The Ruby Sword Part 11

"Now for it, Nessie. Give him all the pace you can, but keep him in hand. We'll race it easily."

Down the _tangi_ now, giving their steeds all the rein they dared, these two rode for dear life. Then Nesta's pony stumbling over a loose stone, came right down, unhorsing his rider.

"Don't leave me! Oh don't leave me!" she shrieked despairingly. "I can't move, my skirt is caught."

"Leave you. Is it likely? What do you take me for?" came his reply, as in a moment he was dismounted and beside her. "Keep your head. It will be all right in a moment. There!" as a vigorous tug brought the skirt clear of the fallen animal, which lay as though stunned.

But as she gained her feet, the dull hollow booming, which had been deepening ever behind them, became suddenly a roar of such terrible and appalling volume, that Campian's steed, with a wild snort of alarm jerked the bridle rein from his hand, and bolted wildly down the pa.s.s.

It all came before him as in a lightning flash. The utter hopelessness of the situation. The flood had turned the corner of the reach they were now in. He saw it shoot out from the projecting ridge, and hurl itself with thunderous shock against the opposite rock face. Hissing and bellowing it sprung high in the air, then, flung back, amid a vast cloud of spray, it roared down upon them. One glance and only one, lest the terror of the sight should paralyse him, and he realised that in about two or three minutes that flood would be hurling their lifeless bodies from side to side against those grim rock walls.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE DARK JAWS OF DEATH.

All as in a lightning flash some flicker of hope returned. For he saw they were underneath the place which Nesta pointed out to him as having afforded refuge to at any rate one in their position. It was their only chance. Hope well nigh died again. To climb there alone would be something of an undertaking--but with a helpless girl--

Yet he reached that point of refuge, but how he did so Campian never knew--never will know to his dying day. The superhuman effort; the h.e.l.lish deafening din of the black flood as it shot past, so near as to splash them, clinging there to the steep rock face, not more than half way up to the place of refuge; of the words of encouragement which he whispered to his half-fainting charge athwart the thunder-roar of the waters, as he literally dragged her up beside him; of the tearing muscles and cracking joints, and blazing, scintillating brain--of all these he has a dim and confused recollection, and can only attribute the accomplishment of the feat to a well nigh superhuman mania of desperation.

Higher still! No time for a pause or rest--no permanent foothold is here--and the waters are still rising. He dared not so much as look down. The daze of the lightning striking upon the rock face aided his efforts. The crash of the thunder peal was as entirely drowned in the bellowing and strident seething of this huge syphoned flood, as though it were silent.

The refuge at last, but what a refuge! Only by the most careful distribution of weight could two persons support themselves on it for any length of time. It was hardly even a ledge, hardly more than a mere unevenness in the rock's surface. Yet, one of these two persons was a terribly frightened and far from robust girl; the other seemed to have expended air the strength within him in the effort of getting there at all. Thus they clung, mere pigmy atoms against this stupendous cliff wall; suspended over the seething h.e.l.l of waters that would have churned the life out of them within a moment or so of reaching its surface.

"There! We are safe now!" he gasped, still panting violently after the exertion. "We have only to wait until the water runs off. It will soon do that, you know."

"No, it will not," she replied, her blue eyes wide with terror, and shudderingly turning her face to the cliff to avoid the awfulness of the sight. "It may take days. The _tangi_ by the camp took a whole night once. It was the night you came."

"Well, even then? Upward will have had time to get through safely, ample time, and at the first opportunity they will come for us."

"They won't find us," she moaned. "You know that place I showed you where Bhallu Khan told us the water had risen high enough to sweep a man off. It was higher than this."

"I think not I think this is the higher of the two," he answered mendaciously. In her fear she had not recognised the place, and he would not undeceive her. For his part, he blessed the chance that had put the idea into his head. But for her having narrated the incident as they rode past, it might never have occurred to him that the attempt was feasible, and--what then?

"We mustn't discount the worst," he went on.

"The chances of it rising any higher are _nil_, and even if it does, there is plenty of margin before it reaches us. It isn't as if it were a case of an incessant and regular downpour. It is only one of those sharp afternoon thunder showers that run off these great slab-like rocks as off a roof on a huge scale. My dear little girl, you must be brave, and thank Heaven we were able to fetch this place at all. Look, I believe it has run off a little lower already."

"Oh, no--no! I can't look. It is horrible--horrible!" she answered, as venturing one peep forth, she again hid her face, shuddering.

And in truth her terror was little to be wondered at. It was growing dusk now in the world without, and the roar and hiss of the vast flood coursing with frightful velocity between those grim, cavernous cliffs in the shades, would have tried the nerves of anybody contemplating the scene from the impartial vantage ground of a place of safety. How then did it seem to these two, crouching on a steep slant of rock, whose unevenness alone sustained them in position; cowering over this awful flood, which might at any moment, rising higher, sweep them into a horrible death? And then, that the situation should lose nothing of its terror, Campian noticed, with a sinking of the heart, that the water actually was rising.

Yes. A mark upon the iron-bound face of the opposite cliff, which had caught his attention on first being able to look round, was now covered.

Was it the gathering gloom, or had the scratch been washed away? No.

The latter was stratified. The water had risen nearly two feet.

The depth at first he judged to be about ten feet. Two more had been added. He fixed another mark. The roaring was already so fearful it could hardly be increased. The hissing, boiling eddies of the rush, leaped over the new mark, then subsided--leaped again, and this time did not subside. They streamed over, hiding it completely. And still the rain poured down pitilessly, and he thought he could detect a peal of thunder above the roar of the waters, which suggested a renewed burst over the very catchment area which had supplied this flood. Well, he had done what he could. The end was not in his hands.

"Oh-h--how cold it is!" moaned Nesta.

"Of course; I was forgetting," he replied, with great difficulty divesting himself of his coat, for hardly so much as a finger could be spared in the effort involved to hold himself--to hold both of them--in position. But it was done at last, and the garment, all too light, he wrapped around the girl's shivering form. She uttered a feeble protest, which took not much overruling.

"What a precious pair of drowned rats we must look, Nessita," he said; "and what a sight we shall be when they find us in the morning."

"But they never will find us in the morning--not me, at any rate."

"Won't they? They will though, and you will be the first to think of the appearances. Why, that pretty curled fringe that I and those two sodger Johnnies were eager to die for a little while ago is all over the shop. You should just see it now."

Thus he bantered, as though they were in the snug dining tent at Upward's camp instead of amid a raving h.e.l.l of terror and of imminent death. But the while the man's heart died within him, for in the last faint touch of light he noticed that yet another mark, higher than the rest, had disappeared.

"I wonder which of those two Johnnies aforesaid would give most to be able to change places with me now," he went on, still bantering. "Or, at any rate, won't they just say so to-morrow? Here, you must get up close to me," he said, drawing her right to him. "It will serve the double purpose of keeping you from going overboard and keeping you warmer, and me too, perhaps."

If ever there was time and place for conventionality, a.s.suredly it was not here. Her violent shivering quieted down as she nestled against him. The warmth of the contact and the additional sense of protection combined to work wonders.

"Now, talk to me," he said; "or try and go to sleep, if you would rather. I'll take care you don't fall over."

"Sleep? I don't suppose I shall ever sleep again."

"Rather, you will. And, Nessie, shall I tell you something you'd rather like to hear? The water is already beginning to go down."

"What else has it been doing ever since we came up here?"

"That's right!" he cried, delighted at this little spark of the old fun loving nature rea.s.serting itself. "But, bar jokes, it really is lowering. I have kept an eye upon certain marks that were covered just now. They are visible again."

The rain had ceased. The bellowing of the flood was as loud as ever, and but that they were talking into each other's ears, their voices would have been well nigh inaudible. What he had said was true, and with a great gladness of heart, he recognised the fact.

"No, no! You are only saying that to make me think it is all right,"

she answered, the wild eagerness in her tone betraying something of the strain she had undergone. "It can't be really--is it? Say--is it really?"

"It is really, so far as I can judge. But it has turned so confoundedly dark, one can hardly see anything. Keep up your spirits, child. You have had an adventure, that's all."

"Well, you are a good one to share it with," she murmured. "Tell me, were you ever afraid of anything in your life?"

"I should rather think I was, of heaps of things. I should have been hideously so before we started to climb up here, only there wasn't time.

Oh don't make any mistake about me. I know what funk is, and that of the bluest kind."

Thus he talked on, lightly, cheerily, and the girl, if she could not quite forget her numbness and terror and exhaustion, was conscious of no small alleviation of the same. It was pitch dark now, but the thunder of the waters, and the cavernous rattle of the stones and pebbles swept along by their rush, seemed to have abated in volume. An hour went by, then two. Nesta, half asleep, was answering drowsily. The gloom of the great chasm lightened. A full moon had risen over the outside world, and its rays were penetrating even to these forbidding depths. The roaring of the flood had become a mere purling ripple. The water had almost run off.

Campian was becoming frightfully exhausted. Not much longer could he support this strain. Would Upward never arrive? He had succeeded, providentially, in climbing up here, under stress of desperation, but to descend safely now, cramped and exhausted as they both were, would be impossible. A broken neck, or a broken limb or two, would be the sure and certain result of any such attempt.

As the moon-rays brightened, he could make out the bottom of the _tangi_, and it looked hideously far down, almost as if the rush of water had worn it deeper. It was all seamed and furrowed up, and the water was now babbling down in several little streams. Would help never arrive!

Ha! At last! Voices--native voices--then, although talking in an Oriental tongue, other voices, recognisable as European ones. The sound was coming down the _tangi_.

"Wake up, Nessita. Here they are, at last."

But the girl had already heard, and started up with a suddenness which would have hurled her to the base of the cliff but for his restraining grasp.

"Wait, wait!" he urged. "Be doubly careful now. We don't want to break our necks after a narrow shave of drowning." Then lifting up his voice, he gave forth a mighty shout.