by Kirk Munroe
CHAPTER XVII
UNDERGROUND WANDERINGS
When Peveril next awoke he was racked with pain, and so stiff in everyjoint that an attempt to move caused him to groan aloud. A faint lightdimly revealed his surroundings; but these were so strange and weirdthat for several minutes he could not imagine where he was nor whathad happened. Slowly the truth dawned upon him, and one by one theawful incidents of the past night began to shape themselves in hismind.
"I have been murdered and drowned," he said to himself. "Now I amentombed alive, beyond reach of hope or human knowledge. Never againshall I see the sunlight, never revisit the surface of the earth,never look upon my fellows nor hear the voice of man. I may live forseveral days, but I must live them alone--alone must I bear mysufferings, and finally I must die alone. What have I done to deservesuch a fate? Is there no escape from it? I shall go mad, and I hope Imay. Better oblivion than a knowledge of such agony as is in store forme.
"And yet why should I lose faith in the Power that has thus farmiraculously preserved me? I am alive, and in possession of all myfaculties. I shall not suffer from thirst. I even have a certainamount of food, together with the means for procuring fire. I am notleft in utter darkness, and, above all, I have not yet proved by asingle trial that escape is impossible. How much better off I am inevery respect than thousands of others, who, finding themselves indesperate straits, have yet had the strength and courage to work outtheir own salvation! What an ingrate I have been! What a coward! But,with God's help, I will no longer be either!"
Having thus brought himself to a happier and more courageous frame ofmind, Peveril stiffly gained his feet, moved his limbs, and rubbedthem until a certain degree of suppleness was restored. He was aboutto build a fire, but refrained from so doing upon reflection that hisstock of fuel must be limited, and that a fire might be of infinitelygreater value at some other time.
Now the prisoner began a careful survey of his surroundings by thefeeble light finding its way down the shaft into which he had beenflung. As it did not materially increase, he concluded that full dayhad already reached the upper world. It was also brightest in themiddle of the black pool, which showed that the opening through whichit came must be directly above that point, and that the shaft must beperpendicular.
Peveril called the hole a shaft, because, while he could neither seeto the top nor clearly make out the outlines of the portions nearestat hand, it still impressed him as being of artificial construction,while the opening at one side, in which he stood, also seemed verymuch like a drift or gallery hewn from the solid rock by human hands.
The impossibility of scaling the sheer, smooth walls of the shaft wasevident at a single glance, and Peveril turned from it with a heavyheart. At the same moment his attention was attracted by a sharpsqueaking, and, to his dismay, he made out a confused mass ofsomething in active motion about the precious biscuit that he had leftbeside his fireplace. With a loud cry he sprang in that direction,only to stumble and fall over a small pile of what he took to be rocksthat lay in his path.
Without waiting to regain his feet, he flung several of these at theanimals that had discovered and were devouring his hardtack. A loudersqueak than before showed that at least one of his missiles had takeneffect, and then there was a scampering away of tiny feet. When hereached the scene of destruction his only biscuit was half eaten,while beside it lay a huge rat that had been killed by one of hisshots.
"With plenty of rats and plenty of rocks I need not starve, at anyrate," he remarked, grimly. "The idea of eating rats is horrid, ofcourse, but I don't know why it should be. Certainly many persons haveeaten them, and in an emergency I don't know why I should be any moresqueamish than others.
"What heavy rocks those were, though, and what sharp edges they had! Iexpect it will be a good idea to collect a few, and have them readyfor my next rat-hunt."
With this Peveril returned to the pile over which he had stumbled, andto his amazement found it to be composed of hammers and hatchets,chisels, knives, and other tools that he was unable to name, all ofquaint shape, and all made of tempered copper. In an instant thenature of his prison became clear. He was in a prehistoriccopper-mine, opened and worked thousands of years ago by a people soancient that even tradition has nought to say concerning them.
The knowledge thus thrust upon him filled the young man with awe, andhe glanced nervously about him, as though expecting to see the ghostsof long-ago delvers advancing from the inner gloom. The thought thathe was probably the first human being to set foot on that rockyplatform since the prehistoric workmen had flung down their tools onit for the last time was overpowering.
At the same time, if this were indeed a mine, it must also be a tomb,for it was not likely to have any exit save the unscalable shaftglimmering hopelessly above him. Here, then, was the end of all hishopes, for of what use were strength and courage in a place whereneither could be made available?
But hold! Where had the rats come from? Certainly not from the water,nor was it probable that they had come down the shaft, for its rockysides appeared as straight and smooth as those of a well. Why shouldthey have come at all to a place that could not contain a crumb offood, except the scanty supply that he had brought? If that alone hadattracted them, why had they not found it hours before, while he wasasleep? Might it not be possible that they had come from a distance insearch of water after a night of feasting elsewhere? They had, at anyrate, run back into the gallery; and by following the lead thuspresented he might find some place of exit from that terriblesubterranean prison. Even if it were only a rat-hole, he might be ableto enlarge it, now that he had tools with which to work.
At this moment how he blessed the dear old friend at whose insistencehe had provided himself with the matches and candle that now renderedit possible for him to explore the dark depths of that prehistoricdrift! Before starting on the trip that he was now determined to make,he ate the portion of biscuit left by the rats. He also so farovercame his repugnance as to skin and clean the dead rat, which heplaced on a ledge of rock for future use in case he should be drivento it. Then he lighted his candle and set forth.
For a considerable distance the gallery was open and fairly spacious,while everywhere the young explorer found scattered on its floor theancient and quaintly shaped tools that told of the great number ofworkmen employed in its excavation. After a while his way began to beencumbered by piles of loose rock that seemed to have been collectedfor the purpose of removal.
Now his way grew narrower and rougher, until in several places it wasnearly blocked by masses of material that had fallen from the roof orcaved in from the sides. Over some of these he was forced to creep onhands and knees, flattening himself into the smallest possiblecompass.
At length the gallery came to an end, though from it a small "winze,"or passage, barely wide enough to crawl through, led upward at a sharpangle. At the bottom of this Peveril hesitated. His precious candlewas half burned out, and would not much more than serve to carry himback to the place from which he had started. Besides this, the passagebefore him was so small that a person entering it could by nopossibility turn around if he should desire to retrace his course. Itwas even doubtful if he could back out after having penetrated a shortdistance into the winze.
"I don't know why I should care, though," said Peveril, bitterly,"for, even if I should get stuck in there, it would only be exchanginga tomb for a grave. At the same time, one does like to have room evento die in, and I don't believe the risk is worth taking. There isn'tthe slightest chance of a hole like that leading anywhere, and, solong as I can draw a breath at all, I am going to draw it in theopen."
So, with the last spark of hope extinguished, and with a heart likelead, the poor fellow turned to retrace his steps to the place inwhich he proposed to spend his few remaining hours of life, and thento yield it up as bravely as might be. As he did so a little gustydraught of air blew the flame from his candle and plunged him intoabsolute darkness.
PEVERIL SAT BESIDE THE
FIRE IN FORLORN MEDITATION]
Peveril was so startled by this occurrence that for some time heplunged blindly with outstretched hands back over the way he had come,forgetting in his bewilderment that he still had matches with which torelight his candle. Ere this was suggested to him he had retracedabout half the distance, guided solely by the sense of feeling, thoughnot without innumerable bruises and abrasions.
When he at length reached the end of the gallery and stood once morebeside the black pool into which he had been flung, what little ofdaylight found its way into those dim depths was rapidly fading. Itonly served while he gathered every stick of drift that some formerhigh stage of water had deposited on the rocky platform, and thenanother night of almost arctic length was begun.
To escape the awful gloom, Peveril lighted a fire and sat beside it inforlorn meditation, carefully feeding it one stick at a time, andlonging for some sound to break the oppressive silence. Finally, faintwith hunger, he recalled the bit of game that he had stored away readyfor cooking. Fetching this, he quickly had it spitted on a sliver ofwood and broiling with appetizing odor over a tiny bed of coals. Itsmelled so good as it sizzled and browned that all his repugnancevanished, and he was only impatient for it to be cooked. The moment itwas so he began to devour it ravenously, regretting at the same timethat he had not half a dozen rats to eat instead of one.
He felt better after his meal, and a new courage crept into his heavyheart as he again sat in meditation beside his flickering blaze. Whyhe should feel more hopeful he could not imagine, for no glimmer of aplan for escape had presented itself.
It was not until he had once more stretched himself on his flinty bed,with a block of wood for a pillow, and was trying to forget hiswretchedness in sleep, that he knew. Then he sprang up with a shout.
"What an idiot I am! What an absolute idiot! Where did the draughtthat blew out my light come from? From up that sloping passage, ofcourse, and a draught can only be caused by an opening of some kind tothe outer air. If I can only find it, I believe I shall also find away out of here. So, old man, cheer up and never say die! You'll liveto stand on top of the world again, yet--see if you don't!"
