‘All the more reason we should donate one to the Holy Mother, and secure her protection,’ came the swift response. ‘You must give me one for her, Gregory! You must!’
Her voice had risen to an hysterical note; so, with considerable reluctance, Gregory got out from the bag one of their precious candles and a box of matches. Taking it from him she set it up in the embrasure, lit it, and knelt for a moment in prayer. Then, taking his arm, she said in a normal voice:
‘I feel much happier now. Look at our shadows. Aren’t they weird? Which way shall we try next?’
The lack of success with which they had so far met in endeavouring to force up stone flags in cellars decided Gregory that their best hope still lay in finding an entrance to the caves somewhere along the river bank; so they set off down the slope of a tunnel next to that from which they had emerged.
After ten minutes’ walk they were brought to a halt; the tunnel ended as had the first, with its floor shelving into the underground lake. While going down the tunnel they had noticed several more stone stairways at its side, and on their way back Gregory went up three of these; but his efforts were wasted. It struck him now that probably very few of them any longer led into cellars that were in use. In the past five hundred years the great majority of the palaces above must have been rebuilt, and the replacement of timbered mansions by ones of stone would have required more solid foundations, so many of the old cellars would have been filled up with rubble and concrete.
On re-entering the big cavern they tried a tunnel on its opposite side. That led after only a hundred paces into another cavern, from which four or five lower tunnels fanned out. Afraid now of getting hopelessly lost they decided against exploring any of them, and, retracing their steps, turned into a third tunnel that had a downward slope. In another ten minutes they once again found themselves on the edge of the sinisterly still lake.
In walking up and down the three tunnels and exploring the two caverns Gregory reckoned that they must have walked a good three miles, and he saw from his watch that their explorations, together with the time expended in trying to force up flagstones, had occupied a little over two hours. Sabine had gamely refrained from complaining, but she was clearly tired, and was limping a little, as the rough rock floor of the cave was hard going in the thin-soled shoes she was wearing.
He was still convinced that if only they could get down to the river bank they would find a way out and it occurred to him that possibly the lake was shallow enough for them to wade through it.
When he told her his idea she murmured, ‘Oh, God! Must we? If it wasn’t for my fur coat, and that I’ve been using my limbs all this time, I’d be frozen already. I expect that water is icy.’
Stooping, he dabbled his hand in it, and replied, ‘It’s not too bad. And you needn’t go in yet. I’ll go ahead and find out how deep it is.’
‘No, no!’ She grabbed him by the arm. ‘Don’t leave me! Anything but that!’
‘You’ll be all right,’ he soothed her. ‘I promise you I won’t take any silly risk, or go out of your sight.’
‘But there may be a sudden drop in the bottom. You might be drowned.’
‘There’s no fear of that. You know I’m a good swimmer. At worst I’ll get a thorough wetting.’ As he spoke he set down the canvas bag, took two stumps of candle from it and, setting them up on a ledge of rock, lit them. When he had done, he added, ‘There! Now I won’t be leaving you in the dark, and if I do drop the torch I’ll be able to see my way back to you. Should you need it the other torch is in the bag. Sit down and rest your poor feet for a bit. I won’t be long.’
As she sank wearily down on the floor of the cave he waded cautiously out into the dark water. The slope was gradual and when he had progressed about twenty feet the water was still only midway up his thighs. A few steps farther on it began to get shallower, and he gave a cry of delight. The torch beam had picked up the opposite shore, and he was already more than halfway to it. Turning, he splashed his way back to Sabine.
‘We’ll make it easily,’ he told her. ‘Even if there is a hidden dip we can swim the last few yards; but it’s very unlikely that we’ll have to. We must try to keep your coat from getting wet through. Take it off and I’ll carry it as a bundle on my head.’
Scrambling to her feet she slipped the coat off, giving a quick shiver as the cold air struck the flesh above and below her elastic belt. He put out the two bits of candle, returned them to the bag and took from it the smaller electric torch. Handing it to her, he said:
‘You had better take this, just in case I drop the lot.’ Then he rolled the bag up in her coat, put the bundle on his head and held it firmly there with his left hand. Side by side they went into the water. It proved no deeper the whole way across than he had found it on his reconnaissance. Within two minutes, and with Sabine’s belt still dry, they were safely on the opposite shore. But in her near naked state the dank chill had made her teeth start to chatter; so as soon as Gregory had unrolled her coat he fished the flask of brandy from its pocket and made her take a couple of good swallows.
‘That… that’s better!’ she spluttered. ‘Thank goodness I’ve always made a habit of carrying cognac when I travel.’
As he helped her back into her coat she insisted that he too should have a pull and, seeing that the large flask was still nearly full, he gladly did so. Then they set out again. But they soon realised that they were not in the wide mouth of another cave, and after a dozen paces a flash of the torch showed them more water.
Thinking that they had landed on a curved promontory and that beyond it must lie a tunnel leading riverwards, they turned left and followed the water’s edge. It was full of small irregular bays and creeks so its direction was difficult to guess, although in general it seemed to curve more to the left than right. Flashing the torch every few seconds they walked on for about ten minutes, then Gregory halted, shone it on a spur of rock, and exclaimed:
‘Damn it! I could swear we passed that pointed bit before.’
Sabine agreed, and after they had gone a little farther they realised with dismay that they were on an island.
Striking inland confirmed their belief, as a bare twenty paces brought them to water again. They guessed the island to be about forty feet wide and about two hundred long and, by the one landmark they had identified, judged that they had walked about one and a half times round it. If they were right about that, having just recrossed it, the place where they now stood must roughly face the tunnel from which they had come. So they crossed the island yet again and, having again lit two of the candle stumps, Gregory set out on another reconnaissance, to see if he could locate the lake’s further shore.
Before he had taken two steps he was knee deep in water. After a tentative third he drew back quickly, for if he had let his foot reach bottom he would have been in up to the waist. Sabine collected the bag and candles, and he tried at another spot some twenty feet further along. There the downward slope proved even steeper. For seven or eight minutes they wandered up and down, examining each little bay by the light of the torch, and Gregory trying out any that looked at all promising. But it was no use; evidently all along that side of the island there was deep water a few feet out.
Gregory was now beginning to become really worried, but he endeavoured to keep the anxiety out of his voice as he said: ‘I could do with a break. Let’s sit down and have some of that orange squash and chocolate. Maybe while we’re resting some new idea will come to us.’
But neither of them had any new ideas. Having put the torch out to economise its battery, by the light of a single candle they munched the chocolate and took a few swigs from the squash bottle almost in silence. They had nearly finished the modest ration they had allowed themselves when the unearthly stillness was shattered by a loud ‘plop.’
‘Holy Mary! What … what’s that?’ Sabine gasped, throwing a terrified glance over her shoulder.
‘Only a fish,’ Gregory replied calmly.
‘It … it might be an octopus,’ she quavered. ‘They are said to live in subterranean caverns like this.’
‘Nonsense,’ he laughed. ‘That’s only in cheap fiction. The sort of caves octopi inhabit are always among rocks beneath the surface of the sea. They never come up rivers; it is unheard of to find them any distance from a coast. The sooner you get that idea right out of your head the better, as we’ve got to swim for it.’
‘Swim for it?’
‘Yes. There must be another side to this lake, and it can’t be far off. In a minute I’m going to strip and swim over to find it. Then I’ll come back for our clothes and things. I may have to do two or three trips to get them all over dry, a few at a time on my head. And on the last trip you’ll come over with me.’
‘No!’ He could hear the shudder in her voice. ‘No, darling; I couldn’t do it. I’d die of fright. Even if that thing we heard isn’t an octopus it may be a sort of shark or a sting-ray.’
‘It is much more likely to have been a trout,’ he protested, ‘and crossing the deep bit of lake is our only way of getting down to the river.’
‘There’s no guarantee that we’ll find an exit from these caves when we get there. It’s only your own pet theory.’
To that he had to agree, but he pointed out that to find an exit anywhere they must leave the island; so she would have to go into the water again anyway.
‘Of course,’ she replied promptly. ‘But it’s one thing to wade a few yards as we did before, and quite another to be attacked by some awful monster when out of your depth and naked. There’s another thing. If we go back the way we came and all else fails, as a last restort we can climb up into the cellar of my palace tomorrow morning.’
Gregory knew that when people deliberately explored caves such as these they took with them balls of twine which they played out as they advanced; so that they could guide themselves back to their starting point. But the departure of Sabine and himself had been far too hurried for preparations of that kind. He had considerable doubts now if they would be able to find again the steps that led up to the Tuzolto cellars; but he refrained from voicing them and, as there was really as much chance of their finding an outlet in one direction as another, he gave way to her pleading that they should try their luck up hill again.
Crossing the island they splashed back through the shallow water. This time Gregory held the bag high, and Sabine threw the skirts of her fur coat over the back of her head to keep them from getting wet. She was now nearly weeping with fright and clung heavily to his arm. Her fears were not lessened when, instead of arriving at the entrance to a cave, the torch, which had gradually been getting dimmer, showed ahead a solid wall of rock.
Turning to the right they ploughed their way through the knee-deep water for thirty or forty feet then, to their relief, they came upon a high arched tunnel. Whether it was one of the three by which they had come down to the lake they could not tell, but thankfully they stepped back on to dry ground.
After another swig of brandy each, to help to drive the cold from their lower limbs, they set off up the gentle slope; but there was nothing they could do about their squelching shoes, and Sabine’s limp was now beginning to hamper her. A sudden twist in the tunnel told them that it was not one of those they had traversed before; and, after they had covered two hundred yards, the big torch became so dim as to be almost useless. Evidently it had been used for several hours by Mario before he had handed it over. As Gregory took the smaller torch and switched it on, he prayed fervently that it would last longer. The candles and matches were a sheet anchor, but no more. If one moved at anything exceeding funeral pace with a candle the draught would blow it out. And they might have to cover a lot of ground yet before they found a way of escape from this nightmare labyrinth.
On and on they trudged up the incline. Now and then they passed a flight of stone steps, either set into or hacked out of one of the side walls. Three times, in desperation, Gregory made Sabine sit down while he climbed the steps and, with all his might, strove to prise up heavy flags set in the cave’s ceiling; but he might as well have been trying to lift a mountain.
The tunnel they were in now was much longer than the others and had a gradual curve to the right. At last they came to its end. It opened into another cavern, but smaller and lower-ceilinged than either of those they had come upon earlier; and this had only two other tunnels leading from it.
‘Take your choice!’ Gregory offered with a lightness he was far from feeling. When they left the island he had decided that it was no longer any use for him to attempt to apply reasoning to the direction they took. It was now a case of the blind leading the blind. Their fate lay on the knees of the gods and either a Merciful Power would permit them to stumble on a way out or, after hours of agonised searching, sleep, more searching, hunger, more sleep, more searching, they would ultimately die of exhaustion.
‘The right-hand one,’ Sabine replied in a hoarse whisper.
With slow tired steps they went foward into it. The tunnel was not more than ten feet wide and eight feet high. After fifty yards it petered out in a dead end. Giving a shrug of resignation Gregory turned about. As he did so a beam of the torch swept in an arc across the floor of the cave. For a second it shone on a small white object. Swinging the beam idly back he lit up the white object again. Then he held it there. He could hardly believe his eyes. Sabine gave a sudden cry. She had seen it too. They were both staring down at a cigarette butt.
Gingerly he picked it up. It was a long butt. Whoever had smoked it had taken only a few puffs then thrown it away; and soon after it must have gone out. But it was fresh, that was the blessedly significant thing. If it had been lying on the ground there for more than a day or two it must have shown signs of damp. It meant that quite recently someone had been standing there in the cave smoking and, if they had done that, it was as good as certain that the entrance by which they had come in and gone out must be near at hand.
Now, trembling with excitement, they began to search. There was no stairway on either side up to the low roof, and the beam of the torch, which easily reached it, showed the rugged rock ceiling to be unbroken. A moment later, as the beam swept the dead end of the cave, their hearts gave a bound. In one corner there was a small arched doorway so deeply recessed in the rock that they would never have noticed it had they not been looking for something of the kind. They ran towards, it, seized its iron ring handle, turned it back and forth and pulled upon it. But the little door was of thick ancient oak, firmly set into its surround of rock, and locked.
Sabine began to hammer on it with her fists and to shout for help, but Gregory drew her back and tried to quiet her by saying, ‘It’s no good doing that. Even if people come down here through that door now and then, you can be certain there is no one the other side of it to hear you at this hour.’
‘But we must get through it! We must!’ she cried hysterically. ‘We might wander in these caves for days and never get so near escaping. If we don’t get out this way we’ll die here.’
Gregory knew that she might well prove right, and his own hopes of forcing the door were far from sanguine as he said, ‘I’m going to try to blow the lock off. But for goodness sake don’t count your chickens. A lock like this is a very different proposition to the flimsy sort of thing usual in modern flats, and I doubt if I’ll be able to.’
From the ancient aspect of the door, he felt certain that its lock would be one of those great iron contraptions made in the middle ages; but as it was set in the wood on the far side of the door he could not even see it, or tell the position of its key-hole. His automatic was only a light one; so if the oak was more than a few inches thick the bullets might embed themselves in it without even reaching the lock and wrecking it so that its tongue could be pushed back.
After a moment he decided that the only chance lay in attempting to blow away a piece of the stone socket into which the tongue of the lock fitted. But that was going to be a tricky and dangerous operation; for
the bullets would not bury themselves in the stone but ricochet off it and they, or bits of flying rock, might do him serious injury.
Handing the torch to Sabine, he emptied the canvas bag of its contents; then, holding the small automatic in his right hand, he put both inside it, wrapped it round them and with his left hand held the loose ends together over his wrist. The leather bottom of the bag and thick canvas now twisted in a wedge round his fist might, he hoped, be just enough protection to stop a small bullet smashing the bones of his hand should it ricochet back on to it. Having placed Sabine where she could shine the torch on to the tongue of the lock without being in the line of danger, he held the pistol close to it and fired three times through the canvas.
There came three spurts of flame and ear-splitting reports in quick succession. As the wisp of smoke cleared they peered eagerly forward. The trick had worked. A big splinter of stone two inches thick in the middle and eight inches long had been smashed off by the bullets on the far side of the tongue of the lock. One push and the heavy door swung open.
It gave on to a narrow flight of stone steps. Without pausing to collect the oddments scattered on the floor, they ran up them and found themselves in a low vaulted chamber. At one end of it there was an altar on which burned a small lamp. With hands outstretched Sabine staggered forward, threw herself on her knees before it and began to babble incoherently.
Gregory’s ideas upon religion were by no means as orthodox as hers; but he was very far from being an agnostic and, although more slowly, he too went on his knees to render thanks for a merciful deliverance.
A few minutes later she was asserting her conviction that it was having devoted one of their precious candles to the Holy Mother, at the altar down in the cavern, which had caused Her to save them, and insisting that he should get the other candles in order that they too could be lit to Her glory; so he went down to fetch them.
On his return he found that Sabine had disappeared, and he was wondering a little anxiously where she could have got to when she emerged from the shadows at the far end of the crypt. She had just explored another stairway that led upward from it, to see if she could identify the church they were in, and had recognised it at once as the great Coronation Church on the top of Buda hill.
Traitors' Gate Page 31
