It was a large, low, natural rock chamber, and all round the walls were
black slits which might mean it passages leading on into the bowels of
the island. To investigate them all would mean the work of many days.
The dead man, the perished packages, the empty kegs--there was nothing
else, except his own boot lying in the mouth of the largest of the black
slits, as though anxious on its own account to be gone.
The still air was already becoming heavy with the pungent smoke of his
torches. He stepped cautiously across to the body again, and picked a
couple of buttons from the coat. They came off in his hand, and when he
touched the buckles on the shoes they did the same. Then he turned and
made for his waiting shoe just as his last torch went out.
The smell of the fresh salt air, when he wriggled out into the well, was
almost as good as a feast to him. He climbed hastily to the surface,
and, as he crept out from under the topmost slab, took careful note of
its position, and then scored with a piece of rock each stone which led
up to it. For, if ever he should need an inner sanctuary, here was one
to his hand, and evidently quite unknown to the present generation of
Sark men.
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