The light grew brighter and he was quite sure that a room of some size was just ahead.

His curiosity became so great that it smothered all apprehension, and he stepped boldly into the room, where the lamp burned on a table.
He would have stepped back as quickly, but a pair of great burning eyes caught his and held them.

A bed was standing against the board wall of the cave, and in this bed lay an old man with a huge bald head, immense white eyebrows and eyes of extraordinary intensity.
Once more did Colonel Charles Woodville and Richard Mason stare into the eyes of each other, and for a long time neither spoke.
"I managed to escape from Jackson with my little family," said the colonel at length, "and I thought that in this, so to say, sylvan retreat I might drop all undesirable acquaintances that I made there." The whole scene was grotesque and wild to Dick.

It was like a passage out of the Arabian Nights, and an extraordinary spirit of recklessness seized him.
"I appreciate your words, sir," he said, "and I can understand your feelings.

I have felt myself that it was never wise to go where one might not be welcome, and yet chance plays us such tricks that neither your wish nor mine is granted." The old man then raised his head a little higher on the pillow.