Cutlass and Cudgel Part 39

On previous days he had looked forward to the lad's approach as something that would break the monotony of his captivity, but now he would have given anything to have known that by some accident the lad would be kept away.

Still Archy toiled on, the stone he had attacked as tight as ever, but quite a little heap of rough mortar increasing beneath where he knelt.

"It's only getting out the first one," he argued; "the others will come easily enough."

And so, full of hope, he kept on, till feeling that it must be near the time for the visit, he reluctantly closed his pocket-knife and went down, gazing back first at the tiny ray of light which pointed the way to liberty.

His arms ached and his fingers were sore. There was a blister too in the palm of his hand where the knife had pressed; but these were trifles now, and he seated himself in his old spot ready to receive his visitors, and so full of hope that he could hardly refrain from shouting for joy.

He could see it all, now. This was quite an ancient mine, one perhaps from which all the best stone had been worked. Where Ram came down was the land entrance, and the ray of light marked the opening in the face of the cliff, from which the pieces of stone had been lowered down into boats or ships below. After the smugglers had taken possession it seemed probable that they had filled up the hole in the cliff face, though it struck Archy that this would leave them a handy place to get their cargoes ash.o.r.e if they had tackle to haul it up, and get it into their store at once.

The time seemed very long before the rattle and rumble of the stones on the trap-door struck upon Archy's listening ear, but at last, after he had convinced himself that he might have worked two or three hours longer, there it was, and then came the rattle of the bolts and the sharp sound of the lock. Directly afterwards there was a soft glare, the lanthorn appeared like some creature of light swaying and floating towards him in the darkness till it stopped close by, and Ram's now familiar voice exclaimed,--

"Hullo there! Getting hungry?"

"Yes," said Archy, in a voice he wished to sound surly and obstinate, but which in spite of his wishes had a cheerful ring, which affected Ram, who began to laugh and chatter.

"Nice to be you," he said. "Get all the good things, you do. Fried fish to-day, and pork pie. I say, midshipman, you have got into good quarters, you have."

Archy tried to seem sulky.

"Oh, you needn't talk without you like, but they didn't feed you up aboard ship like you're getting it now, I know; salt beef, then salt pork, and hard biscuits. Why, it's like fattening up one of our pigs for Christmas. I say, you are quiet. Haven't been at one of them little kegs, have you? Oh, very well; if you don't like to talk, I can't make you."

"Are you going to let me out of this place?" said the midshipman, so as to keep up the idea of his longing to be set free, and chase any suspicions of his having discovered a way out.

"When I get orders, Mr Orsifer, and not before. I aren't skipper, no more nor you are."

"Another piece of insolence," thought the prisoner. "Oh, how I will pay him out for this by and by!"

"Aren't you going to peck?"

Archy took no notice, and at last there came, in a deep, echoing growl through the place,--

"Say, lad, going to be all day?"

"Coming, Jemmy," Ram shouted. "Want anything else, midshipman?"

"Yes, you to go and not worry me," replied Archy, heartily repenting his words the next moment for fear that they should excite suspicion.

But they did not, for Ram only laughed and walked away.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

As the prisoner sat listening to the bang of the trap-door and the rattling of the bolts, he could hardly contain himself. But knowing the danger of the boy coming back and finding him gone, he forced himself to stay where he was; and to pa.s.s away the time he opened the basket Ram had now left in place of the other, and forced himself to eat.

But he could hardly swallow the food, which seemed tasteless in the extreme, and he was about to give up and hasten back to his work when his heart leaped, for there was the distant sound of the bolts being drawn, and a minute or two later the soft yellow light came slowly towards him and stopped.

"Just remembered," said its bearer. "Got half way home first, though.

Mother said I was to be sure and take back that basket. Put the stuff out on the sail. Hullo, what you been doing to your hands?"

Archy started guiltily, and looked at them in the light to see that they were covered with blood, from injuries that he had made unconsciously in toiling with his knife against the stones.

"Tumbled down?" continued Ram without waiting for an answer. "Well, 'tis dark 'mong these stones. I used to trip over them, but I could go anywhere now in the dark. Seem to feel like when they are near. Never mind, tear up yer hankychy and wrap round. I'll bring you one o' mine next time I come. There we are. Haven't forgot the basket this time.

I say?"

"Well?"

The lad was ten yards away now, holding the lanthorn above his head.

"You lost a chance."

"What do you mean?"

"Jemmy Dadd isn't up by the door. You might have given me a topper with a stone, and run away; too late now."

He ran off laughing, and holding the lanthorn down low to make sure of his way.

But Archy did not start up in pursuit. He saw a better way out now, and waiting till he felt convinced that the boy must be well on his way home, he jumped up, felt his way to the crevice, and was soon after hard at work picking the mortar from between the stones.

Now and then, as he grew faint and weary, it seemed to him that he had made no progress, but the little heap of mortar told different tales, and once more taking heart he toiled away.

It seemed a very easy thing to do, to loosen one stone in a rugged wall, draw it out, and then remove the other, but in practice it appeared almost impossible, and again going back into the quarry to partake of the food that was absolutely necessary, Archy returned to his task, and after working away again for about half an hour he fell fast asleep.

How long he slept he did not know, but he started awake again to find that it was quite dark, and he kept on like one in a dream.

The stone seemed as fast as ever, and his progress was getting very slow now, for he had cleared away the mortar as fast as he could reach in; but at last, seizing the stone and getting his fingers well in the joint, he gave it a vigorous shove, and then uttered a shout of triumph, for to his delight there came a sharp crack, and after giving a vigorous shove, the stone, which was about twenty inches long, was drawn out, and became the instrument for dislodging its fellows.

This was comparatively easy now, and in the course of the next two days the prisoner had loosened and drawn out stones till he had made a way through a rough piece of wall six feet thick, and had enlarged the hole so that there was room to creep into the opening he had made and look out.

Here came disappointment the first. The wall he had worked through did not face out to sea, but was one side of a chasm, and he gazed at the opposite side.

Soon after he learned that this had not been the place where the stones were carried out for landing in boats, but the hole through which all the refuse was discharged, to fall in a crumbling heap a tremendous distance below, to be washed away by the waves which curved over and over against the foot and rolled up into the chasm.

Still he worked on, enlarging the hole and sending the broken pieces and mortar, rattling down the face of the cliff into the sea, till there was nothing to hinder his crawling out at any time, and either getting to the top of the cliff or down below to the sh.o.r.e.

He decided for the former as the more easy and the less likely to suggest peril, and he spent the next few hours after cleansing himself as much as possible, so as not to excite the attention of his young gaoler, and in his efforts to do this he made use of a piece of sailcloth, and an end of a coil of rope which lay with some sea-going tackle hard by where he slept.

The day had come at last when the way was open, and he had but to creep out into the fresh bright sunshine and run for his liberty.

He could hardly refrain from doing so at once, but his long and arduous labour, which had taken the skin from his fingers and left his whole hands so tender that he hardly dared to touch anything, had taught him some wisdom, especially not to throw away the opportunity for which he had worked so hard.

And now he sat there in the darkness, wafting, so exultant that his seat might have been a throne, instead of a worn-out sail stretched over a ma.s.s of stone. He hugged the knees upon which his chin rested, and gazed straight before him into the blackness, watching for the first glow of Ram's lanthorn, and seeing as he watched the glorious sky, the blue sea all a-ripple; the shimmer and play of a pa.s.sing shoal of fish; gulls floating without effort, now high up, now low down, their b.r.e.a.s.t.s of purest white, their backs of delicate grey, and their wondering eyes gazing at the rough-looking fisher-lad who crept out of a hole in the face of the cliff, made his way from shelf to shelf, ever up and up till he was on the gra.s.s at the top, where he lay down to wait till night for fear of being seen and dragged back.

The black darkness of the great cavern quarry was all alight now with the pictures his mind painted, and, in his delight and satisfaction, he laughed aloud as he thought of Ram's disappointment on coming one day and finding his prisoner flown.

It was hard work to keep from starting at once, but the midshipman felt that if he did, his escape would be discovered at any moment, and if it were, it was only a question of time before he would have the whole smuggling gang after him, and he would be hunted down to a lot ten times more bitter from the fact of his having failure to contemplate, and form his mental food.