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Cutlass and Cudgel, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 24 |
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_ CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
But he could hardly swallow the food, which seemed tasteless in the extreme, and he was about to give up and hasten back to his work when his heart leaped, for there was the distant sound of the bolts being drawn, and a minute or two later the soft yellow light came slowly towards him and stopped. "Just remembered," said its bearer. "Got half way home first, though. Mother said I was to be sure and take back that basket. Put the stuff out on the sail. Hullo, what you been doing to your hands?" Archy started guiltily, and looked at them in the light to see that they were covered with blood, from injuries that he had made unconsciously in toiling with his knife against the stones. "Tumbled down?" continued Ram without waiting for an answer. "Well, 'tis dark 'mong these stones. I used to trip over them, but I could go anywhere now in the dark. Seem to feel like when they are near. Never mind, tear up yer hankychy and wrap round. I'll bring you one o' mine next time I come. There we are. Haven't forgot the basket this time. I say?" "Well?" The lad was ten yards away now, holding the lanthorn above his head. "You lost a chance." "What do you mean?" "Jemmy Dadd isn't up by the door. You might have given me a topper with a stone, and run away; too late now." He ran off laughing, and holding the lanthorn down low to make sure of his way. But Archy did not start up in pursuit. He saw a better way out now, and waiting till he felt convinced that the boy must be well on his way home, he jumped up, felt his way to the crevice, and was soon after hard at work picking the mortar from between the stones. Now and then, as he grew faint and weary, it seemed to him that he had made no progress, but the little heap of mortar told different tales, and once more taking heart he toiled away. It seemed a very easy thing to do, to loosen one stone in a rugged wall, draw it out, and then remove the other, but in practice it appeared almost impossible, and again going back into the quarry to partake of the food that was absolutely necessary, Archy returned to his task, and after working away again for about half an hour he fell fast asleep. How long he slept he did not know, but he started awake again to find that it was quite dark, and he kept on like one in a dream. The stone seemed as fast as ever, and his progress was getting very slow now, for he had cleared away the mortar as fast as he could reach in; but at last, seizing the stone and getting his fingers well in the joint, he gave it a vigorous shove, and then uttered a shout of triumph, for to his delight there came a sharp crack, and after giving a vigorous shove, the stone, which was about twenty inches long, was drawn out, and became the instrument for dislodging its fellows. This was comparatively easy now, and in the course of the next two days the prisoner had loosened and drawn out stones till he had made a way through a rough piece of wall six feet thick, and had enlarged the hole so that there was room to creep into the opening he had made and look out. Here came disappointment the first. The wall he had worked through did not face out to sea, but was one side of a chasm, and he gazed at the opposite side. Soon after he learned that this had not been the place where the stones were carried out for landing in boats, but the hole through which all the refuse was discharged, to fall in a crumbling heap a tremendous distance below, to be washed away by the waves which curved over and over against the foot and rolled up into the chasm. Still he worked on, enlarging the hole and sending the broken pieces and mortar, rattling down the face of the cliff into the sea, till there was nothing to hinder his crawling out at any time, and either getting to the top of the cliff or down below to the shore. He decided for the former as the more easy and the less likely to suggest peril, and he spent the next few hours after cleansing himself as much as possible, so as not to excite the attention of his young gaoler, and in his efforts to do this he made use of a piece of sailcloth, and an end of a coil of rope which lay with some sea-going tackle hard by where he slept. The day had come at last when the way was open, and he had but to creep out into the fresh bright sunshine and run for his liberty. He could hardly refrain from doing so at once, but his long and arduous labour, which had taken the skin from his fingers and left his whole hands so tender that he hardly dared to touch anything, had taught him some wisdom, especially not to throw away the opportunity for which he had worked so hard. And now he sat there in the darkness, wafting, so exultant that his seat might have been a throne, instead of a worn-out sail stretched over a mass of stone. He hugged the knees upon which his chin rested, and gazed straight before him into the blackness, watching for the first glow of Ram's lanthorn, and seeing as he watched the glorious sky, the blue sea all a-ripple; the shimmer and play of a passing shoal of fish; gulls floating without effort, now high up, now low down, their breasts of purest white, their backs of delicate grey, and their wondering eyes gazing at the rough-looking fisher-lad who crept out of a hole in the face of the cliff, made his way from shelf to shelf, ever up and up till he was on the grass at the top, where he lay down to wait till night for fear of being seen and dragged back. The black darkness of the great cavern quarry was all alight now with the pictures his mind painted, and, in his delight and satisfaction, he laughed aloud as he thought of Ram's disappointment on coming one day and finding his prisoner flown. It was hard work to keep from starting at once, but the midshipman felt that if he did, his escape would be discovered at any moment, and if it were, it was only a question of time before he would have the whole smuggling gang after him, and he would be hunted down to a lot ten times more bitter from the fact of his having failure to contemplate, and form his mental food. The rattle at last. The door dragged up, and Ram was not alone, for his voice could be heard in conversation with Jemmy Dadd. The boy was in capital spirits, and he was whistling merrily, his shrill notes echoing from the flat roof as he came on swinging his lanthorn in one hand, the basket in the other. "Sleep?" he said, as he saw Archy's attitude. "There you are," he continued. "I know you weren't asleep, and if you don't like to talk it aren't my fault. Want anything else?" No reply; Archy dare not speak. "Oh, very well," he said, "you can do as you like. Where's t'other basket?" A shiver ran through the prisoner as he recollected that which he had forgotten in his excitement: the basket which he had taken with some of the food therein, ready for his use as he worked, was standing by the opening at the top of the steps, and he cast an anxious glance sidewise in the direction of the passage, in dread lest the boy should detect the light shining down. He need not have been alarmed, for there was not a ray visible, and even if there had been, the light cast by the opened lanthorn would have hidden it; but he sat there trembling all the same, and with a curious sensation of suffocation rising in his throat, as he softly altered his position and loosened his hands, ready to make a spring at his enemy if it should become necessary. "Well, I do call that grumpy. Keeps on bringing you nuts, and you're so snarky that you won't so much as give one back the shells. Now, then, where's that basket?" Archy felt that he must speak, or else the boy would go in search of it. "I haven't done with it." "But I want it to take back." "It has some of the dinner in it." "Well, then, let's empty it out." "No," said Archy, sitting up angrily; "you can't have it now." "Oh," said Ram, "that's it, is it? Suppose I say I will have it?" "If you don't take yourself off," cried Archy, "I'll break your head with one of these pieces of stone." "Two can play at that game." "Be off." "I shan't. I want our basket. Mother said I was to bring it back." "Tell her you haven't got it." "Now, look here," cried Ram, "if you don't give me that basket back, I won't bring you what I was going to bring to-morrow. Where is it?" "Where I put it. You contemptible young smuggling thief! How dare you come worrying a gentleman about a dirty old basket!" "Wasn't dirty, for mother scrubbed it out before she'd send it to you. Where is it?" Desperate now in his fix, and feeling that his only resource to keep Ram from searching for the basket with his lanthorn was to keep up this show of anger, Archy made a snatch at a long splinter of stone, and started up menacingly. "Oh, that's it, is it?" cried Ram, who stood upon his guard, but did not appear in the least bit alarmed. "Fed you too well, have I? Had too many oats, and you're beginning to kick up your heels and squeak and snort. Never mind, I'll soon make you civil again. Going to give me that basket?" "No." "Then you shan't have this. There!" cried Ram, and snatching up the one he had brought, he walked straight away, swinging his lanthorn after he had shut it with a snap. "Going to give it to me?" he cried, as he stopped about half way to the trap-door. "No." "You'll want all this, and I've got some good tack inside." "Be off, fellow, and don't bother me." "Yah! Who want's to?" cried Ram; and he went off whistling merrily till he was at the opening, when he shouted back,-- "No oats to-day, pony. Good-bye." Archy leaped up and stood listening with his heart beating fast, and his head bent in the direction taken by the boy. "How unfortunate!" he said. "But I could not help it. Will he come back?" He listened and listened and hesitated, but there was no sound, and still he hesitated, till quite a couple of hours must have passed, when he uttered a loud exultant cry, determined now to make one bold dash for liberty, and made straight through the darkness for the open way. _ |
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