FREEDOM ONCE MORE
The necessity for action became imperative. If he stayed cramped and wet
in that position much longer, there was grave danger that he would lose
the power of locomotion altogether. He could not tell how far up the
crack ascended, and, of course, since he had lost his torch he had no
means of lighting up the gloom, for his matches, like the bread and meat
with which he had stuffed his pockets, were soaked through.
He began to climb, moving painfully forward perhaps an inch at a time.
For about fifteen feet he crawled, clinging with fingers and toes. It
was heart-breaking work and anyone with a less stout heart than Jack
Ready would have given it up and lain down to die where they were.
But Jack was made of sterner stuff. He wormed his way forward, and found
suddenly that the crack widened. Then he struck his head violently
against the cavern roof.
The crack continued to widen, though, till it was possible for him to
crawl into it. But the jagged edges of rock cut and tore his hands and
face unmercifully.
Once within the crack, he lay still, panting. It hardly seemed worth
while to go further, after all. Would it not be better to die there in
the darkness without further effort? There was not the remotest
probability that he was nearing a way out of the cavern, and to follow
the crack further was labor lost.
Thus he meditated as he stretched himself out to rest. But when he had
recovered his breath, love of life reasserted itself.
He would keep on. At any rate, one thing was certain: he could never get
back now. Death lay behind him in all its grimness. Ahead, at least,
there was the unknown with a fighting chance—one chance in a thousand—in
his favor.
Desperately, then, he struggled on, writhing between the narrow walls.
He felt as if the whole weight of a mountain was upon him, crushing his
ribs, driving the breath out of his body. The darkness was so dense that
it could be felt enveloping him like a velvety pall of blackness.
Again and again he thought himself stuck fast, doomed to an eternal
grave in the secret bowels of the earth. But every time he managed to
wiggle through the tight place and gain another that was not quite so
constricted.
But it was heart-breaking work at best. Then all at once the crack
widened very noticeably. Cautiously he drew himself to his feet. He
judged that he was standing on a shoulder or ledge of rock, but of
course, in the inky darkness, he had no means of knowing.
It was at least good to be able to stand up and feel no longer the
crushing of the rock walls, like those of a living tomb.
After a little he began to move along, taking care, however, to keep
close to the wall, for he did not know how wide the ledge, as he judged
it, might be. For perhaps a hundred yards he progressed thus. Always
before he took a step he reached out with one foot before him, fearing
to encounter vacancy.
Suddenly he found he was on the edge of a void, and shrank back,
clinging to the wall with the desperation of fear. It was some seconds
before he dared to move again. He could feel the sweat rolling off him,
the cold, pricking sweat of fright.
By a supreme effort he mastered himself. He found a loose bit of rock at
his feet. Cautiously he cast it into the darkness in front of him. There
was a long silence, and then, as if from miles away, came a tiny tinkle.
Jack shuddered.
He had narrowly escaped pitching head first into a bottomless abyss. He
carefully retraced his way down the ledge. Suddenly his feeling fingers
discovered another crack. This one ran vertically upward like a chimney,
almost, at least so far as he could determine by the sense of touch.
A wild hope surged over him. This crack perhaps ran up to the surface of
the earth! Recalling an old school-boy trick, he “spreadeagled” himself
into the crack. He reached out his hands to either side of the “chimney”
and lifted himself a little.
Then he wedged his toes in either side. Thus he painstakingly mounted,
praying within himself that the walls of this natural shaft might not
widen and make further progress impossible.
It was terribly slow work, though. Time and again he was on the point of
giving up, but always the tough spirit of his indomitable old sea-faring
ancestors kept him at his task.
Foot by foot he toiled upward, till he estimated he had climbed some
thirty feet. And then suddenly: Light! The blessed light of day! High
above it was, but unmistakably the light of the outside world was
streaming into this hideous subterranean chamber. It gleamed down into
the shaft he was painfully ascending, shining like a blessed beacon of
hope. It appeared to filter through some sort of net-work of greenery.
Wild with hope, he climbed on till at last he burst his way through a
canopy of creepers and vines that obscured the mouth of the natural
shaft. He clambered out beneath the blessed sky. As he fell exhausted,
prone on the rocks, he heard a cry.
It was his own name!
But for the life of him he could not answer. He could only lie there
without thought or motion.