He had found what he had sought with such labours and persistency.

What else mattered?
And then, without a moment's warning--the end.
No signal crackings, no thin jets or streams from the green immensity beyond.
Just one universal collapse, one chaotic climacteric, begun and ended in the same instant, as the crust of the chamber, no longer supported by the in-pent air, dissolved under the irresistible pressure of the sea.
Where the sparkling chamber had been was a whirling vortex of bubbling green water, in which tumbled grotesquely the body of a man.
The water boiled furiously along the tunnel and foamed into the gallery.
The wooden supports of the iron door gave way; the door sank slowly into its appointed place.
Old Tom Hamon was dead and buried..