CHAPTER X.
When there were none of the pirates in the cave, it was the custom ofLightfoot, and Hellena to spread their couch in the body of thecavern, and there pass the night. Such was the case on the nightfollowing the day on which Lightfoot had related to Hellena the sadhistory of her people.
It is hardly to be expected that the young girl's sleep would be verysound that night, with her imagination filled with visions, hobgoblins of every form, size, and color.
During the most of the forepart of the night she lay awake thinkingover the strange things she had heard concerning the cave, andexpecting every moment to see some horrible monster make itsappearance in the shape of an enormous Indian in his war paint, andhis hands reeking with blood.
After a while she fell into a doze in which she had a horrid dream,where all the things she had been thinking of appeared and took form,but assuming shapes ten times more horrible than any her wakingimagination could possibly have created.
It was past midnight. She had started from one of these horrid dreams,and afraid to go to sleep again, lay quietly gazing around the cavernon the ever varying reflections cast by the myriads of crystals thatglittered upon the wall and ceiling.
Although there were in some portions of the cavern walls chinks orcrevices which let in air, and during some portion of the day a fewstraggling sunbeams, it was found necessary even during the day tokeep a lamp constantly burning. And the one standing on the table inthe centre of the cave was never allowed to go out.
As we have said, Hellena lay awake gazing about her.
A perfect stillness reigned in the cave, broken only by the ratherheavy breathing of the Indian woman who slept soundly.
Suddenly she heard, or thought she heard a slight grating noise at thefurther side of the cavern.
Can she be dreaming? or can her eyes deceive her? or does she actuallysee the wall of the cavern parting? Such actually seems to be thecase, and from the opening out steps a figure dressed like an Indian,and bearing in his hand a blazing torch.
Hellena's tongue cleaves to the roof of her mouth, and her limbs areparalyzed with terror. She cannot move if she dare.
The figure moves about the room with a step as noiseless as the stepof the dead, while the crystals on the walls seem to be set in motion,and to blaze with unnatural brilliancy as his torch is carried fromplace to place.
He carefully examines everything as he proceeds; particularly theweapons belonging to the pirates, which seemed particularly to takehis fancy. But he carefully replaces everything after having examinedit.
He now approaches the place where the two women are lying.
Hellena with an effort closed her eyes.
The figure approached the couch; for a moment he bent over it andgazed intently on the two women; particularly on that of the whitemaiden. When having apparently satisfied his curiosity, he withdrew asstealthily as he had come.
When Hellena opened her eyes again, the spectre had vanished, andeverything about the cave appeared as if nothing unusual had happened.
For a long time she lay quietly thinking over the strange occurrencesof the night. She was in doubt whether scenes which she had witnessedwere real, or were only the empty creations of a dream. The horriblespectres which she had seen in the fore part of the night seemed likethose which visit us in our dreams when our minds are troubled. Butthe apparition of the Indian seemed more real.
Could she be mistaken? was this, too, only a dream? or were the twoscenes only different parts of one waking vision?
To this last opinion she seemed most inclined, and was fully confirmedin the opinion that the cavern was haunted.
Although Hellena was satisfied in her own mind that the figure thathad appeared so strangely was a disembodied spirit, yet she had avague impression that she had somewhere seen that form before. Butwhen, or where, she could not recollect.
When in the morning she related the occurrences of the night toLightfoot, the Indian expressed no surprise, and exhibited no alarm.Nor did she attempt to offer any explanation seeming to treat it as amatter of course.
Although this might be unsatisfactory to Hellena in some respects, itwas perhaps after all, quite as well for her that Lightfoot did notexhibit any alarm at what had occurred, as by doing so she impartedsome of her own confidence to her more timid companion.
All this while Black Bill had not been thought of but after a while hecrawled out from his bunk, his eyes twice their usual size, and comingup to Hellena, he said:
"Misses, misses, I seed do debble last night wid a great fire-brand inhis hand, and he went all round de cabe, lookin' for massa Flint, toburn him up, but he couldn't fine him so he went away agin. Now I knowhe's comin' after massa Flint, cause he didn't touch nobody else."
"Did he frighten you?" asked Hellena.
"No; but I kept mighty still, and shut my eyes when he come to look atme, but he didn't say noffen, so I know'd it wasn't dis darkey he wasafter."
This statement of the negro's satisfied Hellena that she had not beendreaming when she witnessed the apparition of the Indian.
On further questioning Bill, she found he had not witnessed any of thehorrid phantoms that had visited her in her dreams.
As soon as Hellena could do so without attracting attention, she tooka lamp and examined the walls in every direction to see if she coulddiscover any where a crevice large enough for a person to passthrough, but she could find nothing of the sort.
The walls were rough and broken in many parts, but there was nothinglike what she was in search of.
She next questioned Lightfoot about it, asking her if there was anyother entrance to the cave beside the one through which they hadentered.
But the Indian woman gave her no satisfaction, simply telling her thatshe might take the lamp and examine for herself.
As Hellena had already done this, she was of course as much in thedark as ever.
When Captain Flint visited the cave again as he did on the followingday, Hellena would have related to him the occurrences of the previousnight, but she felt certain that he would only laugh at it assomething called up by her excited imagination, or treat it as a storymade up for the purpose of exciting his sympathy.
Or perhaps invented for the purpose of arousing his superstition inorder to make him leave the cave, and take her to some place whereescape would be more easy.
So she concluded to say nothing to him about it.
Fire Cloud; Or, The Mysterious Cave. A Story of Indians and Pirates. Page 10