For the Term of His Natural Life

by Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke

  The lift of the water-spout had saved John Rex's life. At the momentwhen it struck him he was on his hands and knees at the entrance of thecavern. The wave, gushing upwards, at the same time expanded, laterally,and this lateral force drove the convict into the mouth of thesubterranean passage. The passage trended downwards, and for someseconds he was rolled over and over, the rush of water wedging him atlength into a crevice between two enormous stones, which overhung astill more formidable abyss. Fortunately for the preservation of hishard-fought-for life, this very fury of incoming water prevented himfrom being washed out again with the recoil of the wave. He could hearthe water dashing with frightful echoes far down into the depths beyondhim, but it was evident that the two stones against which he had beenthrust acted as breakwaters to the torrent poured in from the outside,and repelled the main body of the stream in the fashion he had observedfrom his position on the ledge. In a few seconds the cavern was empty.

  Painfully extricating himself, and feeling as yet doubtful of hissafety, John Rex essayed to climb the twin-blocks that barred theunknown depths below him. The first movement he made caused him toshriek aloud. His left arm--with which he clung to the rope--hungpowerless. Ground against the ragged entrance, it was momentarilyparalysed. For an instant the unfortunate wretch sank despairingly onthe wet and rugged floor of the cave; then a terrible gurgling beneathhis feet warned him of the approaching torrent, and, collecting all hisenergies, he scrambled up the incline. Though nigh fainting with painand exhaustion, he pressed desperately higher and higher. He heard thehideous shriek of the whirlpool which was beneath him grow louderand louder. He saw the darkness grow darker as the rising water-spoutcovered the mouth of the cave. He felt the salt spray sting his face,and the wrathful tide lick the hand that hung over the shelf on which hefell. But that was all. He was out of danger at last! And as the thoughtblessed his senses, his eyes closed, and the wonderful courage andstrength which had sustained the villain so long exhaled in stupor.

  When he awoke the cavern was filled with the soft light of dawn. Raisinghis eyes, he beheld, high above his head, a roof of rock, on which thereflection of the sunbeams, playing upwards through a pool of water,cast flickering colours. On his right hand was the mouth of the cave, onhis left a terrific abyss, at the bottom of which he could hear thesea faintly lapping and washing. He raised himself and stretched hisstiffened limbs. Despite his injured shoulder, it was imperative that heshould bestir himself. He knew not if his escape had been noticed, orif the cavern had another inlet, by which McNab, returning, mightpenetrate. Moreover, he was wet and famished. To preserve the life whichhe had torn from the sea, he must have fire and food. First he examinedthe crevice by which he had entered. It was shaped like an irregulartriangle, hollowed at the base by the action of the water which in suchstorms as that of the preceding night was forced into it by the risingof the sea. John Rex dared not crawl too near the edge, lest he shouldslide out of the damp and slippery orifice, and be dashed upon therocks at the bottom of the Blow-hole. Craning his neck, he could see, ahundred feet below him, the sullenly frothing water, gurgling, spouting,and creaming, in huge turbid eddies, occasionally leaping upwards asthough it longed for another storm to send it raging up to the man whohad escaped its fury. It was impossible to get down that way. He turnedback into the cavern, and began to explore in that direction. Thetwin-rocks against which he had been hurled were, in fact, pillars whichsupported the roof of the water-drive. Beyond them lay a great greyshadow which was emptiness, faintly illumined by the sea-light cast upthrough the bottom of the gulf. Midway across the grey shadow fell astrange beam of dusky brilliance, which cast its flickering light upon awilderness of waving sea-weeds. Even in the desperate position in whichhe found himself, there survived in the vagabond's nature sufficientpoetry to make him value the natural marvel upon which he had sostrangely stumbled. The immense promontory, which, viewed from theoutside, seemed as solid as a mountain, was in reality but a hollowcone, reft and split into a thousand fissures by the unsuspected actionof the sea for centuries. The Blow-hole was but an insignificant crannycompared with this enormous chasm. Descending with difficulty the steepincline, he found himself on the brink of a gallery of rock, which,jutting out over the pool, bore on its moist and weed-bearded edgessigns of frequent submersion. It must be low tide without the rock.Clinging to the rough and root-like algae that fringed the ever-moistwalls, John Rex crept round the projection of the gallery, and passed atonce from dimness to daylight. There was a broad loop-hole in the sideof the honey-combed and wave-perforated cliff. The cloudless heavenexpanded above him; a fresh breeze kissed his cheek and, sixty feetbelow him, the sea wrinkled all its lazy length, sparkling in myriadwavelets beneath the bright beams of morning. Not a sign of the recenttempest marred the exquisite harmony of the picture. Not a sign of humanlife gave evidence of the grim neighbourhood of the prison. From therecess out of which he peered nothing was visible but a sky of turquoisesmiling upon a sea of sapphire.

  The placidity of Nature was, however, to the hunted convict a new sourceof alarm. It was a reason why the Blow-hole and its neighbourhood shouldbe thoroughly searched. He guessed that the favourable weather would bean additional inducement to McNab and Burgess to satisfy themselvesas to the fate of their late prisoner. He turned from the opening, andprepared to descend still farther into the rock pathway. The sunshinehad revived and cheered him, and a sort of instinct told him that thecliff, so honey-combed above, could not be without some gully or chinkat its base, which at low tide would give upon the rocky shore. It grewdarker as he descended, and twice he almost turned back in dread of thegulfs on either side of him. It seemed to him, also, that the gullet ofweed-clad rock through which he was crawling doubled upon itself,and led only into the bowels of the mountain. Gnawed by hunger, andconscious that in a few hours at most the rising tide would fill thesubterranean passage and cut off his retreat, he pushed desperatelyonwards. He had descended some ninety feet, and had lost, in the deviouswindings of his downward path, all but the reflection of the light fromthe gallery, when he was rewarded by a glimpse of sunshine strikingupwards. He parted two enormous masses of seaweed, whose bubble-headedfronds hung curtainwise across his path, and found himself in the verymiddle of the narrow cleft of rock through which the sea was driven tothe Blow-hole.

  At an immense distance above him was the arch of cliff. Beyond thatarch appeared a segment of the ragged edge of the circular opening,down which he had fallen. He looked in vain for the funnel-mouth whosefriendly shelter had received him. It was now indistinguishable. At hisfeet was a long rift in the solid rock, so narrow that he could almosthave leapt across it. This rift was the channel of a swift black currentwhich ran from the sea for fifty yards under an arch eight feet high,until it broke upon the jagged rocks that lay blistering in the sunshineat the bottom of the circular opening in the upper cliff. A shuddershook the limbs of the adventurous convict. He comprehended that athigh tide the place where he stood was under water, and that the narrowcavern became a subaqueous pipe of solid rock forty feet long, throughwhich were spouted the league-long rollers of the Southern Sea.

  The narrow strip of rock at the base of the cliff was as flat asa table. Here and there were enormous hollows like pans, which theretreating tide had left full of clear, still water. The crannies ofthe rock were inhabited by small white crabs, and John Rex found to hisdelight that there was on this little shelf abundance of mussels,which, though lean and acrid, were sufficiently grateful to his famishedstomach. Attached to the flat surfaces of the numerous stones, moreover,were coarse limpets. These, however, John Rex found too salt to bepalatable, and was compelled to reject them. A larger variety, however,having a succulent body as thick as a man's thumb, contained in longrazor-shaped shells, were in some degree free from this objection, andhe soon collected the materials for a meal. Having eaten and sunnedhimself, he began to examine the enormous rock, to the base of which hehad so strangely penetrated. Rugged and worn, it raised its huge breastagainst w
ind and wave, secure upon a broad pedestal, which probablyextended as far beneath the sea as the massive column itself rose aboveit. Rising thus, with its shaggy drapery of seaweed clinging about itsknees, it seemed to be a motionless but sentient being--some monster ofthe deep, a Titan of the ocean condemned ever to front in silence thefury of that illimitable and rarely-travelled sea. Yet--silent andmotionless as he was--the hoary ancient gave hint of the mysteries ofhis revenge. Standing upon the broad and sea-girt platform where surelyno human foot but his had ever stood in life, the convict saw, many feetabove him, pitched into a cavity of the huge sun-blistered boulders, anobject which his sailor eye told him at once was part of the top hamperof some large ship. Crusted with shells, and its ruin so overrun withthe ivy of the ocean that its ropes could barely be distinguished fromthe weeds with which they were encumbered, this relic of human labourattested the triumph of nature over human ingenuity. Perforated below bythe relentless sea, exposed above to the full fury of the tempest; setin solitary defiance to the waves, that rolling from the ice-volcano ofthe Southern Pole, hurled their gathered might unchecked upon its ironfront, the great rock drew from its lonely warfare the materials of itsown silent vengeance. Clasped in iron arms, it held its prey, snatchedfrom the jaws of the all-devouring sea. One might imagine that, when thedoomed ship, with her crew of shrieking souls, had splintered and gonedown, the deaf, blind giant had clutched this fragment, upheaved fromthe seething waters, with a thrill of savage and terrible joy.

  John Rex, gazing up at this memento of a forgotten agony, felt asensation of the most vulgar pleasure. "There's wood for my fire!"thought he; and mounting to the spot, he essayed to fling down thesplinters of timber upon the platform. Long exposed to the sun, andflung high above the water-mark of recent storms, the timber had driedto the condition of touchwood, and would burn fiercely. It was preciselywhat he required. Strange accident that had for years stored, upon adesolate rock, this fragment of a vanished and long-forgotten vessel,that it might aid at last to warm the limbs of a villain escaping fromjustice!

  Striking the disintegrated mass with his iron-shod heel, John Rex brokeoff convenient portions; and making a bag of his shirt by tying thesleeves and neck, he was speedily staggering into the cavern with asupply of fuel. He made two trips, flinging down the wood on the floorof the gallery that overlooked the sea, and was returning for a third,when his quick ear caught the dip of oars. He had barely time to liftthe seaweed curtain that veiled the entrance to the chasm, when theEaglehawk boat rounded the promontory. Burgess was in the stern-sheets,and seemed to be making signals to someone on the top of the cliff. Rex,grinning behind his veil, divined the manoeuvre. McNab and his partywere to search above, while the Commandant examined the gulf below.The boat headed direct for the passage, and for an instant John Rex'sundaunted soul shivered at the thought that, perhaps, after all, hispursuers might be aware of the existence of the cavern. Yet that wasunlikely. He kept his ground, and the boat passed within a foot ofhim, gliding silently into the gulf. He observed that Burgess's usuallyflorid face was pale, and that his left sleeve was cut open, showing abandage on the arm. There had been some fighting, then, and it was notunlikely that all his fellow-desperadoes had been captured! He chuckledat his own ingenuity and good sense. The boat, emerging from thearchway, entered the pool of the Blow-hole, and, held with the fullstrength of the party, remained stationary. John Rex watched Burgessscan the rocks and eddies, saw him signal to McNab, and then, with muchrelief, beheld the boat's head brought round to the sea-board.

  He was so intent upon watching this dangerous and difficult operationthat he was oblivious of an extraordinary change which had taken placein the interior of the cavern. The water which, an hour ago, had leftexposed a long reef of black hummock-rocks, was now spread in onefoam-flecked sheet over the ragged bottom of the rude staircase by whichhe had descended. The tide had turned, and the sea, apparently sucked inthrough some deeper tunnel in the portion of the cliff which was belowwater, was being forced into the vault with a rapidity which bid fair toshortly submerge the mouth of the cave. The convict's feet were alreadywetted by the incoming waves, and as he turned for one last look at theboat he saw a green billow heave up against the entrance to the chasm,and, almost blotting out the daylight, roll majestically through thearch. It was high time for Burgess to take his departure if he did notwish his whale-boat to be cracked like a nut against the roof of thetunnel. Alive to his danger, the Commandant abandoned the search afterhis late prisoner's corpse, and he hastened to gain the open sea. Theboat, carried backwards and upwards on the bosom of a monstrous wave,narrowly escaped destruction, and John Rex, climbing to the gallery, sawwith much satisfaction the broad back of his out-witted gaoler disappearround the sheltering promontory. The last efforts of his pursuershad failed, and in another hour the only accessible entrance to theconvict's retreat was hidden under three feet of furious seawater.

  His gaolers were convinced of his death, and would search for him nomore. So far, so good. Now for the last desperate venture--the escapefrom the wonderful cavern which was at once his shelter and his prison.Piling his wood together, and succeeding after many efforts, by theaid of a flint and the ring which yet clung to his ankle, in lightinga fire, and warming his chilled limbs in its cheering blaze, he sethimself to meditate upon his course of action. He was safe for thepresent, and the supply of food that the rock afforded was amplysufficient to sustain life in him for many days, but it was impossiblethat he could remain for many days concealed. He had no fresh water, andthough, by reason of the soaking he had received, he had hithertofelt little inconvenience from this cause, the salt and acrid musselsspeedily induced a raging thirst, which he could not alleviate. It wasimperative that within forty-eight hours at farthest he should be on hisway to the peninsula. He remembered the little stream into which--in hisflight of the previous night--he had so nearly fallen, and hoped to beable, under cover of the darkness, to steal round the reef and reach itunobserved. His desperate scheme was then to commence. He had to runthe gauntlet of the dogs and guards, gain the peninsula, and await therescuing vessel. He confessed to himself that the chances were terriblyagainst him. If Gabbett and the others had been recaptured--as hedevoutly trusted--the coast would be comparatively clear; but if theyhad escaped, he knew Burgess too well to think that he would give up thechase while hope of re-taking the absconders remained to him. If indeedall fell out as he had wished, he had still to sustain life until Bluntfound him--if haply Blunt had not returned, wearied with useless anddangerous waiting.

  As night came on, and the firelight showed strange shadows waving fromthe corners of the enormous vault, while the dismal abysses beneath himmurmured and muttered with uncouth and ghastly utterance, therefell upon the lonely man the terror of Solitude. Was this marvelloushiding-place that he had discovered to be his sepulchre? Was he--amonster amongst his fellow-men--to die some monstrous death, entombedin this mysterious and terrible cavern of the sea? He had tried todrive away these gloomy thoughts by sketching out for himself a plan ofaction--but in vain. In vain he strove to picture in its completenessthat--as yet vague--design by which he promised himself to wrest fromthe vanished son of the wealthy ship-builder his name and heritage.His mind, filled with forebodings of shadowy horror, could not givethe subject the calm consideration which it needed. In the midst of hisschemes for the baffling of the jealous love of the woman who was tosave him, and the getting to England, in shipwrecked and foreign guise,as the long-lost heir to the fortune of Sir Richard Devine, there aroseghastly and awesome shapes of death and horror, with whose terribleunsubstantiality he must grapple in the lonely recesses of that dismalcavern. He heaped fresh wood upon his fire, that the bright light mightdrive out the gruesome things that lurked above, below, and around him.He became afraid to look behind him, lest some shapeless mass of mid-seabirth--some voracious polype, with far-reaching arms and jellied mouthever open to devour--might slide up over the edge of the dripping cavesbelow, and fasten upon him in the darknes
s. His imagination--alwayssufficiently vivid, and spurred to an unnatural effect by the excitingscenes of the previous night--painted each patch of shadow, clingingbat-like to the humid wall, as some globular sea-spider ready to dropupon him with its viscid and clay-cold body, and drain out his chilledblood, enfolding him in rough and hairy arms. Each splash in the waterbeneath him, each sigh of the multitudinous and melancholy sea, seemedto prelude the laborious advent of some mis-shapen and ungainlyabortion of the ooze. All the sensations induced by lapping waterand regurgitating waves took material shape and surrounded him. Allcreatures that could be engendered by slime and salt crept forth intothe firelight to stare at him. Red dabs and splashes that were livingbeings, having a strange phosphoric light of their own, glowed upon thefloor. The livid encrustations of a hundred years of humidity slippedfrom off the walls and painfully heaved their mushroom surfaces to theblaze. The red glow of the unwonted fire, crimsoning the wet sidesof the cavern, seemed to attract countless blisterous and transparentshapelessnesses, which elongated themselves towards him. Bloodless andbladdery things ran hither and thither noiselessly. Strange carapacescrawled from out of the rocks. All the horrible unseen life of the oceanseemed to be rising up and surrounding him. He retreated to the brink ofthe gulf, and the glare of the upheld brand fell upon a rounded hummock,whose coronal of silky weed out-floating in the water looked like thehead of a drowned man. He rushed to the entrance of the gallery, and hisshadow, thrown into the opening, took the shape of an avenging phantom,with arms upraised to warn him back. The naturalist, the explorer,or the shipwrecked seaman would have found nothing frightful in thisexhibition of the harmless life of the Australian ocean. But theconvict's guilty conscience, long suppressed and derided, asserteditself in this hour when it was alone with Nature and Night. The bitterintellectual power which had so long supported him succumbed beneathimagination--the unconscious religion of the soul. If ever he was nighrepentance it was then. Phantoms of his past crimes gibbered at him, andcovering his eyes with his hands, he fell shuddering upon his knees.The brand, loosening from his grasp, dropped into the gulf, and wasextinguished with a hissing noise. As if the sound had called up somespirit that lurked below, a whisper ran through the cavern.

  "John Rex!" The hair on the convict's flesh stood up, and he cowered tothe earth.

  "John Rex?"

  It was a human voice! Whether of friend or enemy he did not pause tothink. His terror over-mastered all other considerations.

  "Here! here!" he cried, and sprang to the opening of the vault.

  Arrived at the foot of the cliff, Blunt and Staples found themselves inalmost complete darkness, for the light of the mysterious fire, whichhad hitherto guided them, had necessarily disappeared. Calm as wasthe night, and still as was the ocean, the sea yet ran with silent butdangerous strength through the channel which led to the Blow-hole; andBlunt, instinctively feeling the boat drawn towards some unknown peril,held off the shelf of rocks out of reach of the current. A sudden flashof fire, as from a flourished brand, burst out above them, and floatingdownwards through the darkness, in erratic circles, came an atom ofburning wood. Surely no one but a hunted man would lurk in such a savageretreat.

  Blunt, in desperate anxiety, determined to risk all upon one venture."John Rex!" he shouted up through his rounded hands. The light flashedagain at the eye-hole of the mountain, and on the point above themappeared a wild figure, holding in its hands a burning log, whosefierce glow illumined a face so contorted by deadly fear and agony ofexpectation that it was scarce human.

  "Here! here!"

  "The poor devil seems half-crazy," said Will Staples, under his breath;and then aloud, "We're FRIENDS!" A few moments sufficed to explainmatters. The terrors which had oppressed John Rex disappeared in humanpresence, and the villain's coolness returned. Kneeling on the rockplatform, he held parley.

  "It is impossible for me to come down now," he said. "The tide coversthe only way out of the cavern."

  "Can't you dive through it?" said Will Staples.

  "No, nor you neither," said Rex, shuddering at the thought of trustinghimself to that horrible whirlpool.

  "What's to be done? You can't come down that wall." "Wait untilmorning," returned Rex coolly. "It will be dead low tide at seveno'clock. You must send a boat at six, or there-abouts. It will be lowenough for me to get out, I dare say, by that time."

  "But the Guard?"

  "Won't come here, my man. They've got their work to do in watching theNeck and exploring after my mates. They won't come here. Besides, I'mdead."

  "Dead!"

  "Thought to be so, which is as well--better for me, perhaps. If theydon't see your ship, or your boat, you're safe enough."

  "I don't like to risk it," said Blunt. "It's Life if we're caught."

  "It's Death if I'm caught!" returned the other, with a sinister laugh."But there's no danger if you are cautious. No one looks for rats in aterrier's kennel, and there's not a station along the beach from hereto Cape Pillar. Take your vessel out of eye-shot of the Neck, bring theboat up Descent Beach, and the thing's done."

  "Well," says Blunt, "I'll try it."

  "You wouldn't like to stop here till morning? It is rather lonely,"suggested Rex, absolutely making a jest of his late terrors.

  Will Staples laughed. "You're a bold boy!" said he. "We'll come atdaybreak."

  "Have you got the clothes as I directed?"

  "Yes."

  "Then good night. I'll put my fire out, in case somebody else might seeit, who wouldn't be as kind as you are."

  "Good night."

  "Not a word for the Madam," said Staples, when they reached the vessel.

  "Not a word, the ungrateful dog," asserted Blunt, adding, with someheat, "That's the way with women. They'll go through fire and water fora man that doesn't care a snap of his fingers for 'em; but for any poorfellow who risks his neck to pleasure 'em they've nothing but sneers! Iwish I'd never meddled in the business."

  "There are no fools like old fools," thought Will Staples, looking backthrough the darkness at the place where the fire had been, but he didnot utter his thoughts aloud.

  At eight o'clock the next morning the Pretty Mary stood out to sea withevery stitch of canvas set, alow and aloft. The skipper's fishing hadcome to an end. He had caught a shipwrecked seaman, who had been broughton board at daylight, and was then at breakfast in the cabin. The crewwinked at each other when the haggard mariner, attired in garments thatseemed remarkably well preserved, mounted the side. But they, none ofthem, were in a position to controvert the skipper's statement.

  "Where are we bound for?" asked John Rex, smoking Staples's pipe inlingering puffs of delight. "I'm entirely in your hands, Blunt."

  "My orders are to cruise about the whaling grounds until I meet myconsort," returned Blunt sullenly, "and put you aboard her. She'll takeyou back to Sydney. I'm victualled for a twelve-months' trip."

  "Right!" cried Rex, clapping his preserver on the back. "I'm bound toget to Sydney somehow; but, as the Philistines are abroad, I may as welltarry in Jericho till my beard be grown. Don't stare at my Scripturalquotation, Mr. Staples," he added, inspirited by creature comforts, andsecure amid his purchased friends. "I assure you that I've had the verybest religious instruction. Indeed, it is chiefly owing to my worthyspiritual pastor and master that I am enabled to smoke this veryvillainous tobacco of yours at the present moment!"

  CHAPTER XXVII. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.