No sooner had they discovered this than they saw also something which inspired them with hope. Not only had the lower staying of logs thus descended, but it had also lost its cohesion, and the logs all seemed to be separated by spaces of more or less width, while many of them protruded into the pit as though thrust in by the pressure of the earth. Now they recognized at a glance the tremendous risk that they had run while removing the lowest logs; but at the same glance they perceived that the immediate danger had passed, and that they were now at least less helpless than before. For now, at last, there need be no difficulty about climbing. Now the spaces between the logs were wide enough for them to find something which they might grasp with their hands, and for some distance up, at any rate, they could see what seemed like a ladder, up which they might climb in search of escape from this fearful place.
No sooner had they made this discovery than they at once caught at this prospect which thus had so unexpectedly opened before them, and began to climb. The task was not very difficult. Each one took a corner of the pit where the meeting of the two walls favored the ascent, and for some time they continued to mount without much difficulty.
“Sure but I’m afraid this is too good to last,” said Pat.
Bart made no reply. That very fear was in his own mind. In that suspense he could say nothing. At last they had mounted as high as the place where the rope had broken. The end hung here suspended most tantalizingly. O, what joy it would have been for them had it been the rope alone which had thus broken,—if the beam had only continued sound; but now that rope was useless, and they dared not touch it for fear lest even a touch might bring down upon their heads the beam that hung there impending over them. Fortunately they were able to ascend yet higher, for still above them the log casing had been started asunder, and still they found themselves able to grasp places of support. The staying had certainly undergone a universal disintegration, and nothing but its great compactness had prevented it from falling in ruin over their heads, and burying them alive. It was with amazement and consternation that they recognized their work, and these feelings would have overwhelmed them had they not found the result, after all, so fortunate for themselves. The risk had passed away. For the present, at least, they were receiving the benefit.
The fear which Pat had expressed, and which Bart had felt without expressing, that the ascent was too good a thing to last, was at length proved to be only too well founded. After they had climbed some distance farther, they found their ascent brought to an abrupt termination. For here there was a kind of separation between the lower casing and the upper; a log bulged forward about a foot, and above this there was a gap in the casing about two feet in height which showed the earth behind, a kind of clay, and in this there was a cavity caused by the falling of the casing. Above this the casing had held firm, but unfortunately they had not reached the planks. They were the same round logs which rose above them, and which would be as difficult to scale from this point as they had proved from below.
Upon this ledge, formed by the bulging logs, they clambered, and seated themselves, dejected at the termination of their ascent, yet relieved slightly by the chance which was now afforded of some rest and breathing space. Here they sat, and looked up.
“Sure an it’s hard, so it is,” said Pat, “to find an ind to it just here, whin, if we’d only been able to climb twinty or thirty feet further, we’d have got to the planks, an been all safe.”
“Yes,” said Bart, looking up, “there are the planks; and they’re not more than thirty feet above us at the farthest.”
“An yit they’re as much out of our raich as though they were a hundred, so they are.”
“I’d rather have the thirty feet, at any rate,” said Bart. “Come now; can’t we manage to get farther up.”
“Nivir a farther,” said Pat. “We’ve got to the ind of our journey.”
“Come now,” said Bart. “See here, Pat. You spoke of a tunnel once. In fact we came down here with the pickaxe on purpose to make a tunnel to the money-hole. Well, we’re after something more precious than money—life itself. Can’t we tunnel up to life?”
“Tunnel, is it?” cried Pat, in great excitement. “Of coorse we can. Ye’ve jist hit it, so you have. It’s what we’ll do. We will thin.”
“The soil here seems like clay; and if we cut up behind this casing, it’ll be comparatively safe,” said Bart. “We need only cut up to the planks.”
“Sure an we’ll have to cut up to the top.”
“O, no! When we get to the planks, we can break through, and climb them like a ladder to the top. Once up to the planks, and we’re safe.”
“Break through the plankin is it? Sure enough; right are you; that’s what we’ll do, so it is.”
“And so that makes only thirty feet to cut away. It’ll be hard work cutting upwards; but you and I ought to manage it, Pat, when our lives are at stake.”
“Manage it? Of coorse; why not? Only we haven’t got that bit of a pick with us, so we haven’t, for we left it down below; an sorra one of me knows what’s become of it. It may be buried under the roons of the fallin logs.”
At this Bart looked at Pat with something like consternation.
“Well,” said he at length, “we’ll have to go down again—one of us; we must have that pickaxe. I’ll go.”
“Sure an you won’t,” said Pat; “meself’s the one that’s goin to go.”
“No, you shan’t. Poh! Don’t be absurd.”
“Sure I’m bound to go; and so don’t you go too. There’s not the laste nicissity in life for both of us to go.”
“O, well, then,” said Bart, “we’ll have to toss up for it. That’s all.”
And saying this, he took out a piece of money, and said to Pat—
“Head or Tail?”
“Tail,” said Pat.
Bart tossed. Pat lost. It was Pat’s business therefore to go down.
“Sure an it’s aisy climbin,” said Pat, “an the pick’ll be a help whin I returrun.”
With these words he departed.
Seated on the log, Bart looked down, watching Pat’s descent. They had climbed about half way up the pit, and Pat had about fifty feet to go down. Looking down, it was dark, and Pat at length disappeared from view. Bart could only hear him as he moved about. At length there was a deep stillness.
Bart grew alarmed.
“Pat!” he called.
No answer came.
“Pat!” he called again.
Still no answer.
“Pat!” he called, as loud as he could, for he was now thoroughly frightened. As he called, he put his feet over, and prepared to descend.
“I’m here,” Pat’s voice came up. “Don’t come down. I’m coming up.”
These words filled Bart with a feeling of immense relief. He now heard Pat moving again, and at length saw him ascending. Nearer he came, and nearer. But Bart noticed that he did not have the pickaxe. He feared by this that it had been buried beneath the fallen logs. If so, their situation was as desperate as ever. But he said not a word.
Pat at length reached the place where Bart was, and flung himself down, panting heavily. Bart watched him in silence.
“The pickaxe is buried,” said he at length, “I suppose.”
“Worse,” said Pat, with something like a groan.
“Worse?” repeated Bart in dismay.
“Yis, worse,” said Pat. “The water’s comin in. There’s six feet of it, an more too. The hole’s flooded, an fillin up.”
At this awful intelligence Bart sat petrified with horror, and said not one word.
“It’s the diggin away at the casin,” said Pat, dolefully, “an the cuttin away of the earth, that’s done the business, so it is. I can onderstand it all easy enough. Sure this pit’s close by the money-hole, an the bottom of it’s close by the drain that they towld us of. An them that made this hole didn’t dare to go one inch further. An that’s the very thing, so it is, that we’ve done. We’ve cut, and
dug, and broke through into the drain. What’s worse, all the casin an all the earth’s broke and fallen down. An there’s no knowin the mischief we’ve done. Any how, we’ve broke through to the “drain”—bad luck to it; and the water’s jist now a powerin in fast enough. Sure it’s got to the top of them logs that we stood upon end—the long ones; and they’re more’n six feet long, an it’s risin ivery minit, so it is, an it’s comin up, an it’ll soon be up to this place, so it will. An sure it’s lost an done for we are intirely, an there you have it.”
After this dreadful intelligence, not a word was spoken for a long time. Pat had said his say, and had nothing to add to it. Bart had heard it, and had nothing to say. He was dumb. They were helpless. They could go no farther. Here they were on this log, half way up the pit, but unable to ascend any further, and with the prospect before them of swift and inevitable destruction.
They had worked long and diligently. Not one mouthful had they eaten since morning; but in their deep anxiety, they had felt no hunger. They had labored as those only can labor who are struggling for life. And this was the end. But all this time they had not been conscious of the passage of the hours; yet those hours had been flying by none the less. Time had been passing during their long labor at the logs below—how much time they had never suspected.
The first indication which they had of this lapse of time was the discovery which they now made of a gradually increasing gloom. At first they attributed this to the gathering of clouds over the sky above; but after a time the gloom increased to an extent which made itself apparent even to their despairing minds. And what was it? Could it be twilight? Could it be evening? Was it possible that the day had passed away? Long indeed had the time seemed; yet, even in spite of this, they felt an additional shock at this discovery. Yet it was true. It was evening. The day was done. They two had passed the day in this pit. This was night that was now coming swiftly on.
They remained motionless and silent. Nothing could be done; and the thoughts of each were too deep for utterance. Words were useless now. In the mind of each there was an awful expectation of a doom that was coming upon them—inevitable, swift, terrible! They could only await it in dumb despair.
Night was coming, adding by its darkness to the horror of their situation. Death in daylight is bad enough, but in the dark how much worse! And the fate that threatened them appeared wherever they might turn their eyes—above, in the shape of that broken beam which yet in the twilight appeared defined in a shadowy form against the dim sky; around, in this treacherous casing, which, being undermined, might at any moment fall, like the lower portion, and crush them; beneath, most awfully, and most surely, are those dark, stealthy, secret waters which had come in from the “drain” upon them as though to punish their rashness, and make them pay for it with their lives. In the midst of all these fears they remembered the superstitious words of the man whom they had questioned, “Flesh and blood will never lay hands on that treasure, unless there’s a sacrifice made—the sacrifice of human life!” Such was the declaration of the man on the shore, and this declaration now made itself remembered. The sacrifice of life. What life? Was it theirs? Were they, then, the destined victims? Awful thought! Yet how else could it be? Yes, that declaration was a prophecy, and that prophecy was being fulfilled in them. But O, how hard it was to die thus! so young! in such a way! to die when no friends were near! and where their fate would never, never be known to those friends.
CHAPTER XVI.
The boys at the inn slept soundly, and did not wake until after their usual time. On going down to breakfast, they looked about for Bart and Pat. At first they thought that their two friends had already taken their breakfast, and gone out; but an incidental remark of the landlady made known to them the fact that they had not been back to the inn at all. This intelligence they received with serious faces, and looks of surprise and uneasiness.
“I wonder what can be the meaning of it,” said Bruce.
“It’s queer,” said Arthur.
“They were very mysterious about going, in the first place,” said Tom. “I don’t see what sense there was in making such a secret about it. They must have gone some distance.”
“Perhaps they didn’t think we’d be back so soon,” said Phil, “and have planned their own affair, whatever it is, to last as long as ours.”
“O, they must have known,” said Bruce, “that we’d be back today. Aspotogon is only a few miles. In fact we ought to have been back yesterday, in time for tea, by rights.”
“Where in the world could they have gone to?” said Arthur.
“O, fishing, of course,” said Tom.
“But they ought to have been back last night.”
“O, they’ve found some first-rate sport.”
“After all,” said Phil, “there wasn’t any actual reason for them to come back. None of us are in any hurry.”
“Yes; but they may have got into some scrape,” said Bruce. “Such a thing is not inconceivable. It strikes me that several members of this party have already got into scrapes now and then; and so I’m rather inclined to think that the turn has come round to Bart and Pat.”
“What I’m inclined to think,” said Arthur, “is, that they’ve gone off in a boat for a sail before breakfast, and have come to grief somehow.”
“Well, if they tried a sail-boat, they were pretty sure of that,” said Tom.
“Yes,” said Phil; “neither Bart nor Pat know anything more about sailing a boat than a cow does.”
“At any rate,” said Bruce, “they can’t have fallen into any very serious danger.”
“Why not?”
“There hasn’t been any wind worth speaking of.”
“Neither there has.”
“But there was some wind yesterday morning,” said Arthur. “It carried us to Aspotogon very well.”
“Pooh! Such a wind as that wouldn’t do anything. A child might have sailed a boat.”
“O, I don’t know. That wind might have caught them off some island, and capsized them.”
“I don’t believe that wind could have capsized even a paper boat,” said Phil; “but still I’m inclined to think, after all, that they’ve met with some sort of an accident in a boat.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Tom. “They couldn’t meet with any kind of accident. My opinion is, that they went off fishing, kept at it all day, got too far away to think of coming back last night, and so very naturally put up at some farm-house, where they have by this time eaten a good, rattling breakfast, and are on their way back, walking like the very mischief.”
“The most natural thing in the world too,” said Bruce. “I quite agree with Tom. It’s just what any other two of us fellows would have done. In the first place, they backed out of the Aspotogon expedition very quietly, so as not to make a fuss, then they went off, and, as Tom says, got too far to come back; though whether they’ve had such a tremendous adventure as ours at Deep Cove with the shark is a matter that has yet to be decided.”
This first allusion to the shark was received by all the party with a solemn smile.
“Well,” said Arthur, “I believe they’ve taken to a boat. Perhaps they’ve gone cruising about.”
“But they couldn’t have been capsized.”
“No.”
“Then how do you account for their absence?”
“Easily enough,” said Phil. “I believe they’ve gone visiting some of the islands, and somehow they’ve lost their sail, or their oars, or else they’ve been careless about fastening the boat, and she’s drifted away. And so I dare say that at this very moment they are on some desert island in this bay, within a mile or so of this town, looking out for help; but if they are, they must be pretty hungry by this time, for it isn’t every island that can furnish such a bill of fare as Ile Haute gave to Tom.”
“A perfectly natural explanation,” said Arthur. “Those two fellows are both so abominably careless, that, if they did go ashore on any island, they’d be almost
certain to leave the boat loose on the beach, to float away wherever it liked. I believe, as Phil says, that they’re on some island not far away.”
“I don’t,” said Bruce. “I believe that they went fishing.”
“Well, what are we to do about it? Oughtn’t we to hunt them up?” said Phil.
“I don’t see the use,” said Tom. “They’ll be along by dinner time.”
“Well, for my part,” said Arthur, “I can’t sit here and leave them to their fate. I believe they are in a fix, and consequently I intend to go off to hunt them up.”
“So will I,” said Phil.
“Well, of course, if you go, I’ll go too,” said Bruce.
“So will I,” said Tom; “though I don’t believe there’s the slightest necessity. Bart and Pat’ll turn up somewhere about noon, and find us gone. They’ll then go off in search of us. Well, it’ll amount to the same thing in the end, and so, perhaps, it’s the best way there can be of filling up the time.”
“I wonder if the Antelope’s got back,” said Bruce.
“I don’t know.”
“Suppose we go down and talk it over with Captain Corbet.”
“All right.”
With these words the boys rose from the breakfast table, and went down to the wharf. As they approached they saw the Antelope lying there at her former berth; for she had arrived about an hour before, and had come here.
“Wal, boys,” said he, as he saw them, “here we air once more, jined together as before; though whether you did well in a desertin of the ship in mid-ocean is a pint that I don’t intend to decide. You might as well have turned into your old quarters aboard, an slep calm an comfortable, instead of rowin six or eight mile by night. However, you don’t none o’ you look any the wuss for it, an so we’ll let bygones be bygones. Ony I’m pleased, likewise relieved, to see you here, instead of havin to larn that you’re among the missin, an probably roamin the seas in a open boat. An where, may I ask, air Bart and Pat?”
The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales Page 68