After the others were gone he stepped up to the boulder, and, stooping down, placed his ear close to it.

He appeared as if trying to catch some sound that might come from the cavity underneath.
None came--no noise, even the slightest.

Within the shut shaft all was still as death.

For death itself must be down there, if there ever was life.
For some time he crouched beside the rock, listening.

Then rising to his feet, with a smile of satisfaction upon his grim, sinister features, he said, in soliloquy,-- "They're down there, no doubt of it; and dead long before this.