenly he half turned, raised his arm and dashed something to
the earth much as a child explodes a toy torpedo. I fully expected
that it was a bomb; but, as a moment later, I found that Kennedy
and I were still unharmed, I knew that it must be some other
product of this devilish genius.