"I won't give up! I won't!" he said, gritting his teeth. "There must besome way out of this."
He took a pull at the canteen and ate some of the bread and meat. Thenhe began a systematic tour of exploration of his place of captivity. Itwas so nearly perfectly circular in form that he was sure that humanhands had fashioned it.
In places in the walls were fastened iron rings that had mouldered awaywith the ages till they were as thin as wire. In ancient days, thoughJack did not know it, the cruel old Don's victims were tied to these, tobe devoured by the lions from which the pit took its name.
In one place a creeper hung temptingly down. But its extremity dangledfully four feet above the boy's head, and although Jack could haveclimbed on it to freedom had he been able to gain it, he knew that sucha feat was out of the question.
All at once, though, he saw something that sent the blood of hopesinging through his veins.
On the side of the pit opposite to that on which he found himself on hisfirst awakening from his coma, was a big fissure in the wall. A raggedrent, it ran from top to bottom of the rock wall like a scar on aduelist's face.
It was apparently the work of an earthquake; perhaps the one that haddevastated Kingston had caused it. At any rate, there it was, and toJack, in his desperate condition, it offered a chance of escape.
True, for all he knew, he might, by entering it, be embarking upon worseperils than the ones he now faced, but at any rate it was an avenue topossible liberty and he determined to take full advantage of it.
In his pocket Jack had plenty of matches and the small electric torchthat he used in making examinations of the more intricate parts of thewireless apparatus. He stuffed all the bread and meat he could insidehis coat, slung the canteen over his shoulder and was ready to start onan adventure that would end he knew not how, but which he had sternlymade up his mind to attempt.
As a last thought he coiled up the rope by which he had been loweredinto the pit and laid it over his arm. Then he plunged into the deepfissure. For some distance it was open to the sky above, but after sometime it closed in and became a tunnel.
At this point, Jack hesitated. The darkness beyond appalled even hisstout heart. He knew not what lay within, what perils might face him.For several moments he stood there hesitant; but finally he took heartof grace and, gripping his electric torch, plunged into the black mouthof the tunnel.
CHAPTER XXVIII
A CLIMB FOR LIFE
The passage, for such it was, through which Jack was now advancing, wasswept by a wind of such violence that at times it almost lifted the boyfrom his feet.
But this Jack regarded as a good omen. He knew that there must be someopening in this bore of nature's making to cause the great draught. Hewas glad he had his electric torch. No other light could have remainedburning in the fierce gale.
The walls were of black rock, and the electric torch gleaming on themwas flashed back in spangled radiance from some sort of ore itcontained. In places, the tunnel contracted till it was only possiblefor the boy to progress by bending double. Again it broadened out tillhe could only touch the roof with his finger tips.
Suddenly he heard ahead of him a roaring sound like a water fall.Pressing on with a beating heart, lest he should find his furtherprogress barred, Jack found himself facing a fair sized chamber, fromthe roof of which a cascade was falling. The boy guessed that he must bebeneath the bed of some river and that the water was pouring into thecavern from a fissure in the rocky roof.
It was a beautiful sight, but he had no time to stop and admire it. Hemust push on. He left the cavern and the singing waterfall behind him,and once more battled with the mighty wind that swept through the bore.
The walls began to grow damp now and it was almost as cold as if a heavyfrost had fallen. Jack shuddered and drew his coat close around him. Hetried to calculate how far he had come, but the bore had made so manytwistings and windings that he found it impossible to estimate.
His limbs felt tired and his eyes ached, but he kept on stubbornly.
"I've started this thing and I'm going to see it through," he saiddoggedly to himself.
And now the passage began to grow narrower. Jack felt the walls closingin on him as if with intent to crush out his life. The passage began toslope steeply and it was hard to keep a footing on the wet floor.
All at once the boy stumbled and slipped. He almost fell headlong, butrecovered himself with an effort. In front of him he could hear a mightyroaring sound. The wind, too, was stronger and seemed damper than it hadfurther back. It smelled as if impregnated with salt.
Jack gave another stumble on the uneven floor. This time he did notrecover himself, but pitched headlong. And then----
He was in the water. It filled his ears, drowning all sounds. He rose tothe surface battling desperately, all senses dormant but the franticdesire to live.
He dashed the water from his eyes. He spat it from his mouth. It wassalt and must come from the sea. Wave after wave swept toward him andunder each of them he dived.
He soon realized that his fight for life was well-nigh hopeless, but hestruggled as men will when death stares them in the face, for life isnever sweeter than when it seems to be slipping from our grasp.
Weaker and weaker he felt himself growing. A sort of lethargy crept overhim. He didn't care much longer. His limbs were numbed and chilled. Thewaves swept down on him, each gleefully following its predecessor, as ifthey were determined to end Jack's life in this cavern of the seas.
At last he felt himself uplifted on the crest of a gigantic comber andcarried helplessly into the maw of that black gullet.
"It's the end," he thought.
But still the instinct of life was strong in his battered body. Hisoutflung hand caught a projecting scrap of rock in a drowning grip andclung there, despite the efforts of the wave to tear him loose. It wasmore blind instinct than human reason that sustained him as the waveswept on into the dark cavern, thundering against its sides like a trainpassing through a tunnel.
His outflung hand caught a projecting scrap of rock.]
He found himself hanging to the side of a jagged crack that slantedacross the rock high up on the side of the cavern. Into it he managed tojam himself, and then he hung there, too exhausted to move hand or foot,waiting for the next wave to tear him from his precarious hold.
How long he hung there he never knew. Wave after wave came racing by,reaching up watery fingers to tear him from his haven. But he had jammedhimself too securely into the providential rift in the rock to be easilydislodged.
Hope began to dawn in his mind once more, despite his position. Hementally cast up what had occurred since that disastrous tumble in thepassage. It was plain enough that the bore in the rock opened on thiscavern where the salt seas swept and raved. The cave, then, must beconnected with the sea. Jack's reasoning was right. By an extraordinarychance, he was in the cave which Jarrold had told Cummings existed farunder the ruins of the old Don's castle.
The boy had lost his rope and his electric torch and he was soakedthrough and through. But the canteen of water still hung round his neck.Safe for the time being, he began to cast about for some means ofextricating himself from his position, but his heart sank as he realizedthe full hopelessness of his predicament.
CHAPTER XXIX
FREEDOM ONCE MORE
The necessity for action became imperative. If he stayed cramped and wetin that position much longer, there was grave danger that he would losethe power of locomotion altogether. He could not tell how far up thecrack ascended, and, of course, since he had lost his torch he had nomeans of lighting up the gloom, for his matches, like the bread and meatwith which he had stuffed his pockets, were soaked through.
He began to climb, moving painfully forward perhaps an inch at a time.For about fifteen feet he crawled, clinging with fingers and toes. Itwas heart-breaking work and anyone with a less stout heart than JackReady would have given it up and lain down to die where they were.
But Jack was made of sterner stuff. He wormed his way forward, and foundsuddenly that the crack widened. Then he struck his head violentlyagainst the cavern roof.
The crack continued to widen, though, till it was possible for him tocrawl into it. But the jagged edges of rock cut and tore his hands andface unmercifully.
Once within the crack, he lay still, panting. It hardly seemed worthwhile to go further, after all. Would it not be better to die there inthe darkness without further effort? There was not the remotestprobability that he was nearing a way out of the cavern, and to followthe crack further was labor lost.
Thus he meditated as he stretched himself out to rest. But when he hadrecovered his breath, love of life reasserted itself.
He would keep on. At any rate, one thing was certain: he could never getback now. Death lay behind him in all its grimness. Ahead, at least,there was the unknown with a fighting chance--one chance in a thousand--inhis favor.
Desperately, then, he struggled on, writhing between the narrow walls.He felt as if the whole weight of a mountain was upon him, crushing hisribs, driving the breath out of his body. The darkness was so dense thatit could be felt enveloping him like a velvety pall of blackness.
Again and again he thought himself stuck fast, doomed to an eternalgrave in the secret bowels of the earth. But every time he managed towiggle through the tight place and gain another that was not quite soconstricted.
But it was heart-breaking work at best. Then all at once the crackwidened very noticeably. Cautiously he drew himself to his feet. Hejudged that he was standing on a shoulder or ledge of rock, but ofcourse, in the inky darkness, he had no means of knowing.
It was at least good to be able to stand up and feel no longer thecrushing of the rock walls, like those of a living tomb.
After a little he began to move along, taking care, however, to keepclose to the wall, for he did not know how wide the ledge, as he judgedit, might be. For perhaps a hundred yards he progressed thus. Alwaysbefore he took a step he reached out with one foot before him, fearingto encounter vacancy.
Suddenly he found he was on the edge of a void, and shrank back,clinging to the wall with the desperation of fear. It was some secondsbefore he dared to move again. He could feel the sweat rolling off him,the cold, pricking sweat of fright.
By a supreme effort he mastered himself. He found a loose bit of rock athis feet. Cautiously he cast it into the darkness in front of him. Therewas a long silence, and then, as if from miles away, came a tiny tinkle.
Jack shuddered.
He had narrowly escaped pitching head first into a bottomless abyss. Hecarefully retraced his way down the ledge. Suddenly his feeling fingersdiscovered another crack. This one ran vertically upward like a chimney,almost, at least so far as he could determine by the sense of touch.
A wild hope surged over him. This crack perhaps ran up to the surface ofthe earth! Recalling an old school-boy trick, he "spreadeagled" himselfinto the crack. He reached out his hands to either side of the "chimney"and lifted himself a little.
Then he wedged his toes in either side. Thus he painstakingly mounted,praying within himself that the walls of this natural shaft might notwiden and make further progress impossible.
It was terribly slow work, though. Time and again he was on the point ofgiving up, but always the tough spirit of his indomitable old sea-faringancestors kept him at his task.
Foot by foot he toiled upward, till he estimated he had climbed somethirty feet. And then suddenly: Light! The blessed light of day! Highabove it was, but unmistakably the light of the outside world wasstreaming into this hideous subterranean chamber. It gleamed down intothe shaft he was painfully ascending, shining like a blessed beacon ofhope. It appeared to filter through some sort of net-work of greenery.
Wild with hope, he climbed on till at last he burst his way through acanopy of creepers and vines that obscured the mouth of the naturalshaft. He clambered out beneath the blessed sky. As he fell exhausted,prone on the rocks, he heard a cry.
It was his own name!
But for the life of him he could not answer. He could only lie therewithout thought or motion.
CHAPTER XXX
IN SEARCH FOR A CLEW
The statement of De Garros concerning his chum struck Sam like a blowbetween the eyes. Of course he did not place the slightest belief in theFrenchman's words, but he was sorely puzzled and perplexed.
"Where was this place?" he demanded.
"If you will come with me, I will show you," said De Garros, linking theboy's arm in his own. "How sorry I am that I did not accompany himmyself! But I thought, I sincerely thought, that he was in good hands."
"Who was this fellow that was with him," demanded Sam.
"I don't know. I didn't notice particularly. It was no one I had everseen before."
"What did he look like?"
"As I told you, I did not pay him the attention that I should had Iknown things were going to turn out like this. He wore a big sun helmet,if that will afford you any clew."
They were walking through the streets now toward the hut of MotherJenny.
Sam suddenly stopped short and struck his forehead with his hand, as ifstriving to recollect something. Then he shouted:
"Why, why, it was a young man with a sun helmet who was talking toJarrold at the hotel this morning."
"So?" exclaimed the Frenchman. "Can this be more of that rascal'svillainy? Has he got a finger in this?"
"I wouldn't put it past him," declared Sam vehemently. "He hates Jack,and with good cause from his point of view, for Jack checkmated severalof his schemes."
"In Paris and again here, Jarrold," muttered De Garros to himself, as ifrecalling some latent memory. "Some day, my friend, you will meet yourreckoning."
"You knew Jarrold abroad?" asked Sam.
"I knew him, yes. I was his victim, almost--but let us talk no more ofthis. Let us hurry to the place where I last saw Jack Ready."
When they reached the hut with its palm thatch and untidy garden, Samgave a gesture of disgust.
"And this is the place you saw Jack being helped out of?" he asked.
"It is, my friend."
"I cannot think that he would ever have come to such a hovel of his ownfree will."
"Possibly not. But you are confronted with the fact that he was here."
"That is true. Let us ask that old hag in the doorway what she knows."
They approached old Mother Jenny, who had hobbled to the doorway andstood watching them out of her bloodshot old eyes, puffing the whilereflectively at a home-made cigar, as if ruminating on what thestrangers wanted.
"We came to inquire about two young men who were here this morning,"began Sam.
The old woman's voice rose to a shrill scream.
"What I know 'bout dem, buckra?" (White man.) "Dey come. Dey drink decola an' den dey pay and go. I know nothing mo'."
"She's lying," whispered De Garros to Sam.
"Who was the hackman who drove them away?" demanded Sam.
The old woman started, but swiftly recovered her composure, if such itcould be called, and flourished her stick wildly.
"Tell you what, buckra," she yelled; "you go 'way. No bodder me no mo'.Me, Mother Jenny,' 'spectable woman. Wha' yo' t'ink, buckra, yo' fren'come to harm by my place?"
"I didn't say so. I merely asked the name of the hackman who drove themaway?"
Sam knew how important it was to keep his temper with the old crone.
"How much it wort' yo' fo' me to impart dat imflumation?" asked the oldwoman, leering hideously through a cloud of smoke she blew out of herwrinkled old lips.
"I'll pay you well for it," struck in De Garros, who had cabled for andreceived a large remittance. Poor Sam was almost "broke."
"Fi' dollar?"
De Garros nodded. The old hag stretched out a shriveled claw.
"Gib me de money, buckra," she croaked; "gib me de money here in dishand."
"There you are," said De Garros with a gesture of d
isgust and annoyance.
The aged crone burst into a scream of wild laughter. She shook withmirth and then shrilled out in her high, cracked voice:
"He drove a brown horse, dat's all I know. Now go look fo' him yo'ownselves!"
CHAPTER XXXI
LOOK FOR A WHITE HORSE
It was useless to try to recover the money, and the two friends had towalk off minus five dollars and followed by the derisive laughter of thehag.
"At all events, she gave us one clew," said Sam hopefully; "the mandrove a brown horse. We must look for every driver in Kingston with abrown horse."
"As it so happens," commented De Garros, "that is no clew at all, for Ihappened to notice that the equine in question was a white one."
"Better still. A white horse should be easier to run down than a brownone," declared Sam. "Hullo, there goes one now!"
They halted the driver, but he declared he knew nothing of the matter,having been out in the suburbs all the morning.
"Oh, well, there must be other white horses," said Sam, as the man droveoff and they turned to take up the quest afresh.
"I believe, too, I'd remember the driver if I saw him again," said DeGarros.
"Better and better. I'll bet we'll have good old Jack back with usbefore night," declared Sam hopefully. "At all events, we've gotsomething to work on now."
"That's so," agreed De Garros. "But if we've got to interview everyowner of a white horse in Kingston, we've got our work cut out for us."
The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Lost Liner Page 10