"
"Then I suppose we be in the wrong," said Dick to Jack; and on that
supposition they acted.
In this way too self-reliant Science, whose mission it is to explode
fallacies, occasionally assists in the explosion or suffocation of a
fact, for Solomon Coe had not been dead half an hour when his body was
found.
When Richard, alone on his errand of mercy, was approaching the brink of
the third level, he could hear Solomon calling lustily for help. Nay, it
was not only "Help!" but "Murder!" that he cried out; and
notwithstanding the menace that that word implied toward himself,
Richard hurried on, well pleased to hear it; the vigor of the cry
assured him that his enemy was not only living, but unhurt. As the light
he carried grew more distinct to him, indeed, these shouts redoubled;
but when it came quite near, and disclosed the features of its bearer,
there was a dead silence. The two men stood confronting one another--the
one in light, distinctly seen, looking down upon the other in shade,
just as they had parted only eight-and-forty hours ago. To one of them,
as we know, this space had been eventful; but to the other it had seemed
a lifetime--an age of hopes and fears, and latterly of cold despair,
which had now been warmed once more to hope only to freeze again.
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