The Gentleman: A Romance of the Sea Part 70

"Only the boy," rumbled the man in the drain.

The words woke Kit to his position. With a ghastly effort he confirmed his mind and faced the situation.

There was one thing for it--to make for the opening, and trust his heels.

Better to be shot down in the open, anyway, than killed in the drain like a rabbit.

He turned round.

As he did so, a hand appeared at the opening, and swept back the tamarisk. A smiling face showed at the mouth of the drain.

"Tiger, Tiger, burning bright In the forest of the night,"

came the voice of a playful ogre. "Did you ever hear of a man called Blake, Little Chap? One of G.o.d's own."

As he said it, a door slammed violently; a great gust of wind rushed past the boy down the drain.

Blob, the faithful, had obeyed his orders.

The boy was alone in h.e.l.l, and the Devil was stalking him.

II

Kit turned round.

Under the man-hole squatted old Toadie. The light bathed his hunched shoulders, his receding forehead, his projecting teeth.

The horror of it, the darkness, here in the bowels of the earth, hidden from sun and wind and light of heaven, undid the boy.

He tried to scream and could not. He battered madly at the bricks, caging him like an iron destiny, and only hurt his hands.

Surely, surely G.o.d would hear him!

Toadie began to hop towards him--hop--hop--hop.

The boy was breathing stertorously through his nose, almost snorting.

The saliva was dribbling down his chin. He sank in a heap against the bricks and said,

"Hullo!"

_"Ello!"_ came a deep voice. _"Feel sick?"_

"I don't know," giggled the boy, crouching limp on the brick-floor.

He knew now what those rabbits he and Gwen had ferreted with glee felt, old Yellow Jack worming down the burrow after them.

Yes: it was nicer to ferret than to be ferreted.

Nicest of all perhaps to be the ferret and suck blood, suck blood, suck blood, glued between the eyes of your victim.

Again the boy giggled.

The horror was pa.s.sing. It was only a nightmare now, too terrible to be true, and a familiar nightmare. To be hemmed in thus in darkness, an ogre creeping in upon him, he just a throbbing heart and breathing nostrils.... Often before ... in life, in death, in dreams.... He didn't know, and didn't greatly care.... Time to wake soon.... Mother or old Nan would knock in a minute.... This sort of dream always ended in that knock.

He beckoned to the hopping toad, smiling. They might just as well be friends. Mother's knock would disturb them soon enough.

A noise roused him from his waking death.

It was the shuffling of feet.

Old Toadie heard it too, and snarled across his shoulder.

"Who the h.e.l.l's that?"

In the darkness there was a falling flash.

It was Blob; Blob, the brave, who had fulfilled his orders and more.

Loyal to his brother-boy, he had slammed the door as bidden, and, himself, the wrong side of it, had come to Kit's a.s.sistance.

After all he was a boy, and was not the young gentleman a boy?--and is not all the world against boys?--Boys that must hold together, or they will surely all be lost. Kit heard and lived anew.

III

Before him in the darkness was a m.u.f.fled tumult. Out of it came Blob's plaintive squeak,

_"Give over squeegin"_

And the ba.s.s reply,

_"I'll squeege your eart out !"

"Hullo! hullo! hullo!--what's forrad there?"_ came the Gentleman's echoing voice, as he crept towards them.

Kit scuffled down the drain, and tripped over a tumbling ma.s.s. It writhed; it stank; it was hot; it had two voices that growled and squeaked.

"Well done, Blob!" he panted. "Which is you?"

_"Oi'm me,"_ came a smothered treble from the heart of the tumble.

The boy's hand felt a shirt, warm and wet.

"Is that you?" prodding with his dirk.

_"G-r-r, you young--"_