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Cutlass and Cudgel, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 21 |
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_ CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
He went on munching a little longer, then felt for the bottle, took out the tight cork, had a good long draught of the milk it contained, recorked and put it away in the basket with the bread, butter, and ham he had not consumed, shut down the lid, and laughed. There was nothing very cheerful about his prison to make him laugh, but the reaction was so great--he felt so different after his hearty meal-- that he was ready to look any difficulty in the face, and full of wonder at his despondency of a short time before. There's a good deal of magic in food to one who is fasting, and is blessed with health and a good appetite. "Now then," he said, rising with the basket in his hand, "the first thing is to find a place to stow you;" and he had no difficulty in finding ledge after ledge that would have held the basket, but he wanted one that would be easily found in the darkness. At last he felt his way to a great mass of rock, upon which, about level with his head, was a projection upon which the basket stood well enough, and trusting to being able to find it again by means of the great block, he turned his attention to the lanthorn. "If I only had that," he said to himself. He stood thinking in the darkness, wondering which way he had better try. "Any way," he said at last, "for I will have it; and then if I don't find my way out of this hole, I'm as stupid as that fellow thinks." Stretching out his hands to save himself from a blow against any obstacle, he stalked off in as straight a direction as he could go, feeling his way with his feet, and always making sure of firm foothold before he moved the one that was safe, for his one great dread in the vast cavern was lest he should suddenly find himself on the brink of some yawning shaft. He knew little about the district, his ideas of the place being principally confined to what he had seen of the coast-line from the sea, but rugged piles of stone had been pointed out to him here and there as being the refuse of the stone that had been ages before dug and regularly mined by shafts and galleries out of the bowels of the earth; and a little thinking convinced him that he must be shut up in one of those old quarries which had been seized upon by the smugglers as a place to hide their stores. It was a shrewd guess, and he could not help thinking afterwards that it was no wonder that so little success attended the efforts of the revenue cutter's crew to trace cargoes which had been landed when the smugglers had such lurking places as this. As he crept slowly on, step by step, these and similar thoughts came rapidly through the prisoner's brain, and as he slowly mounted what seemed to be a pile of fragments, he began to wonder where his prison could be--whether it was close to the shore or some distance inland. He stopped to listen, hoping to hear the breaking of the waves among the rocks, which would have proved what he wished to know at once; but though he listened again and again, he could not distinguish a sound. The only noises he heard were those he made in stepping on one side of some piece of stone, which gave forth a musical clink as it struck another. He was climbing up now what appeared to be a steep slope, over great fragments of stone heavier than he would have been able to lift, and he seemed to creep up and up till he felt assured that the ceiling was just above him, and raising his hand he touched the roof, his fingers tracing out again the great cast of one of the old-world shell-fish--one of the great nautiluses of the geologist. But fossils were unknown things in Archy Raystoke's day. He was hunting for a lanthorn, not for specimens. As he stood on the highest part of this pile of stone, he hesitated about going farther, and bore off to his left, feeling that in all probability the object of his search had not come so far. From time to time he paused to listen, and at last thought of trying to find the extent of the place by shouting; but he was satisfied with his first essay, his voice going echoing away apparently for a great distance, and the peculiar, dying, whispering sound was not pleasant to one alone in the darkness. After a while, however, as he felt that he was walking over small fragments of stone, he picked up a piece and threw it, to try if he were near the end of the cavern in this direction, for he was growing tired and longed now to find his way to the sailcloth to lie down and rest. The piece he held was about a pound weight, and, drawing back his hand as far as he could reach, he threw it with all his might, to start back in alarm, for it struck wood with a heavy thud, and dropped down almost at his feet. Unknown to himself he had gradually found his way to the pile of kegs, and these he touched the next moment, thinking that, as he stood facing them, the place where he had first come to himself must lie off to his left; and so it proved after a long search, and he sank down so wearied out, that as he chose by preference to lie down, he was before many minutes had elapsed in a deep and dreamless sleep, forgetful of the darkness and any peril that might be ready to assail him next. _ |
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