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“Fly, señor, I am safe, and do but stay to light a candle. I will follow you.”

“You are lying to me,” he answered; “your voice comes from the level of the floor.” And as he spoke I heard the scratching sound of a match.

So soon as he had found his candle and lit it, he knelt down and looked at me. Then he examined the roof above, and, following his glance with difficulty, I saw that next to the hole whence the boulder had fallen, hung a huge block of stone, that, surrounded by great cracks from which water dropped, trembled like a leaf whenever he moved or spoke.

“For the love of God, fly,” I whispered. “In a few hours it will be over with me, and you cannot help me. I am a dead man, do not stop here to share my fate.”

For a moment he seemed to hesitate, then his courage came back to him, and he answered hoarsely:

“We entered this place together, friend, and we will go out together, or not at all. You must be fixed by the rock and not crushed, or you would not speak of living for hours. Let me look,” and he lay upon his breast and examined the fallen rock by the light of the candle. “Thank God! there is hope,” he said at last, “the boulder rests on the ground and upon the stone against which I struck my leg, for only one point of it is fixed in your back. Do you think that anything is broken, Ignatio?”