Cutlass and Cudgel Part 36

For a few moments he felt half stunned by the shake, but recovering himself he leaped up and began to follow the retiring footsteps which were faintly heard.

He knew the direction, and went on with outstretched hands to find the way, checked directly by their coming in contact with one of the great pillars of stone.

But he felt his way round this, got to the other side, listened, made out which way the footsteps were going, followed on, and caught his feet against something which threw him forward on to a pile of broken stone.

He got up again, and felt his way cautiously to the right, for the stones rose like a bank or barrier in his way, and he went many yards without finding a way through.

Then feeling that he had taken the wrong turning, he retraced his steps as quickly as he could, going on and on without avail and never stopping. He was just in time to save himself from another fall as he heard a dull bang as if a heavy door were closed, followed by a curious rattling sound, as of large pieces of slate falling down and banging against wood. Then came a dull echoing, which died off in whispers, and all was perfectly still.

"The cowards!" cried Archy, as he fully realised that his gaolers had escaped from him. "How brutal to leave a fellow shut up in a hole like this. 'Tis horrible; and enough to drive one mad. Ugh!" he now cried, "if I only could get out!"

He sat down upon the rough stones, feeling weak, and perspiring profusely. It was many hours now since he had tasted food, and in his misery and despair he felt that he should be starved to death before his gaolers came again.

"How dare they!" he cried pa.s.sionately. "A king's officer too! Oh, if I could only be once more along with the lads, and with a chance to go at them! I think I should be able to fight."

Then as he sat on the stones he began to cool down and grow less fierce in his ideas. In other words, he came down from pistols and sharp-edged cutla.s.ses to fists, and felt such an intense longing to get at Ram, that his fists involuntarily clenched and his fingers tingled.

"Wait a bit," he said fiercely,--"wait a bit."

"Yes, I shall have to wait a bit," he said sadly, as he rose from the stones. "Oh, how weak and hungry I am! It's as if I was going to be ill. I wonder whether I could track where they went out."

"Not now," he said,--"not now;" and with some faint hope of finding the place where he had been lying on the old sail, he began to move slowly and laboriously along, his mind dragged over, as it were, to the words of the boy as he taunted him about milk and bread and b.u.t.ter with ham.

It was agonising in his literally starving condition to think of such things, and he tried to keep his mind upon finding the way out, meaning to work desperately after he had lain down for a bit to rest.

But it was impossible to control his thoughts, strive how he would.

Hunger is an overmastering desire, and he crept on step by step with outstretched hands, picturing in the darkness slices of ham, yellow b.u.t.ter, brown crusted loaves, and pure sweet milk, till, as he dragged his feet slowly along, half-fainting now with pain, weariness, and despair, his foot suddenly kicked against something which rolled over and over away from him.

"The lanthorn!" he exclaimed eagerly, and planning at once how he could strike a light with a stone and his knife, and perhaps contrive some tinder, he went down on his hands and knees, feeling about in all directions till he touched the object which he had kicked, and uttered a cry of joy and excitement.

It was not the lanthorn, but a round cross-handled basket with lid, and he trembled as he recalled Ram's words about what his mother had sent.

Was there truth in them, or were they the utterances of a malicious mind which wished to torture one who was in its power?

Archy Raystoke hardly dared to think, and knelt there for a few minutes, with his trembling hands resting upon the basket, which he was afraid to open lest it should not contain that which he looked for.

"Out of my misery at all events," he cried; and he tore off the lid.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

"They only want to keep me a prisoner," said the midshipman half an hour after, as he sat with his mouth full, steadily eating away as a boy of seventeen can eat--"a prisoner till they've got all their stuff safe away. They dare not hurt me. I'm not afraid of that, and it's a very strange thing if I can't prove myself as clever as that cunning young scoundrel who trapped me here. At all events, I'll try. They dare not starve me: not they. Wait a bit, and I'll show them that I'm not so stupid as they think. Shut me up here, would they? Well, we'll see!"

He went on munching a little longer, then felt for the bottle, took out the tight cork, had a good long draught of the milk it contained, recorked and put it away in the basket with the bread, b.u.t.ter, and ham he had not consumed, shut down the lid, and laughed.

There was nothing very cheerful about his prison to make him laugh, but the reaction was so great--he felt so different after his hearty meal-- that he was ready to look any difficulty in the face, and full of wonder at his despondency of a short time before.

There's a good deal of magic in food to one who is fasting, and is blessed with health and a good appet.i.te.

"Now then," he said, rising with the basket in his hand, "the first thing is to find a place to stow you;" and he had no difficulty in finding ledge after ledge that would have held the basket, but he wanted one that would be easily found in the darkness.

At last he felt his way to a great ma.s.s of rock, upon which, about level with his head, was a projection upon which the basket stood well enough, and trusting to being able to find it again by means of the great block, he turned his attention to the lanthorn.

"If I only had that," he said to himself.

He stood thinking in the darkness, wondering which way he had better try.

"Any way," he said at last, "for I will have it; and then if I don't find my way out of this hole, I'm as stupid as that fellow thinks."

Stretching out his hands to save himself from a blow against any obstacle, he stalked off in as straight a direction as he could go, feeling his way with his feet, and always making sure of firm foothold before he moved the one that was safe, for his one great dread in the vast cavern was lest he should suddenly find himself on the brink of some yawning shaft.

He knew little about the district, his ideas of the place being princ.i.p.ally confined to what he had seen of the coast-line from the sea, but rugged piles of stone had been pointed out to him here and there as being the refuse of the stone that had been ages before dug and regularly mined by shafts and galleries out of the bowels of the earth; and a little thinking convinced him that he must be shut up in one of those old quarries which had been seized upon by the smugglers as a place to hide their stores.

It was a shrewd guess, and he could not help thinking afterwards that it was no wonder that so little success attended the efforts of the revenue cutter's crew to trace cargoes which had been landed when the smugglers had such lurking places as this.

As he crept slowly on, step by step, these and similar thoughts came rapidly through the prisoner's brain, and as he slowly mounted what seemed to be a pile of fragments, he began to wonder where his prison could be--whether it was close to the sh.o.r.e or some distance inland.

He stopped to listen, hoping to hear the breaking of the waves among the rocks, which would have proved what he wished to know at once; but though he listened again and again, he could not distinguish a sound.

The only noises he heard were those he made in stepping on one side of some piece of stone, which gave forth a musical clink as it struck another.

He was climbing up now what appeared to be a steep slope, over great fragments of stone heavier than he would have been able to lift, and he seemed to creep up and up till he felt a.s.sured that the ceiling was just above him, and raising his hand he touched the roof, his fingers tracing out again the great cast of one of the old-world sh.e.l.l-fish--one of the great nautiluses of the geologist.

But fossils were unknown things in Archy Raystoke's day. He was hunting for a lanthorn, not for specimens.

As he stood on the highest part of this pile of stone, he hesitated about going farther, and bore off to his left, feeling that in all probability the object of his search had not come so far.

From time to time he paused to listen, and at last thought of trying to find the extent of the place by shouting; but he was satisfied with his first essay, his voice going echoing away apparently for a great distance, and the peculiar, dying, whispering sound was not pleasant to one alone in the darkness.

After a while, however, as he felt that he was walking over small fragments of stone, he picked up a piece and threw it, to try if he were near the end of the cavern in this direction, for he was growing tired and longed now to find his way to the sailcloth to lie down and rest.

The piece he held was about a pound weight, and, drawing back his hand as far as he could reach, he threw it with all his might, to start back in alarm, for it struck wood with a heavy thud, and dropped down almost at his feet.

Unknown to himself he had gradually found his way to the pile of kegs, and these he touched the next moment, thinking that, as he stood facing them, the place where he had first come to himself must lie off to his left; and so it proved after a long search, and he sank down so wearied out, that as he chose by preference to lie down, he was before many minutes had elapsed in a deep and dreamless sleep, forgetful of the darkness and any peril that might be ready to a.s.sail him next.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

Whether it was night or day when Archy awoke he could not tell, but he felt rested and refreshed, and ready to try and do something to make his escape.

There was a way into his prison, and that way, he vowed, should by some means or other be his way out.

The first thing to do was to find that lanthorn, of whose position he seemed to have some vague idea; but, after a little search, he found that all idea of locality had gone, and he had not the slightest idea of the direction to go next.

"I must leave it to chance," he said. "I shall find it when I'm not trying;" and, wearying of the search, he set himself now to try and make his way to the place where his visitors had come into the old quarry.

Here, again, he was utterly at fault, for the cavern was so big and irregular, and he was still so haunted by the thought that he might be at any moment on the brink of some deep hole, half full of water, that he dared not search so energetically as he would have liked.