The Hosts of the Lord Part 47

Curious. It might have been used for a different and more deadly purpose; but you could never count on what fellows would do--even when they were treacherous.

Lance thought this dreamily, before he realized more than the fact that he was alive; not drowned.

Then he sat up hastily and faced the truth that he was alone once more; alone in that network of underground pa.s.sages and caves of which Gu-gu had spoken.

Was there any chance of his getting out of it? Not by the dive, certainly. Without help that was impossible. He set himself to remember what his guide had said in reply to the questions with which he had been purposely plied.

First, as to light. If Gu-gu was to be trusted the materials for this must be close at hand. Lance rose cautiously and felt about the ledge on which he lay and the walls of rock about him, and ere long came on what he sought. Flint and steel, a box of tinder, a bottle of oil, and a rag torch hung in an old bit of fishing-net to a peg that was driven into a crevice.

So far, good; and after a minute these enabled him to see that he was in a sort of vaulted well, half hewn out of rock, half built in with brick. It was filled to some three feet or so with water, except in one corner, where the flooring shelved down to an archway. There it was deeper. This must be the opening of the tunnel through which they had dived, and through which, doubtless, Gu-gu had escaped; for he was not likely to have braved the intricate pa.s.sages without a light. This thought made Lance look to see how much oil the bottle contained.

There was only a mere driblet at the bottom. Plainly, therefore, he could pause no longer; so, instantly, without further thought, he waded across the pool and ran along the only pa.s.sage which led from it. He had to stoop as he ran, and from the feel to his feet he guessed that the pa.s.sage led upwards first, then downwards; apparently, too, in a perfectly straight line. The river, therefore, must be behind him, and he tried to make this point a fixed one, so as to give him some notion of his bearings.

After a hundred yards or so he emerged into a second cave or chamber, also nearly waist-deep in water. From this several pa.s.sages opened, some too small to admit of a man pa.s.sing through them. These, then, must be the ca.n.a.ls of which Gu-gu had spoken; one of them, possibly, that which should have supplied the Pool with Immortality. The memory of that crowd of eager, patient faces, disappointed by such a miserable trick, made Lance feel pitiful; then his pity brought a sudden practical suggestion. Why not open the sluice, or whatever it was, now, and give the miracle? It would at least keep _some_ of the crew quiet when it came, at dawn; the dawn which might be so fatal to quiet--the dawn which must, surely, be close at hand.

He raised the torch and saw, close beside him, a foot or two above the present level of the water, a clumsy closed stone conduit with an iron handle. It was a rude primitive tap, no doubt, by which the levels could be raised. Without further thought, he turned it, and smiled to find himself right, as water poured out, filling the vaulted chamber with sound. Then, without further pause, he pa.s.sed on down the biggest of the pa.s.sages leading from the chamber; since that seemed the most likely one. After a while, however, the pa.s.sage narrowed, seemed in danger of ending altogether; so he harked back.

There was no longer any sound in the chamber when he returned to it, and the level of the water had risen almost to the floor of the pa.s.sage in which he stood, wondering which of the other outlets he had best try. The choice was a case of sheer chance, of course, he told himself; a mere backing of one's luck. But, as he paused to make it, something cold struck on his feet, causing him to look down in sudden surprise.

The water was still rising. That must be stopped, anyhow, unless he was to be drowned out like a sewer rat.

He stuck the torch into a cleft in the rock beside him, hung the net to it, and swam over to the conduit, which was already submerged. But the handle which had turned so easily was stiff now; possibly because of the pressure of the water, possibly because there was some other rude mechanism of which he was unaware. Anyhow, after a few trials he realized that he was helpless until the water had found its own level.

But what was that? Who could tell? Would it rise, and rise, and rise, till it filled the whole place?

Who could tell?

It was not fear which clutched at his heart--only a vague self-pity; almost an amused wonder that this Immortality for others might bring Death to him.

He looked up into the vaulted arch above him, then to the, as yet, dry pa.s.sages which he could just see, as darker arches of shadow.

Unless one of them rose abruptly to a higher level--and the chance that one did, or that he should find it, was remote--he would be wiser to stay here, and see what happened. The roof was at least higher.

He swam back to the torch and, holding on to the crevices of the wall, waited.

Still rising. He shifted the torch to a higher crevice and waited again, a dull curiosity taking possession of him.

Still rising. He wondered, suddenly, whether it would not have been better for him to have gone back the way he had come. The pa.s.sage had certainly seemed to ascend, and it was a question of levels. That was all. A mere question of levels.

He shifted the torch again. It was dying down now, the rags showing charred, cindery. But as he fed it with oil and it flared up and smoked, the thought came to him that it was using air needlessly, making suffocation more imminent.

He blew it out deliberately. If a man had to die, he might as well die in the dark. He was glad, a moment later, of the darkness. It shut out reality and left him to dreams; to vague hopes, to kindly forgetfulness, to Erda's face. How plucky she had been! Well! even if he _had_ to be drowned like a rat in a sewer, he must not be behind her. The pathetic comfort of kindly memory, which with strange unreason--since it enhances the value of the life that is being left--makes the face of death seem less stern to poor humanity, came to him and absorbed him. If he died and she lived, she would not forget him; he knew that.

And still the water rose.

It must be rising now, he thought, in the Pool of Immortality, and the eager, patient faces that had been waiting for it so long must be showing glad in the grey light of the dawn.

For the dawn was coming to the world, though he would not see it.

Strange, incomprehensible thought, even though the reality of it was so certain, so close. Incomprehensible? Say rather, impossible; frankly impossible! He could not be going to die!

He shifted the unlit torch to a still higher crevice--almost a ledge in the rock--and waited incredulously for the water to rise.

And as he waited in the dark, someone else in the grey dawn, to whom death was more familiar, to whom, in a way, it was the one great certainty of Life, was feeling the same frank incredulity at the thought of the immediate future.

For Dr. Dillon, when he found himself alone on the roof of the gaol gate with an unconscious woman and a child, knew that the end could not be far off. With Vincent dead, and Eugene cut off by the stern necessity for keeping that door shut, he could not hope for more than a brief, savage resistance--and then? Failure, inevitable failure, unless help came; and that seemed far as ever.

As yet, dazed by that closing of the door, that desperate, triumphant death of the man with his back to it--a death which had gained them nothing--the prisoners were still huddled together, crushed out of further action, at the far end of the alley. So the courtyard was clear, free from a.s.sailants. But that could only be for a minute or two. There was an ominous rending and hewing at the gate below; ere long those outside would be inside, and with a leader who would know what to do. So life could only be an affair of moments; yet it seemed incredible, more than incredible, that all his strong will and determination would not avail even to save those helpless creatures in his charge. He stooped hurriedly and lifted the still unconscious woman in his arms, carried her into the turret, closed the door on her and the child--frightened now for the first time at her mother's silence--and returned to wait and watch. It was all he could do for them, unless fate gave him a chance of appealing for them to Roshan Khan. But even then there could be no bargaining, no compromise, no surrender!

A sharp crash, a sudden rise in the babel of voices below, warned him that the gate had given, partially at least. The next instant a soldier or two, ignorant of that dead man with his back against the closed gate, ran lightly down the alley calling on the prisoners to make way.

One of them was Roshan Khan; but George Dillon did not waste a cartridge even on him. He was reserving his fire for that storming of the broken stairs which must come when the a.s.sailants found themselves still foiled.

In truth Roshan Khan had this same storming in his mind as all he cared for, since it would pit him against his rival, against Vincent Dering, who he knew was on the roof. And so, with that odd acquired sense of honour, fair play, G.o.d knows what, he had been planning, as his men battered down the gate, how best to compa.s.s those fair odds which were necessary alike to his sense of justice and injustice--for the injustice of his own position cried aloud for proof that he was worth a better one. So he had settled to complete that liberating of the prisoners which, with the help of the keys, ought already to be in hand. This done, the general rabble would be eager for freedom, eager for plunder, eager to get to the town and raise it, eager for all things for which he cared no jot. Then would be his time. Then--he did not even try to formulate how--he could find himself face to face, at fair odds, with Vincent Dering. Wild memories of duels he had read about in western books, duels with others, who had nothing to do with the quarrel, looking on, occurred to him.

Yes! that would satisfy him. To have it out, till death!

He set his teeth as he forced a peremptory way through the crowd at the end of the alley, which hid the closed door until one actually stood beside it.

Then he stood transfixed, for he saw Vincent Dering's dead body still backed by that closed door, still guarding it, unarmed. There was a curious look of content in the dead face, and Roshan, grasping its meaning by intuition, turned from it with a curse, knowing himself forestalled, cheated.

"'Twas not our fault, _Khan-jee_," protested a voice, quickly; "the swine fought till the other one had locked the door in our faces, and so--"

Roshan struck at the voice fiercely. Not forestalled, not cheated, only; but outdone, conquered! His rival had died a hero's death, and he--he might live to be hanged!

A rage of despair, of despite, seized on him. His one real object gone, the whole hideous folly of the rest made him fling up his hands pa.s.sionately as he dashed back to the gate, neither knowing nor caring what he was going to do next.

Storm that feeble garrison on the roof? those broken stairs, every crevice, every foothold in which stood out clear, easy, in the light of the search-ray? Was that a man's task?

Confused, dazed, he ran on, followed instinctively by the crowd, wondering what he would be at.

George Dillon, seeing the rush, covered the first foothold of the broken stairs with his rifle, and waited for a man to show on it.

But none came.

Just as the rush reached the courtyard, Eugene Smith's search-ray, having exhausted itself, went out, leaving, not darkness, but the grey mystery of dawn, in which for an instant all sound, all movement, seemed arrested. There was one utterly peaceful second, and then, from behind the splintered gateway, from the shadows of the tunnel, came a breathless voice:--

"Close the outer gate, sergeant; if you can, you have them in a trap! a regular trap!"

_A trap!_

The word reached those who had followed Roshan in his causeless retreat. Had he foreseen this? Was he escaping from the trap? Their eyes flew to the tunnel, but the light which, till then, had lit up its darkness, the swinging lamp by which the batterers of the gate had worked, was dashed down by someone's hand--a small, white hand--and there was nothing to be seen. Only that voice to be heard repeating, "They're in a trap; keep them there!"

Keep them! Not if they could fight their way into the open! The cry rose in a second:--

"A trap. Yea! a trap! Out of it! Outside, brothers, outside, where we can fight free!"

Roshan, who would have paused at this chance of fair resistance, was caught in the rush from behind, and found himself through the gap in the gate fighting desperately in the crowd, calling on his men to rally. But they had construed his half-frenzied flight from that look on Vincent Dering's face into a lead, and they were mixed up inextricably with the horde of undisciplined conspirators who, having been till now safe under cover of the tunnelled archway, yelled for the open, not so much in which to fight, but in which to run away.

The mere handful of men, whose number was fortunately hidden by the darkness, could never have prevented the rush, but a quick wit amongst them seized on a possibility, and the breathless voice called, "Let them pa.s.s--let them pa.s.s!"