The Old Man of the Mountain Part 23

They kept absolute silence. The dull thud of footsteps overhead was clearly audible. Forrester looked up at his friend, dimly visible high above him. His attention was so fully concentrated that a slight sound behind caused him to jump round with a sudden start. And there, in the entrance to the cavern, he saw the priest, peering up towards the hole in which the ladder rested.

[Ill.u.s.tration: There he saw the priest, peering up towards the hole in which the ladder rested.]

In after years Forrester often felt a quickening of the pulse as he tried to piece together the confused sequence of events in the next crowded minute. Whether he shouted to warn his companion before the Chinaman swung round and dashed back along the pa.s.sage, or whether the Chinaman fled first and his cry followed, he could never distinctly recollect. All that he could remember was that, impelled by an instinctive feeling that the priest must be caught and silenced, he sprang like a tiger towards the intruder. Probably the fact was that the priest, being on the alert, had already turned before Forrester dashed after him, for he had a lead of several yards up the narrow pa.s.sage.

Forrester was the younger and the fleeter of the two. Weeks of life in the mephitic atmosphere of the underworld, indeed, had slackened his muscles and lowered his nervous energy; his wind came short; but at this perilous crisis he seemed to regain all the athletic vigour which had served him so well on the football field in years gone by. When the priest dashed into the outer cavern, Forrester was only a few yards in the rear.

The former, feeling no doubt that he had now desperate men to deal with, rushed straight across to the entrance, where he might expect to find the negrito guards ready to support him. The little men, however, startled out of their wits by a sight which never, in all their years of servitude, had they beheld before, stood like stockfish, gazing amazedly at the two figures swiftly approaching them. When he reached them, the Chinaman appeared to realise instantly that he could place no reliance on men so palsied. He darted between them, turned to the right, and ran as fast as his long robe would allow along the ledge leading to the ward-room on the other side of the lake.

Crossing the cavern Forrester had gained on him. At the entrance he was barely two yards behind. He flashed past the astounded negritos, swung round on to the ledge, came up with his quarry just as he reached the plank bridge, and making a spring forward, caught him round the waist, as he had tackled many a man in pursuit of the oval ball. The Chinaman, however, although less agile, was of heavier build, and by sheer strength and weight he began to haul Forrester along the bridge towards the further ledge, at the end of which his colleague and the negrito guards were already ma.s.sing.

Forrester clung to him desperately, tried to drag upon him by digging ineffectual heels into the plank; but with the cavern wall on his right, and only two feet of planking to manoeuvre on, he found that inch by inch he was being pulled into the jaws of danger. The Chinaman was clutching at the crazy handrail for purchase in hauling his tenacious grappler along. In a few seconds Forrester must either release him, or fall a captive into remorseless hands. Despair struck a spark in his darkening mind. There was one chance--one, and no more!

Bracing his right leg, he threw the whole weight of the Chinaman and himself against the bal.u.s.trade. It creaked; there was the snap of breaking timber. Forrester released his man and drew quickly back. The priest fell with a great splash into the green oily waters of the lake.

By this time the startled company at the remote end of the ledge were beginning to advance. A spear whizzed past Forrester's ear. To protect himself, he wrenched away a piece of the broken handrail. With this club he could ward off a missile or crack a skull. Facing the enemy, he retreated with wary footsteps along the bridge. The priest, leading on his negritos, came striding along the ledge, his parchmenty features grimacing with rage.

Forrester was trembling in every limb. The sudden spurt, the muscular strain, had told heavily upon his debilitated body. And again despair seized upon his soul as he realised that his efforts after all had been made in vain. Before long the priest now menacing him would hurry to acquaint the Old Man with this revolt of the prisoners. They would be taken aloft, and then--the Eye!

But all speculation was suddenly shocked out of his mind by a tragic sequel, unlooked-for, terrible.

The Chinaman was still floundering beneath the bridge.

Swift and silent, from out the sombre s.p.a.ces of the lake there slid a something huge and hideous--a Shape. A glint of greenish light in cruel eyes; a flash of gleaming teeth in jaws like those of a mammoth dog-fish; a shriek of terror and despair; then silence, and a slow heaving of the waters. The Monster had claimed his ancient right!

CHAPTER XVIII

UNDER THE STARS

Forrester and his enemies alike were for the moment paralysed by the horror of the tragic scene. Before they had recovered their wits, Beresford dashed up behind his friend, and cried to him to tear up the plank. Only one who had not seen the actual occurrence could have intervened at such a moment.

"Quick, man!" cried Beresford, amazed at the other's sluggishness.

Pulling himself together, Forrester stooped and helped Beresford to haul the plank to their own side of the ledge, leaving an impa.s.sable gap between them and their enemies. Only by swimming could they now be reached, and Forrester felt, with a return of his nausea, that the priest, after the object lesson he had just had, would recoil from so terrible a risk.

"Bring the plank back into the cavern," said Beresford. "There's no time to lose."

They hurried back. On hearing Forrester's shout, Beresford had descended the shaft with reckless speed, and hurried through the pa.s.sage after him. When he gained the cavern pursuer and pursued had disappeared through the entrance. Dashing after them, he levelled the two negritos, now at last awaking from their torpor, with blows left and right. He said afterwards that it was monstrously unfair--like hitting children. Too late to witness the fate of the priest, he perceived what had escaped Forrester's over-wrought mind--that only the destruction of the bridge could save them from the Old Man's immediate vengeance.

Whether it would result in their complete and final salvation was on the knees of the G.o.ds.

Returning to the cavern, they caught up the spears of the negritos, and carried them and the plank to their customary quarters at the further end. Of the Chinese prisoners, only Wing Wu and his cousin had enough spirit left to interest themselves in the extraordinary incidents of the past few minutes: the others had scarcely stirred in their sleep.

"Lie down, my lad," said Beresford kindly, as Wing Wu came to meet him, his eyes gleaming with a light not seen in them for many a day. "You will want all your strength. You shall know all about it, presently."

As he spoke, he reeled against Forrester, who caught him in his arms and lowered him gently to the floor.

"Decidedly groggy," he murmured with a haggard smile. "I'm sorry to be such a nuisance to you, old man. Give me a minute or two: then--by George! I shall talk!"

He closed his eyes, and lay for a while silent on his back, his panting nostrils telling how great had been the tax upon his weakened frame. By and by he looked up at Forrester, reclining near him.

"Thank Heaven, my brain is clear!" he began. "What an absurd thing one's body is! ... Now, they'll either rebuild the bridge and storm us, or do nothing, and starve us out. It depends on whether the Old Man can bear the thought of extinguishing us without using the Eye! Either way, we are doomed--unless we get out. That's as much as to say that we must get out at once. We must! And we must let our friends above know when to expect us Scribble a note to Mackenzie, then: we pop out of the chimney to-morrow night."

"Is it possible?" Forrester asked.

"You will manage it. If I am not mistaken, a few hours' work with the iron will pierce through to the surface. Only take the greatest care."

"And what then?"

"There you have me! I haven't an idea. But I am inclined to think that your canny, close Scot is ready for us, has his plan of campaign thoroughly mapped out. I trust him the more because he has told us nothing. Well, you mount first--I'm afraid that's inevitable----"

"Of course----"

"I follow when you give the word, and I think our two young Chinese friends here will be men enough to join us. We make four: Mackenzie will have Jackson and your shikari, I suppose; your cook is useless as a fighting man?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so. He is rather a timorous creature."

"And my plucky little Tibetan--I'd be glad to think he might make one of us. But this is all guess-work: we can only be sure of six or seven.

Obviously six or seven can't tackle two or three hundred well-fed Chinamen and some scores of negritos. Mackenzie has perhaps discovered the way down into the rift, and means us to slip off in the dark.

Guess-work again! Let us leave all that. Take a good sleep; then tighten your belt, and ply that bit of iron to bore our pa.s.sage. Please the Powers, we'll worm our way into G.o.d's air before twenty-four hours are up."

With no means of telling the time, Forrester slept brokenly, and was at work long before day had dawned above. To guard against danger from the falling earth, he got Wing Wu to demolish the sentry-box, and lay the material in gridiron pattern across the covering of the pit. Then, mounting into the chimney, he prised out the clay bit by bit, and afterwards the crumbling earth above it, cutting the hole to the shape of a narrow cone.

As the work progressed, the sound of running water grew more and more distinct. Forrester knew that if the bed of the stream were pierced, there would be a swift end to their tribulations. He could only hope for the best, and persevere. How long he worked he never knew; so much engrossed was he that he did not remember he had had no food. There was no sign of interruption. Beresford remained on guard in the outer cavern, listening for the footsteps of the Old Man's minions, the ministers of the Law of the Eye. But not a sound was heard from the direction of the lake. It seemed that the Old Man was content to bide his time.

It was a blissful moment when Forrester, thrusting the iron upwards into the earth, felt suddenly that there was no resistance. When he withdrew it, a thin slit of white light appeared at the apex of the cone. He had pierced the surface, and a great joy thrilled him, for he knew that he had not touched the stream. But he was instantly aware of a double danger. The hole, small as it was, might be seen. Even if it were not seen, a chance pa.s.ser-by might tread upon it and break through. Would Fortune, he wondered, stand their friend? Nothing more, at any rate, could be risked while daylight lasted.

He descended, and hurried to give Beresford the great news. Beresford pressed his hand.

"To-night!" he said. "Now for these lads here."

Quietly, as though telling a tale, he informed the two young Chinamen of the bare fact that a way had been opened for them to the upper world.

"Will you join us?" he asked. "There are friends above. What may lie before us we cannot tell: we may have to fight for our lives. Will you take the risks?"

Wing Wu a.s.sented eagerly; free from the domination of the priests he was a different being. His cousin was less ready; on being shown the ladder, and the cross-bars rising one above another until they almost disappeared, he shook his head, declaring that he had no strength for the feat demanded. The others forbore to urge him.

"He will try when he sees the rest of us go up," Beresford remarked confidently. "Our plan is fixed? You mount first; at your signal we follow. You and I will take the negritos' spears. The only other weapons are the iron bar and the knife. Wing Wu can take the bar; the other man the knife. We wait only for darkness."

The period of waiting was trying to them all. Time after time Forrester went into the inner cavern, and peered up the perpendicular tunnel at the tiny streak of light. The elder Chinamen, dull-eyed and listless, merely wailed for food. The two negritos paced restlessly about the larger cavern, looking again and again through the entrance towards the farther end of the ledge, now silent and deserted. More than once Forrester went to the cleft to see whether his last message had been drawn up; but the bone remained where he had laid it. This added tenfold to their anxiety, for without the co-operation of their friends they would be like men lost in a wilderness. The chimney, indeed, penetrated to the open air, not to a roofed chamber; but at what spot, whether in an unenclosed field, or in a walled garden or courtyard, they had no means of telling. Without a guide, they might as well be in Minos' labyrinth. One consideration, however, prevailed over all others: to remain below was to starve; above ground, they could at least die fighting.

At last it seemed to Forrester that the streak above was becoming fainter. He stared upwards, until convinced beyond doubt that the shades of evening were falling. Quickly the light faded. All was dark.

He rushed to the cavern to tell Beresford, then hurried back, mounted the scaffolding, and with his spear slightly enlarged the hole at the top. The gurgle of water struck more loudly upon his ear. A footfall startled him, and he held his hand in sickening dread that the fatal discovery was made. The sound pa.s.sed and died away, but the scare made him defer further work until later, when he might suppose the enemy were sound asleep.