'Because whichever side he's dropped he's safe from us,' I said.

'There's a hole that no man's ever seen the bottom of on one side of the ridge, and on the other a stinking lake of green boiling sulphur.

When you shot him you sent him into one or the other, so you can say good-bye to him and the diamonds.' 'Oh!' he cries, when he heard that--just like that; then after a bit he points up the path, and asks me to go back and have a look for him.

I went back as far as the ridge.

The moon was clear as day, shining on that infernal green lake on the one side, and into the deep hole on the other.
The lake was bubbling and stewing in the moonlight like a witchpot, and the other side of the ridge was just black emptiness, and there was no sign of Remington--I knowed there couldn't be.