It is hard to trace the marks, for another bare-footed man has walked over them since.
But see, in this place at the edge of the path, there's the mark of a palm, showing where the assassin's hand rested when he crouched on the ground.
He sprang upon the old man from the rear and they struggled together over the water—touch off a light, please—you see how the clay is all trampled over on both sides of the path, 'way out to the brink of the pool.
There is no second set of marks here to obliterate it; we are dealing with just two people—Colonel Gaylord and his assassin."
Terry bent low and picked up from a crevice what looked like a piece of stone covered with clay.
"Here, you see, is the end of the Colonel's candle.
He probably dropped it when the man first sprang, and in the darkness he could not tell who or what had attacked him.
In his frenzy to have a light he snatched out his match box—Radnor's box—and that too was dropped in the scuffle.
"Now, even if the original motive of the crime were not robbery but revenge—as I fancy it was—at any rate the murderer, being a tramp and a thief, would have robbed the body.
But he did not.
Why was that?
Because he saw or heard something that frightened him, and what could that have been but Mose running to his master's assistance?"
Terry strode over to the steps which led to the incline, and motioning us to follow, pointed out some marks on the sloping bank at the side of the path.
"See, here are Mose's tracks.
He was in such a hurry that he could not wait to come up by the steps; he tried to take a cross cut.
He scrambled up the slippery bank so fast that he fell on his hands and knees in this place and slid back.
That accounts for those long dragging marks, which none of you appear to have noticed.
Mose did his best, but he could not reach his master in time.
The murderer seeing—or rather hearing him, for it must have been dark—was seized with sudden fear, and with a convulsive effort he threw the old man against the rock wall here, where his head struck on this broken stalactite.
If you look carefully you can see the marks of blood.
He then hurled him into the pool and fled."
"It sounds plausible enough," said the sheriff slowly, "but there are one or two points which I'm afraid will not bear examining.
Suppose your man did thrown the Colonel into the water and run for it, then what, I should like to know, has become of Cat-Eye Mose?"
"That," said Terry, knitting his brows, "is still a mystery and a fairly deep one.
There is something uncommonly strange about those tracks on the lower borders of the pool and I confess they puzzle me.
Only one explanation occurs to me now and that is not pleasant to think of.
We have some clues to work with however, and we ought not to be long in getting at the truth.
If I had had your chance of examining the cave on the day of the crime," he added, "I think I should know."
"You might, and again you might not," said Mattison. "It's easy enough for you fellows to come down here and make up a story about a lot of people you've never seen, but I'll tell you one thing, and that is that you're not so likely to hit the truth as the men who've been brought up in the country.
In the first place it comes natural to niggers to be whipped and they don't mind it.
In the second place if your tramp did want to take it out on the Colonel why should he be scared by Mose, who was a little bit of a sawed-off cuss that I could lick with one hand tied behind me?
You may be able to impress a New York jury with a ham bone and a cheese rind, Mr. Patten, but I can tell you, sir, that a Virginia jury wants witnesses."
"We shall do our best to provide some," said Terry, coolly.
"And perhaps you can tell," added Mattison with the triumphant air of clinching the matter, "what has become of the five thousand dollars in bonds?
You can never make me believe that any nigger—"
"Oh, they're back in the safe at Four-Pools.
I found 'em this morning in the spring-hole where the man had thrown them away.—Now, gentlemen," he added with a touch of impatience, "I want to try a little experiment before we leave the cave.
Will you all please put out your lights?
I want to see how dark it really is in here."
We blew out our candles and stood a moment in silence.
At first all was black around us, but as our eyes became accustomed to the darkness, we saw that a faint light filtered in from somewhere in the roof above our heads.
We could make out the pale blur of the white rock wall on one side and the merest glimmer of the pool below.
"No," Terry began, "he could have seen nothing; he must have—" He broke off suddenly and gripping my arm whispered out, "What's that?"
"Where?" I asked.
"Up there; straight ahead."
I looked up and saw two round eyes which glittered like a wild beast's, staring at us out of the darkness.
A cold chill ran up my back and I instinctively huddled closer to the others.
For a moment no one spoke and I heard the click of Terry's revolver as he cocked it.
Then it suddenly came over me what it was, and I cried out:
"It's Cat-Eye Mose!"