Highway Pirates Part 19

"Bless the boy!" cried George, "why didn't you tell me you had it before? I've been wis.h.i.+ng and wis.h.i.+ng for one this last hour or more."

"It's precious little good now that you have got it," I replied, handing him the box in the darkness. "We've got nothing to light except the tinder and matches, and that's no practical use."

"Wait a bit," interrupted the guard. "We'll make a lamp. This bottle of oil I've got in my pocket will provide stuff to burn, and a strand of worsted out of one of my socks will make a wick. Hurrah, Master Eden! we'll get a light burning presently, and find out what sort of a place we're in."

"I don't see how you're going to make a lamp," I answered, "unless you hold the oil in the palm of your hand. We've got nothing left--not even that metal cup the men took from poor Tom's flask."

The question was a difficult one to answer. Reduced to the possession of practically nothing but the clothes we wore, it seemed at first impossible to manufacture any implement or vessel, however simple. But necessity is the mother of invention, and certainly the necessity in our case was sufficiently pressing to quicken any inventive faculties we might possess.

After some minutes' thought, and the making of one or two suggestions which had to be abandoned as impracticable, my companion slapped his thigh, exclaiming,--

"I've got it--my old watch!"

With the aid of his knife George managed to remove the works from the old-fas.h.i.+oned turnip-shaped silver case, which was so commonly seen in those days. This formed a sort of cup to hold the oil, which was supplied with a sort of floating wick made of a thread of worsted and a tiny bit of wood, to obtain which we were obliged to descend the iron steps, and bring up the fragment of broken plank from the bottom of the shaft. It was hardly possible that the tiny flame could be kept long alight if exposed to the strong draught which swept through the tunnel; but with a piece of leather cut from the top of his boot, and the big bull's-eye gla.s.s of the watch, Woodley managed to fas.h.i.+on a rough but effective shade, and at length the lamp was p.r.o.nounced ready for use.

If we had been a couple of boys about to let off a big sky-rocket, we could hardly have felt more excited as we struck the flint, blew up the spark in the tinder, and ignited first the sulphur match and then the tiny wick. The result was poor enough, but the lamp certainly did burn, giving out perhaps as much light as a modern night-light. To us, however, after having been so long in total darkness, it seemed quite brilliant; and with its aid there was at all events a possibility of our being able to examine our surroundings.

A part of the pa.s.sage had evidently been cut through the solid rock, but farther along the roof was of earth, and had been propped up with wooden supports. It was owing to the fact that some of these, no doubt rotten with age, had given way, that the fall had occurred which formed the block against which we had been brought up short. We at once proceeded to examine this obstruction, and had hardly turned our light upon it before we made an important discovery. The fall had not been of sufficient volume to quite block the tunnel; there was a narrow opening still at the top of the heap of _debris_, but not wide enough, as we could see at a glance, to admit of the pa.s.sage of a human being.

"Hurrah!" cried the guard. "D'you see that, sir? We'll soon scratch a hole there big enough to crawl through, or my name ain't George Woodley."

"I'm afraid if you do it won't be much good," I answered. "If the roof has fallen here, it's almost sure to have fallen again further on in several places, before the tunnel comes to the surface. This shows that no one has been along it for some time."

We turned away, and examined the rest of the pa.s.sage as far as the top of the shaft; but only one thing did we find, and that was an empty bottle stowed away in a hole in the rock. It was a queer, misshapen old thing, which had, perhaps, held good liquor in its time, but evidently belonged to a by-gone age. Worthless as it might have appeared under ordinary circ.u.mstances, to us it proved a valuable find; and George offered at once to go down and fill it with water from the cave below. The discovery and the suggestion were both made none too soon. Another half-hour and it would have been impossible, for both wind and tide were rising; the big waves were already breaking into the entrance of the cavern with a booming roar, and the boiling surf swept clean over the platform just as George was re-ascending the rope.

I was a strong, healthy boy, but the long hours of cold, terror, and semi-starvation were beginning to tell. I felt weak and feverish, my skin was dry and parched, yet the chill from my sodden clothes seemed still to strike right through into my very bones. With the aid of his knife George fas.h.i.+oned the fragment of plank into something resembling a short spade; then scrambling up the bank of earth, he began to dig with the intention of enlarging the existing hole till it should be big enough for us to crawl through. With burning eyes and chattering teeth I stood below, and a.s.sisted as best I could by dragging away the loose earth with my hands. What with my deafness, and with the roar of the sea in the cavern below, I could not hear a word he said, though he did not waste much time in talking.

Our fate must have been decided long before this if we had not found means of ascending the shaft to our present position. The storm had increased in fury, and we could tell each time a big wave swept into the cavern, by the rush of air which came whistling up the shaft and swept in a briny blast along the pa.s.sage. Suddenly George stopped working, and I saw the dark outline of his figure motionless in the feeble ray of the little lamp.

"What's the matter?" I cried.

He made no reply, but raised his hand as a person would in the act of listening. For half a minute he remained in that position, then resumed his digging. In a very short time, however, he stopped again, and after an instant's pause startled me by leaning forward and shouting at the top of his voice through the hole,--

"Hollo, there!"

Receiving apparently no reply to his hail, he turned and beckoned me to climb up by his side.

"Can you hear anything, Master Eden?" he asked.

I listened intently, but no sound caught my ear but the m.u.f.fled surge and splash of the water in the cavern.

"There!" exclaimed my companion--"there again! Don't you hear it?"

Still to my dulled hearing no fresh sound was audible.

"What was it?" I asked.

Without answering my question, he once more roared, "Hollo, there!"

through the widened hole, and remained with warning hand uplifted, as though expecting an answering shout. "Fancy, I suppose," he muttered at length. "Yet that blind fellow heard something of the sort too.

Tut! I think I'm going queer in my head."

He went on digging, but once or twice I noticed that he paused in the same curious manner. I was too weary to pay much attention, but continued laboriously scooping and dragging the earth he loosened till my fingers seemed raw. At length Woodley stopped digging, and sat down for a rest. As he moved the lamp the dim oil flame gave me a momentary glimpse of his face, and on it I thought I detected a queer expression which I had never noticed there before.

For ten minutes, perhaps, he sat regaining his breath, and saying nothing; then turning to me he asked abruptly,--

"Master Eden, do you believe there's such things as ghosts?"

"No," I answered blankly, astonished at the question. A terrible thought flashed through my mind that, as a last crowning horror, Woodley was actually going out of his mind. "No," I repeated in a faltering tone, "I don't believe in ghosts."

"Neither do I, then," said George; and picking up his wooden spade, he went on digging.

CHAPTER XVII.

DAYLIGHT AT LAST.

How that night pa.s.sed, or whether it was night or day, I cannot say.

Worn out, I must have fallen asleep over my work; and when I awoke, George was shaking my arm and informing me that he had crawled through the hole and found the pa.s.sage free on the other side. I seemed to be burning hot now; there was a singing in my head, and as I rose to my feet I staggered and almost fell. How many hours George had been at work I had no idea. My notions of time were getting hazy and uncertain; I felt that we had lived in that dark, windy pa.s.sage for ages.

The hole had been enlarged just sufficiently to admit of our crawling through. The fall of earth did not extend many yards, and beyond it we found ourselves in the continuation of the tunnel. On, on, on we went, moving slowly, with only the uncertain light of the tiny lamp to warn us of any dangerous pitfall which might lie in our path. Contrary to my expectation, we encountered no further obstacle of a similar kind to that through which we had just cut our way. Now we were pa.s.sing once more through solid rock, and now the tunnel was continued through earth, supported by rough-hewn beams, black with damp and age. Owing to our slow progress, the distance seemed much longer than it no doubt really was; the path sloped upward with a gentle gradient all the way, and so long did the ascent appear that at almost every step I wondered that we did not arrive at the surface of the ground on a level with the top of the cliffs. The pa.s.sage made no turns, and we were evidently striking straight inland. The air still kept fresh, and even at this distance from the cave we could feel the upward blast of air as the big seas entered the cavern.

I staggered along like one in a dream, sometimes steadying myself with my hands as I lurched up against rock or beam; then all at once George, who was going on a pace or two in front, started back so quickly that he trod on my toes, and nearly knocked me down. At the same moment the lamp fell from his hand, and we were once more in a darkness that could be felt.

I heard it myself that time! Out of the inky blackness, from the direction in which we were going, there came a most unearthly sound, half human, half the note of some strange instrument made and played upon by underground goblins of old country folk's tales. It rose to almost a shriek at its loudest pitch, and then died away into a sort of crooning growl. So weird and terrifying was it in that subterranean region, that, though past caring for most things, whether good or ill, I felt the hair bristle on my head.

Woodley was a brave man, as I had reason to know, but I felt his arm shaking as I clutched it with my hand.

"Hullo!--hullo, there!" he cried, in a hoa.r.s.e, quavering voice which no friend of his could have recognized. "Who are you, and what are you doing?"

Once more there was no reply. Another few moments of that suspense, and I verily believe I should have turned and rushed back along the way we had come, regardless whether I ended up by pitching head first down the shaft into the cavern beneath. Fortunately, George possessed a large stock of that dogged resolution peculiar to a Briton, which desperate circ.u.mstances tend only to harden; and now, recovering from the shock which the sound had given him, I believe he was ready to deal with a whole churchyardful of ghosts.

"Strike a light, Master Eden," he said shortly, "and I'll find the lamp."

Owing partly to the fright, and partly to my dazed condition, I struck a good many blows with the steel before I had a spark glowing in the tinder. In the meantime Woodley had recovered the lamp, and replenished the oil which had been spilt by pouring out a fresh supply from the bottle in his pocket. Just as we got the wick to burn, another weird, high-pitched howl rang through the darkness, continued for perhaps half a minute, and then ceased; but this time George remained undaunted.

"You carry the lamp, sir," he said. "Hold it well up, and I'll go in front."

He took something from his pocket, and I knew from the sharp click that he had c.o.c.ked the pistol.

What we expected to see it would be hard to say. Certainly not the obstacle which, a few paces further on, we found blocking our path.

This was nothing more or less than a heavy wooden door, dark with age like the beams of the tunnel, and studded with rusty iron nails. We stopped, and stood staring at it in the faint glimmer of our feeble lamp. What, then, could have become of the creature--goblin or human--that had terrified us with its unearthly music? Could it have retreated before our advance, and be now lying in wait for us behind that ma.s.s of ancient timber?

Woodley was the first to move. He walked up to the door, tried it with his shoulder, and finding it fast, rapped on it with his knuckles, as though he expected some ghostly porter to answer his summons.

Again we stood, waiting and listening; then, just as I was about to speak, a gust of air came sweeping down the pa.s.sage, causing our lamp to flicker, and the ghostly music burst out again close to where we stood, as though the goblin minstrel were piping defiance at us from the farther side of the door. I grabbed Woodley by the arm; but to my surprise the man burst into a roar of laughter, which mingled strangely with the weird howl that rose and fell in total disregard of this audacious interruption.

"Ho, ho!" laughed George. "To think that we should have been scared by that! Bless me, nothing but the wind blowing through a keyhole!"