The party at the head of the cavern stood for a few moments perfectly
motionless, listening to the dying away of the strange gurglings and
whispering echoes which followed the heavy splash, and then Dickenson
uttered a wild cry of horror and despair.
"Pull!" he shouted. "Pull up!" and, spurred into action by his order,
Sergeant James and the two men behind him who helped with the rope
hauled away rapidly, till the rigid-looking form of the corporal rose
out of the darkness into the light shed by the lanterns, to be seized by
the sergeant and dragged into safety.
"Is he dead?" said Captain Roby hoarsely. "I dunno, sir," growled the
sergeant, loosening the noose around the rigid sufferer, and then with a
few quick drags unfastening the knot which had troubled Lennox in his
helpless state.
"Silence a moment," cried the captain, "while I hail!" and he made the
place echo with his repetitions of the subaltern's name.
There were answers enough, but given only by the mocking echoes;
otherwise all below was still save the weird, rushing sound of the
water.
"Here, what are you doing, Dickenson?" cried the captain, who suddenly
became aware of the fact that the young lieutenant had seized the
sergeant and was hindering him from securing the end of the rope about
his chest.
"He's not going down: I am," cried Dickenson hoarsely.
"You?"
"Yes; I think I'm going to leave my friend in a hole like this?"
"Hole indeed!" thought the captain. Then aloud: "Let him go down,
sergeant. Here, two lanterns this time;" and as the sergeant obeyed and
began securing the rope about Dickenson, Roby seized and began
unbuckling the young officer's belt, and himself passed the stiff
leather through the ring-handles of a couple of lanterns, and rebuckled
the belt, adjusting it so that Dickenson had a light on either side.
"Ready, sergeant?" said the young officer sharply.
"All right, sir; that'll hold you safe."
"What are you going to do, Dickenson?" said Roby, in a voice that did
not sound like his own.
"I don't know," cried the young officer, with a curious hysterical ring
in his voice. "Go down.--See when I get below.--Now then, quick!--Lower
away.--Fast!"
He began gliding down the sharp slope directly after.
"Faster!" shouted Dickenson before he was half-way down; and the
sergeant let the rope pass through his hands as quickly as he could with
safety let it go, while the lanterns lit up the glistening sides with
weirdly-strange, flickering rays, till the rope was nearly all out and
Dickenson stopped with a sudden jerk.
"Got him?" shouted Roby.
"No!" came up in a despairing groan. "I'm on a dripping ledge. Lower
me a few feet more till I call to you to stop."
The sergeant obeyed, and the call came directly after. For there was a
splash and the lights disappeared--not extinguished, but they seemed to
glide under a black projection that stood out plainly as a rugged edge
against the light, which made the water flash and sparkle as it could be
seen gliding swiftly by.
"Well?" shouted Roby again.
"Hold on with the rope," came up. "The water's close up to the foot of
the lanterns. If you let it any lower they will go out."
"Right, sir," roared Sergeant James.
"Now," shouted Roby; "see him?"
"No; the water goes down here in a whirlpool, round and round, and I can
feel it sucking at me to drag me below."
"Yes, sir; I can feel it along the rope. Look at my arms," growled the
sergeant.
There was a quick glance directed at the sergeant, and those who were
nearest could see that, while his arms jerked and kept giving a little,
the rope was playing and quivering in the light.
"Can't you see anything?" cried Roby wildly.
"Place like a big well ground in the rock," came up in hollow tones;
"the water all comes here, and goes down a great sink-hole. Shall I cut
myself free and dive?"
"No!" came simultaneously, in a hoarse yell, from a dozen throats.
"Madness!" shouted Roby. "Look round again; he may be clinging to the
rocks somewhere."
Dickenson uttered a strange, mocking laugh, so loud and thrilling that
it made his hearers shudder.
"There's nothing but this hole, smoothed round by the water. I can see
all round."
"Yah!" roared the sergeant. "Haul!" For suddenly his arms received a
heavy jerk which bent him nearly double, and the light which glowed down
by the water disappeared; while, but for the rush made to get a grip at
the rope by Roby and a couple more men, the sergeant would have gone
down.
As it was, the sudden snatch made dragged him back; and then, without
further order, the men hauled quickly and excitedly at the rope till
Dickenson's strangely distorted face appeared in the light.
"Hold on!" shouted the sergeant, and stooping down, he got his hands
well under his young officer's armpits, made a heave with all his
strength, and jerked him out of the horrible pit on to the hard rock.
Roby had helped by seizing the sergeant and dragging him back as soon as
he had a good hold, and it was his captain's eyes that Dickenson's first
met in a wild, despairing look, before, dripping with water from the
chest downwards and the lights both extinguished, he sank upon his knees
and dropped his face into his hands, no one stirring or speaking in the
few brief moments which followed, but all noticing that the poor
fellow's chest was heaving and that a spasmodic sob escaped his lips.
The silence was broken by the sergeant, who stood rubbing his wet hands
down the sides of his trousers.
"Thought I was gone too," he said huskily.
His words reached Dickenson's understanding, but not their full extent.
His hands dropped to his lap, and he looked up, gazing round in a
strangely bewildered way, his lower lip quivering, and his voice
sounding pathetically apologetic.
"Yes," he said feebly, "I thought I was gone. The water seemed to rise
up round me suddenly to snatch me down. I did all I could--all I could,
Roby, but it seemed to make me as weak as a child. Look at that--look
at that!" he groaned, holding out one arm, which shook as if with the
palsy. Then clasping his hands together he let them drop, and gazed
away before him into the darkness through the arch, and said, as if to
himself, "I did all I could, Drew, old lad--I did all I could."
"Dickenson," whispered Roby, bending over him. "Come, come, pull
yourself together. Be a man."
The poor fellow turned his head sharply, and gazed wildly into the
speaker's eyes.
"Yes, yes," he said, and drawing a deep breath, he eagerly snatched at
the hand held out to him and stood up. "Bit of a shock to a fellow's
nerves. I never felt like that when we went at the Boers. Thank you,
sergeant. Thank you, my lads. I never felt like that."
"No," said the captain quickly. "It would have unmanned any one."
"Did me, sir," said Sergeant James. "And I never felt like that."
"Ha!" sighed Dickenson, giving himself a shake, and beginning to
unbuckle his belt to get rid of the dripping lanterns. "I'm better now.
Ought I to go down again, sir?"
"Go down again, man?" cried Roby. "Good heavens, no! It would be
madness to send any one into that horrible pit.--Here, I had forgotten
Corporal May. Where is he?"
"We laid him down in yonder, sir," said one of the men, indicating the
interior of the cavern with a nod.
"Not dead?"
"No, sir, I don't think so," was the reply as the captain passed through
the archway, followed by the sergeant, who snatched up a lantern; while
Dickenson turned to the great pit, steadied himself by the tree-trunk
which led up, and gazed into the black place.
"Poor old Drew!" he groaned softly. "If it had only been together--in
some advance!"
And then, soldier-like, he drew himself up as if standing to attention,
turned, and went to his duty again, walking pretty steadily after Roby
to join them where the sergeant was down on one knee with his hand
thrust inside the corporal's jacket.
"Heart's beating off and on, sir," growled James. "I don't think he's
hurt. Seems to me like what the doctor called shock."
"Yes. What did he say?"
"I dunno, sir. Sort of queer stuff: sounded like foolishness. I'm
afraid he's off his head.--Here, May--me, May, my lad. Hold up. You're
all right now."
The man opened his eyes, stared at him wildly, and his lips quivered.
"What say?" he whispered.
"I say, hold up now."
"Hurts," moaned the poor fellow, beginning to rub his chest. "Have I
been asleep?"
"I hope so, my lad," said Roby, "for you have been saved a good deal if
you have."
"Ugh!" groaned the man, with a shiver. "Mind that light don't go out.
Here," he cried fiercely, "what did you go and leave me for?"
"Who went away and left you?"
"I recklect now. It was horrid. I dursen't try and climb that tree
again with the water all cissing up to get at me."
"What!" cried Roby sharply.
"It was when the orders were given to retire, sir. I kept letting first
one chap go and then another till I was last, and then I stood at the
bottom trying to make up my mind to follow, till the lights up atop
seemed to go out all at once. Then I turned cold and sick and all
faint-like, holding on by the tree, till there was a horrid rush and a
splash as if something was coming up to get at me, and I couldn't help
it--I turned and ran back through that archway place in the big hole,
feeling sure that the water was coming to sweep me away. 'Fore I'd gone
far in the black darkness I ketched my foot on a stone, pitched forward
on to my head, and then I don't remember any more for ever so long. It
was just as if some one had hit me over the head with the butt of a
rifle."
"Where's the lump, then, or the cut?" said Sergeant James sourly.
"Somewhere up atop there, sergeant. I dunno. Feel; I can't move my
arms, they're so stiff."
The sergeant raised his lantern and passed his hand over the man's head.
"Lump as big as half an egg there, sir," he said in a whisper.
"It's a bad cut, ain't it, sergeant?" said the corporal.
"No; big lump--bruise."
"Ah, I thought it was a cut; but I'd forgotten all about it when I come
to again in the dark, and couldn't make it out. My head was all of a
swim like, and I couldn't recklect anything about what had happened, nor
make out where I was, only that I was in the dark. All I could
understand was that my head was aching awful and swimming round and
round, and I seemed to have been fast asleep for hours and hours, and
that I had woke up. That was all."
"Well, go on," said the sergeant, in obedience to a hint from Roby.
"Yes, direckly," said the man. "I'm trying to think, but my head don't
go right. It's just as if some sand had got into the works. Ah, it's
coming now. It was like waking up and finding myself in the dark, and
not knowing how I got there."
"Well, you said that before," said the sergeant gruffly.
"Did I, sergeant? Well, that's right; and I tried to get up, but I
couldn't stand, my head swam so. Then I got on my hands and knees, and
began to crawl to the ladder; and I went on and kept stopping on account
of my head, till I knocked against my helmet and put it on, and began
crawling again, thinking I must be where I'd lain down and gone to
sleep. Then I went on again for ever so long till I could go no
farther, for I was in a place where the rock came down over my head so
that I could touch it; but it was all narrow-like, and I was so tired
that I lay down, got out my pipe, lit up, and had a smoke."
"What next?" said the sergeant, exchanging glances with Roby and
Dickenson, who were listening.
"That's all," said the man quietly. "So I'll just have a nap to set my
head right. It's a touch of fever, I think."
"Stop a moment, my lad," said Roby. "Can't you recollect what came
next?"
"No, sir," said the man drowsily. "Oh yes, I do. I know I began
crawling again without my helmet after I'd smoked a pipe of tobacco--for
the hard rim hurt my head--and went on and on for hours, till I thought
I could hear water running; and then in a minute I was sure, and I made
for it, for at that time I was so thirsty I'd have given anything for a
drink to cool my hot, dry throat. Yes, it's all coming back now. I
crept on till all at once the water falling sounded loud, and the next
moment I was sinking down sidewise into a deep place where I was hanging
across a stone to get at the water in the dark, and couldn't. It was
just like a nightmare, sergeant, that it was, and I felt my head go down
and my legs hanging till my back was ready to break, but I couldn't get
away, and I lay and lay, till all at once I was snatched up, and that
hurt me so that I yelled for help, and then the nightmare seemed to be
gone and I was lying all asleep like till I saw you and the captain; and
here I am, somewhere, and that's all."
It was all, for the corporal swooned away, and had to be lifted and
carried up.
"Poor fellow!" said Captain Roby; "he'll be better when we get him out
into the open air. See to him, my lads. If he cannot walk you must
carry him."
The men closed round the corporal, while the captain and Dickenson
walked back to where a couple of the men, looking sallow and half-scared
with their task, stood holding one of the lanterns at the month of the
water-chasm.
"Heard anything?" said the captain, in a low tone of voice which sounded
as if he dreaded to hear his own words.
"Nothing, sir," was the reply; "only the water rushing down."
"It seems to me,"--began the other, and then he paused.
"Yes: what? How does it seem to you?" asked the captain.
"Well, sir, as we stand listening here it sounds as if the hole down
there gets choked every now and then with too much water, and then the
place fills up more, and goes off again with a rush."
The captain made no reply, but stood with Dickenson gazing down into the
chasm till there was a difference in the sound of its running out, when
the latter caught at his companion, gripping his arm excitedly.
"Yes," he whispered hoarsely; "that's how it went while I was down
there. Oh Roby! can't we do anything more?"
The captain was silent for some little time, and then he half-dragged
his companion to the rough ladder.
"Come up," he said; "you know we can do no more by stopping thinking
till one is almost wild with horror. Here, go up first."
It was like a sharp order, but Dickenson felt that it came from his
officer's heart, and, with a shiver as much of horror as of cold from
his drenched and clinging garments, he climbed to the next level and
stood feeling half-stunned, and waiting while the sergeant climbed up
and joined them with some rings of the rope upon his arm.
"May's going to try and climb up by himself, sir," said the sergeant in
a low voice, "but I've made the rope fast round him to hold on by in
case he slips. We don't want another accident."
The sight of the rope, and the sergeant's words, stirred Dickenson into
speaking again.
"James," he said huskily, "don't you think something more might be done
by one of us going down to the water again?"
"No, sir," replied the sergeant solemnly; "nothing, or I'd have been
begging the captain to let me have another try long enough ago."
"Yes, of course, of course," said Dickenson warmly. "How are we to tell
the colonel what has happened?"
The young officer relapsed into a dull, heavy fit of thinking, in which
he saw, as if he were in a dream, the corporal helped out of the pit by
means of the rope, and then go feebly along the cavern, to break down
about half-way, when four men in two pairs crossed their wrists and,
keeping step, bore him, lying horizontally, to the next ladder, up which
he was assisted, after which he was borne once again by four more of the
men; and as Drew's comrade came last with the captain, the procession
made him nearly break down with misery and despair.
For, what with the slow, regular pacing, the lights carried in front,
and the appearance of the man being carried, there was a horrible
suggestion in it all of a military funeral, and for the time being it
seemed to him that they had recovered his comrade and were carrying him
out to his grave.