The Golden Magnet Part 23

The spare supply of light we possessed, though, would be wanted after our sleep, and reluctantly I pressed down the wick; thinking as I did so what would be the use of the gold if I found it now and there should be no means of escape!

"What time would you like your shaving-water, Mas'r Harry?" said Tom, whose teeth chattered as he spoke.

"This is no time for laughing, Tom," I said gloomily.

"I don't see as it's any time for crying, Mas'r Harry," he replied, "for I'm quite wet enough without that."

Then he was silent, and we lay in that awful darkness, which in, spite of my efforts, I kept peopling with mult.i.tudinous horrors.

Then I seemed to lose consciousness; in spite of hard rock, cold, and damp, sleeping heavily, and dreaming now of Lilla, who seemed to be in some terrible peril from which I could not save her. I wanted to reach her, but something kept me away, while the danger she was in, as it floated before my distempered imagination, was somehow connected with Garcia, and Indians, and fire, or a mingling of all three. I felt ready to cry out as I struggled against the power that held me back; but at last I saw what it was that stayed me; it was the gold for which I had been seeking--piled-up, heavy ma.s.ses of gold--holding me down, crushing me almost, while Lilla's sweet imploring face was turned to me as if asking my help. I strained, I longed to release myself, but in vain; and at last one great ponderous ma.s.s began to move towards me slowly, with a heavy, roaring noise, till it rested upon my chest, and with a start I woke to find one of Tom's arms thrown across my throat and him snoring loudly.

For a few minutes I lay aghast, unable to make out where I was; but by degrees recollection brought back all the horrors of our position, and with a sigh I managed to rid myself of Tom's arm.

I settled myself to try and sleep once more, so as to be ready for what would, I knew, prove an arduous, wearying task, tiring alike to body and spirit; when my blood seemed to be frozen in my veins, for there came a soft, fluttering noise, the air seemed to fan my cheeks as I lay, and then there echoed through the place three wild, appalling cries, followed by profound silence.

"Who's that a-calling? It won't do, Muster Garcia! You left her to drown, eh? What! Hilloa! Say, Mas'r Harry, was I dreaming or did you call?"

"I did not call, Tom," I whispered; "but there is some one in here besides us. Hark!"

Again, as I spoke, and heard plainly above the distant roar, three more cries came sweeping along, and once more there was silence.

"All right, Mas'r Harry," said Tom; "better chance for us to get out.

If some one else can come in that only shows that there's another way; and when it's time to get up, why, up we get, for I don't feel a bit disposed to try any more sleep here--it's too much like hard work!"

"I don't think the cries were human, Tom," I said.

"Never mind that, Mas'r Harry, they weren't ghosts' cries. I'll bet that. Now, if my old mother was here she'd stick out as it was a spirit as couldn't--Oh, Mas'r Harry, though, what a horrid screech!" he whispered, as again a long-drawn, hollow, echoing cry ran through the pa.s.sages.

I do not think I'm more timid than most lads would have been at a time like this; but my hands trembled as I sought for the flint, steel, and tinder-box, anxious to be out of the darkness that hemmed us in on all sides, and it was not until I had tried for some time that I was able to ignite the tinder.

At last, though, the brimstone match was held down to the spot glowing beneath my breath, the blue flame was succeeded by that of the wooden splint, and once more our spirits rose as the feeble light of a candle was reflected from the rocky walls.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

THE AMPHITHEATRE.

We were half numbed with the cold, but I found now that, in spite of our troubled dreams and its apparent brevity, our sleep must have continued for a long time, for our clothes were nearly dry.

"Now, then, Mas'r Harry," said Tom, "never mind no shrieks and cries; let's eat what there is in that bag and drink what there is in that bottle, and then go on our voyage of discovery. It will give us strength for the job, besides being ever so much easier to carry. If anything queer comes near us we've got our pistols, so let them look out."

In spite of the feeling of tremor caused by the mysterious cries I was eager enough to move, and we began to climb up once more through the crack, after stepping back to the vault, holding up our candles, and making sure that by no possibility we had overlooked the raft.

As to its floating away I felt that it would not go very far on reaching the end of the tunnel, there were too many obstacles in the way in the shape of great boulders to block up the stream; so that hope of relief was but faint there even if a search was commenced.

There was no raft in sight; nothing but the strange, troubled water, ever bubbling and leaping up; and with a shudder, as we thought of the struggle we had had, we turned away, but not without seeing that the sand strip was now about half bare.

It was no time for being nervous. We knew that to live we must find a means of exit while our candles lasted, so started once more to thread our way along through the rift and right on to the huge cavern where the cascade of water came thundering down.

Here we halted for a time to gain breath, and then set to work to thoroughly explore the place; so we pushed on nearer and nearer, to find that, as we expected, we could pa.s.s right round behind the waterfall, over the slippery, wet stones, worn into seams, as if at one time the stream had rushed down them; but no trace of rift or pa.s.sage could we find save one small crevice through which it seemed possible that a body might be squeezed.

"Never mind, Mas'r Harry, that can't be the way; let's try farther round this other side."

Tom led now and I followed, leaving the cascade behind us, and thoroughly examining the other side of the amphitheatre, but without avail; when we sat down, worn out, about opposite to the rift where we had entered, too disheartened to speak, till Tom said:

"We shall have to try and crawl through that hole, Mas'r Harry--there, under the waterfall."

"A dog could hardly do it, Tom," I said bitterly, and then I started.

"Stop a moment," I cried. "That was a regular crack or split in the rock that we came through, Tom; such a one as might have been made by an earthquake."

"Sure it was, Mas'r Harry; but you don't think as another one has come and shut it up, do you?"

"No, no, Tom," I cried, leaping up and forgetting my fatigue; "but why should not that crack be continued on this side--here, just opposite where we are? Come, climb higher with me, and let us have another try."

My thought was a bright one; for far up, just where the side of the amphitheatre began to curve into the dome which formed the roof, we found a crack answering to the one through which we entered on the other side; and squeezing ourselves through, we found that we were in another narrow pa.s.sage--so narrow, though, that we proceeded with great difficulty.

"This must be the way out, Tom," I said.

"Or the way in, Mas'r Harry," said Tom; "one of them two. Anyhow, though, we shall soon see."

Not so soon, though, as Tom expected; for we crept on and climbed for quite a couple of hours, winding and doubling about, before the rift opened out, sloping, too, at the same time, so that walking became out of the question; and we climbed slowly down till we lost sight of roof and sides. Then on and on, slowly and carefully, where a false step would have sent us gliding we knew not where; and then we stopped, aghast, with a fearful chasm at our feet, to awake to the fact that we had climbed down to the extreme edge of an awful precipice, while, on holding up our lights, there before us was darkness, black and impenetrable, above, around, beneath.

The same thought occurred to both, and in a whisper we gave utterance to that thought together, though in different words.

"Tom, we've come round to another part of the great black gulf."

"Mas'r Harry, this is the same place where we pitched down the big stone. Let's try another."

More to prove the truth of our thought than anything else, I a.s.sented; and finding a good-sized lump, Tom hurled it outwards with all his might, and then we listened as we had listened before, to hear it at last strike water at a profound depth, with the same roar of echoes to make us shrink shuddering back.

"It is the same place, Tom," I said, speaking hoa.r.s.ely, for this was another damp to our hopes.

There was apparently no chance even of reaching the rocky point where we had stood the day before, for that point stood out alone, and I could not see how it could be reached; but in a dull, despondent way, I thought that we would try to the last; and shrinking back a few yards from the edge of the precipice, we began to climb along the side, in the hope of finding some outlet in that direction; for could we but reach that point by any means we were safe.

Ten minutes' climbing in a state of extreme horror, with the loose fragments of rock slipping from beneath our hands and feet, to roll rattling over the edge of the vast chasm, and then we were brought to a standstill; for there, right in front, was a bare, smooth, perpendicular wall of rock, inexorable as fate itself.

We turned and began to climb back along the horrid slope, when, with a sensation of horror that I hardly dare to recall, I felt my legs slip, my hands, torn, wet, and bleeding as they were, to glide over the stone to which I clung; and, with a feeble cry for aid to Tom, I gave myself up for lost.

With a shriek like that which might have been expected to have emanated from some wild beast, Tom leaped to my side, caught at me, and then, clinging together, we continued our downward course for what seemed an interminable length of time, when there was a sudden stoppage. Tom's feet rested in a cleft of the rock, and he held me fast, as I lay gasping, with my legs hanging for some distance over the frightful chasm.

For full five minutes we did not either of us move, since it seemed that the slightest attempt to alter our position must result in a plunge into the darkness yawning to receive us.

One candle was extinguished, but the other lay guttering and flaring some twenty feet above us, wasting rapidly, and casting its feeble, weird light upon where we clung.

We neither of us spoke, but softly feeling about, I at length got my fingers in a c.h.i.n.k of rock, which gave me courage to move my legs, so that at last they rested upon a rough point or k.n.o.b. Then, by Tom's guiding, my other hand found a hole, and by an effort I climbed on to the slope, to lie panting and waiting for nerve.

Help me Tom could not from his position, and had I not stirred myself I must have fallen at last; but he had well paid the debt he owed me for my last night's efforts, as I told him when we had cautiously made our way back up the slope in a diagonal direction to where the rift opened, to sink down at last, breathless and thankful, in the narrow way; glad even to be beyond reach of the influence of the horrible gulf, which had for me an attraction that was appalling.