Commodore Junk Part 54

"Done?"

"Yes. You can clear away."

Bart obeyed and turned to go, but as he reached the curtain--

"You have plenty of cigars?" he said.

"I?"

"Ah, well, I've got some there," growled Bart, and he handed the prisoner half a dozen roughly-made rolls of the tobacco-leaf. "Now, you understand," he continued, as he made to go once more, "you're to keep here till the skipper comes back."

"Are you afraid I shall escape?" said Humphrey, contemptuously.

"Not a bit, captain; but when one man's life depends on another's, it makes him careful."

The curtain dropped behind him, and Humphrey stood listening and thinking.

Bart's step could be faintly heard now, and, feeling safe, the prisoner went back to his couch, and gazed up in the direction from whence the voice had come.

"Are you still there?" he said, softly.

There was no reply; and a repet.i.tion of the question was followed by the same silence.

"It's strange," he said, gazing up in the gloom overhead to where, in the midst of a good deal of rough carving, there seemed to be a small opening, though he could not be sure. "Why should he come and watch me, and take this interest in my well-being? I am not like an ordinary prisoner, and his friendly way, his submission to the rough contempt with which I treated him--it's strange, very strange! What can it mean?"

He threw himself upon the couch, to lie for some time thinking and trying to interpret the meaning; but all was black and confused as the dark ma.s.s of carving from which the woman's voice had seemed to come; and, giving it up at last, he rose, and without any hesitation walked straight out through the opening, and made his way along the corridor to where the sun blazed forth and made him stand and shade his eyes, as he remained considering which way he should go.

The prisoner made a bold dash in a fresh direction, going straight toward where he believed the men's quarters to be; and, as before, the moment he had pa.s.sed behind the ruins he found himself face to face with a dense wall of verdure, so matted together that, save to a bird or a small animal, farther progress was impossible.

Defeated here, he tried another and another place, till his perseverance was rewarded by the finding of one of the dark, maze-like paths formed by cutting away the smaller growth and zig-zagging through the trees.

Into this dark pathway he plunged, to find that at the end of five minutes he had lost all idea, through its abrupt turns, of the direction in which he was going; while before he had penetrated much farther the pathway forked, and, unable to decide which would lead him in the required direction, he took the path to the right.

It was plain enough that these green tunnels through the forest had been cut by the buccaneers for purposes of defence in case of an enemy carrying their outer works, so that he was in no way surprised to find the path he had taken led right to a huge crumbling stone building, whose mossy walls rose up among the trees sombre and forbidding, and completely barring his way.

It was a spot where a few resolute men might keep quite an army at bay, for the walls were of enormous extent, the windows mere stone lattices, and the doorway in front so low that a stooping att.i.tude was necessary for him who would enter. This was consequent upon the falling of stones from above, and the blocking partially of the way.

There was a strange, mysterious aspect in the place, overgrown as it was with the redundant growth, which fascinated the explorer, and feeling impelled to go on he gave one glance sound, and was about to enter, when out of the utter stillness he heard a low sound as if someone had been watching him and given vent to a low exhalation of the breath.

Humphrey started and looked sharply round, unable to restrain a shudder: but no one was visible, and he was about to go on, feeling ashamed of his nervousness, when the sound was repeated, this time from above his head; and glancing up, he leaped back, for twenty feet above his head in the green gloom there was a curious, impish face gazing down at him; and as he made out more and more of the object, it seemed as if some strange goblin were suspended in mid-air and about to drop down upon his head.

"It's the darkness, I suppose," exclaimed Humphrey, angrily, as he uttered a loud hiss, whose effect was to make the strange object give itself a swing and reveal the fact that it was hanging by its tail alone from the end of a rope-like vine which depended from the vast ceiling of interlacing leaves.

With apparently not the slightest effort the goblin-like creature caught a loop of the same vine, clung there for a moment to gaze back at the intruder into this weird domain, displaying its curiously human countenance, and then sped upwards, when there was a rush as of a wave high above the visible portion of the interlacing boughs, and Humphrey knew that he had startled quite a flock of the little forest imps, who sped rapidly away.

"I must be very weak still," he muttered as he went now right up to the entrance, and after peering cautiously in for a moment or two he entered.

It was dim outside in the forest; here, after picking his way cautiously for a stop or two, it was nearly black. The place had probably been fairly lit when it was first constructed, far back in the dim past before the forest invaded the district and hid away these works of man; but now the greatest caution was needed to avoid the fallen blocks of masonry, and the explorer took step after step with the care of one who dreaded some chasm in his way.

He stopped and listened, for suddenly from his left there was a faint echoing splash so small and fine that it must have been caused by the drip of a bead of water from the roof, but it had fallen deep down into some dark hollow half filled with water, and a s.h.i.+ver ran through Humphrey's frame as he thought of the consequences of a slip into such a place, far from help, and doomed to struggle for a few minutes grasping at the dripping stony walls, seeking a means of climbing out, and then falling back into the darkness of the great unknown.

He felt as if he must turn back, but his eyes were now growing accustomed to the obscurity, and he made out that just in front there was, faintly marked out, the opening of a doorway leading into a chamber into which some faint light penetrated.

Going cautiously forward, he entered, to find to his astonishment that he was in a fair sized room whose stone walls were elaborately carved, as were the dark recesses or niches all around, before each of which sat, cross-legged, a well-carved image which seemed to be richly ornamented in imitation of its old highly-decorated dress. For a moment in the obscurity it seemed as if he had penetrated into the abode of the ancient people who had built the ruined city, and that here they were seated around in solemn conclave to discuss some matter connected with the long low form lying upon the skin spread floor, while to make the scene the more incongruous, these strangely-carved figures were looking down upon the object, which was carefully draped with a large Union Jack.

Humphrey paused just inside the threshold and removed his cap, for Sarah Greenheys' words recurred to him, and it seemed that he must have strayed into one of the many old temples of the place which had been turned by Commodore Junk into a mausoleum for the remains of the woman he was said to have loved, the draped object being without doubt the coffin which held her remains.

He stood gazing down at the coloured flag for a time; then with a glance round at the olden idols or effigies of the departed great of the place, and the dark niches at the mouths of which they sat, he went softly out, glanced to his right, and saw an opening which evidently gave, upon the chasm where he had heard the water drip, and stepped out once more into the comparative daylight of the forest.

The place might be used as a retreat, he thought, but its present use was plain enough, and he walked quickly back to where the path had branched, and took the other fork.

This narrow tunnel through the forest suddenly debouched upon another going across it at right, angles, and after a moment's hesitation the prisoner turned to the left, and to his great delight found that he had solved one of the topographical problems of the place, for this led towards what was evidently the outer part of the buccaneers' settlement, and of this he had proof by hearing the smothered sound of voices, which became clear as he proceeded, and at last were plainly to be made out as coming from a ruined building standing upon a terrace whose stones were lifted in all directions by the growth around.

This place had been made open by the liberal use of the axe and fire, half-burned trunks and charred roots of trees lying in all directions, the consequence being that Humphrey had to stop short at the mouth of the forest path unless he wanted to be seen. For, to judge from the eager talking, it was evident that a number of men were gathered in the great building at whose doorless opening the back of one of the buccaneers could be seen as he leaned against the stone, listening to someone who, in a hoa.r.s.e voice which the listener seemed to recognise, was haranguing the rest.

Humphrey could not hear all that was said, but a word fell upon his ear from time to time, and as he pieced these words together it seemed as if the speaker were declaiming against tyranny and oppression, and calling upon his hearers to help him to put an end to the state of affairs existing.

Then came an excited outburst, as the speaker must have turned his face toward the door, for these words came plainly:

"The end of it will be that they'll escape, and bring a man-of-war down upon us, and all through his fooling." A murmur arose.

"He's gone mad, I tell you all; and if you like to choose a captain for yourselves, choose one, and I'll follow him like a man; but it's time something was done if we want to live." Another burst of murmurs rose here.

"He's mad, I tell you, or he wouldn't keep him like that. So what's it to be, my lads, a new captain or the yard-arm?"

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

DINNY CONSENTS.

The time glided on, and Humphrey always knew when his captor was at sea, for the severity of his imprisonment was then most felt. The lieutenant, Mazzard, was always left in charge of the place, but Bart remained behind by the captain's orders, and at these times Humphrey was sternly ordered to keep to his prison.

Dinny came and went, but, try him how he would, Humphrey could get nothing from him for days and days.

The tide turned at last.

"Well, sor," said Dinny one morning, "I've been thinking it over a great dale. I don't like desarting the captain, who has been like a brother to me; but there's Misthress Greenheys, and love's a wonderful excuse for a manny things."

"Yes," said Humphrey, eagerly, "go on."

"Sure, sor, she's compelled to be married like to a man she hates, and it hurts her falings as much as it does mine, and she wants me to get her away and make a rale marriage of it, such as a respectable woman likes; for ye see, all against her will, she's obliged to be Misthress Mazzard now, and there hasn't been any praste."

"I understand," said Humphrey. "The scoundrel!"

"Well, yes, sir, that's what he is; but by the same token I don't wonder at it, for if a man stood bechuckst good and avil and Misthress Greenheys was on the avil side, faix, he'd be sure to go toward the avil--at laste, he would if he was an Oirishman."

"Then you will!"