Chapter Eleven
Dust filled Barnaby’s eyes, filled his mouth and nose, and noise filled his ears—booms and cracks—rebounding and echoing until it sounded as if the entire cave system were collapsing around them.
Gradually the noise died to a clatter of rolling stones. Barnaby found himself on hands and knees, blind, half-deaf. Each inhalation brought more dust, choking him.
He coughed, blinked, and lurched to his feet. No, not blind. He saw candlelight, and air thick with dust, and another lurching shape: Marcus.
Barnaby blinked again. Before, he’d been standing in the entrance to the cave where he’d found the coin, empty of Lady Cosgrove and Miss Merryweather, with a dark opening gaping on the far side; now, he was standing in the entrance to . . . disaster. Half the cave’s roof had co
