CHAPTER V.
A Prison House.
IN their eagerness they forgot to look around before entering thecave. They forgot to look at the tide, which had already turned and wascreeping swiftly over the treacherous levels. They forgot everythingexcept that they were in the cave where once undoubtedly had beenAcadian treasures, and where, as each dreamed in his heart and denied onhis lips, some remnant of such treasures might yet lie hidden.
Will marched ahead carrying the torch and peering with eager enthusiasminto every crevice. The cave was full of crevices, but they were shallowand contained nothing of interest but some fair crystals of selenite,which gleamed like diamonds in the torchlight. A few of these Reubebroke off and pocketed as specimens. The cave widened slowly as itascended, and the slope of its floor kept it well drained in spite ofthe water ceaselessly dripping from roof and walls. Its shape wasroughly triangular, and our explorers sometimes bumped their headssmartly in their haste.
Presently they reached a point where a narrow gallery ran off from themain passage. Which to take was the problem.
“It seems to me,” said Reube, “that if there was any of the oldAcadians’ stuff here it would be most likely to be hidden in the smallerpassage.”
“Acadians’ stuff!” sniffed Will, sarcastically. “A lot of that we’llfind!”
But, none the less, he acted on Reube’s suggestion, and led the way upthe side gallery. After running some twenty-five feet the gallery turneda corner and ended in a smooth, sloping face of rock. There was no signof crevice or hiding place here. Across the sloping face of the rockthere ran a ledge about a foot wide some five or six feet above thefloor, and the roof of the gallery at this point ascended steeply to anarrow and longish peak.
“No risk of bumping our heads here,” said Will, as he flung thetorchlight along the ledge and showed its emptiness.
“Better hurry back and try if we can’t finish the main cave before thelight goes out,” said Reube, pointing to the pine sliver, already morethan half consumed. Shielding the flame with his hand to make it burnmore slowly, Will led the way with quick steps back to the largergallery. This now became more interesting. Its walls were strewn withmost suggestive-looking pockets, so to speak, full of silt and oozy_debris_, into which Will and Reube plunged their hands hastily,expecting to find a coin or a silver candlestick in every one. Sofascinated were they by this task that they paid no heed to the torchtill it burned down and scorched Will’s fingers. He gave a startled cry,but had presence of mind enough not to drop it. To make it last a littlelonger he stuck it on the point of his knife and then exclaimed, in atone of disappointment:
“Reube, we must get out of this while the light lasts—and that’ll haveto be pretty quick!”
“Rather!” assented Reube. “Hark!”
The word was barely out of his mouth before the two lads were runningfor the cave mouth, their heads bent low, their hearts beating wildly.The sound which they had caught was a hollow wash of waves. In a fewseconds the torch went out, but there was a pale, glimmering lightbefore them, enough to guide their feet. This puzzled them by itspeculiar tone, but in half a minute more they understood. It camefiltering through the tawny tide which they found seething into thecave’s mouth and filling it to the very top. Will gave a gasp of horror,and Reube leaned in silent despair against the wall of the passage.
“The tide will fill this cave to the very top, I believe,” said he.
“Yes,” answered Will, in a voice of fixed resolve; “there’s nothing forit but to try a long dive right out through the mouth and into therocks. We may get through, and it’s our only chance!”
“Go on, then, Will. Hurry, before it’s too late! And—have an eye tomother, won’t you?” Here a sob came into Reube’s voice. “You know I’m apoor swimmer and no diver. Good-bye!” and he held out his hand.
But Will was coolly putting on his coat again.
“I forgot that,” said he, simply. “Well, we’ll find some other way, dearold man. Bring along your matches;” and he turned back toward the depthsof the cave.
For answer Reube merely gripped his arm with a strong pressure andstepped ahead with a lighted match. He could not urge Will to carry outthe plan just proposed because in his heart, for all his confidence inWill’s powers as a swimmer, he could not believe it feasible. He saw, inimagination, his comrade’s battered body washing helplessly among theweedy and foaming rocks; while in the cave, for all the horror of it,there would certainly be some hours of respite—and who could say whatthey might not devise in all that time? He had a marvelous faith inWill’s resources.
In grim silence, and husbanding every match with jealous care, theyexplored the main cave to its end. Its end was a horrid, round, wethole, a few feet deep, and not large enough to admit them side by side.They looked each other fairly in the eyes for the first time since thatone glance when they had learned that they were entrapped. Reube’s eyeswere stern, enduring—the eyes of one who had known life long. The boyhad all gone out of them. Will’s eyes looked simply quiet and kind, buthis mouth was set and his lips were white.
“This is just a rat hole, Reube,” said he. “We won’t stay here anyway.Seems to me it would be better to have room to stand up and meet it likea man.”
“Yes,” replied Reube, his voice choking with a sort of exaltation at hiscomrade’s courage; “we’ll go back to the little gallery with the highroof. We’ll get up on that ledge and we’ll fight it out with the waterto the last gasp, eh? It’s pretty tough—especially for mother!”
“Well,” said Will, with a queer, low tone of cheerfulness which seemedto his friend to mean more than cries and tears, “when I think of motherand Ted it sort of comes over me that I’d like to say my prayers—eh?”and for a minute or two, standing shoulder to shoulder, he and Reubeleaned their faces silently against the oozy rock in the darkness. Then,lighting another match, they made all haste possible back to the sidegallery, ascended it, and climbed upon the ledge. Hardly had they gotthere when they heard the tide whispering stealthily about the entranceof the passage. They felt that it was marking them down in their newretreat.
When the next match blazed up—for they could not long stand thedarkness with that creeping whisper in their ears—Will gazed steadilyat the peak of the roof above his head. The match went out.
“Another!” he cried, in a voice that trembled with hope.
“What is it?” asked Reube, eagerly.
“Roots!” shouted Will, leaping to his feet. “Tree roots coming throughthe roof up there! We must be near the surface, and there is evidently afissure in the rock filled up with earth. We’ll dig our way out with ourknives and our fingers yet!”
“But there are no trees on the Point,” urged Reube, doubtfully.
“Thunder, Reube! but can’t there be old roots in the soil?” cried Will,impatiently. “Dig, man, dig!” And he began clawing fiercely at the earthabove his head. Reube aided him with fervent energy, and the earth,though hard and clayey, came down about them in a shower. Presently theycould reach no farther up.
“We must cut footholds in this rock,” said Will.
The rock was plaster, but hard, and this took time. When it wasaccomplished they again burrowed rapidly toward the surface and air andlight. They were working in the dark now, because with the rise of tidein the cave the air was growing close and suffocating. Three times theyhad to cut new footholds in the rock. They toiled in silence, hearingonly each other’s labored breath and the falling of earth into the waterbeneath them. The tide was now crawling over the ledge where they hadfirst taken refuge. There it stopped; but this they did not heed. Thefear of suffocation was now upon them, blotting out the fear ofdrowning. Their eyes and ears and nostrils were full of earth. Theyworked with but a blind half-knowledge of what they were doing. All atonce there came a gleam of light, and Reube’s hand went through theturf. He clawed at the sod desperately, and a mass of it came down abouttheir h
eads. It troubled them not. There was the clear, blue sky abovethem. A sweet wind caressed their faces. They dragged themselves forthand lay at full length on the turf with shut eyes and swelling hearts.