"How many horses has your father got?"
"Three."
"What colour are they?"
"Black, white, and grey."
"Turn round three times, and catch whom you may."
That, as everyone knows, is the classical way of beginning the game of
Blind Man's Buff; and supposing that the blinded man _pro tem_, is
properly bandaged, and cannot get a squint of light up by the side of
his nose, and also supposing that he confuses himself by turning round
the proper number of times honestly, he will be in profound darkness,
and in utter ignorance of the direction of door, window, or the salient
objects in the room.
Take another case. Suppose a lad to have eaten a hearty supper of some
particularly hard pastry. The probabilities are that he will either
have the peculiar form of dream known as nightmare, or some time in the
night he will get out of bed, and go wandering about his room in the
darkness, to awake at last, cold, confused, and asking himself where he
is, without the slightest ability to give a reasonable answer to his
question.
It has fallen to the lot of some people to be lost in a fog--words,
these, which can only be appreciated by those who have passed through a
similar experience.
The writer has gone through these experiences more than once, and fully
realised the peculiar sensation of helplessness, confusion, and brain
numbing which follows. Dark as pitch is mostly a figure of speech, for
the obscurity is generally relieved by something in the form of dull
light which does enable a person to see his hand before him; but the
blackness around, when Archibald Raystoke began to come back to his
senses, would have left pitch far behind as to depth of tint.
His head ached, and there was a feeling in it suggestive of the contents
having been turned into brain-fritters in a pan--fritters which had
bubbled and turned brown, and then been burned till they were quite
black.
He opened his eyes, and then put his hands up to feel if they were open.
They were undoubtedly, and he hurt them in making the test, for he half
fancied, and he had a confused notion, that a great handkerchief had
been tied over them. But though they were undoubtedly open he could not
see. In fact, when he closed them, strange as it may sound, he felt as
if he could see better, for there were a number of little spots of light
sailing up and down and round and round, like the tiny sparks seen in
tinder before the fire which has consumed is quite extinct.
He lay still, not thinking but trying to think, for his mind was in the
condition described by the little girl who, suffering from a cold, said,
"Please, ma, one side of my nose won't go."
Archy Raystoke's mind would not go, and for a long time he lay
motionless.
His memory began to work again in his back, for he gradually became
conscious of feeling something there, and after suffering the
inconvenience for a long time, he thrust his hand under his spine and
drew out a piece of iron, sharp-edged and round like a hoop.
He felt better after that, and fell to wondering why he had brought his
little hoop to bed with him, and also how it was that his little hoop,
which he used to trundle, had become iron instead of wood.
The exertion of moving the hoop made him wince, for his back was sore
and his arms felt strained as if he had been beaten.
His mind began "to go" a little more, and he had to turn back mentally;
but he could not do that, so he made an effort to go forward, and
wondered how soon it would be morning, and the window curtains at the
foot of the bed would show streaks of sunshine between.
Time passed on and he still lay perfectly quiet, for he did not feel the
slightest inclination to move after his late efforts, which had produced
a sensation of the interior of his skull beginning to bubble up with
fire or hot lead rolling about. But as that pain declined he felt cold,
and after a great deal of hesitation he suddenly stretched out his hands
to pull up the clothes.
There were none.
His natural inference had been, as he was lying there upon his back,
that he must be in bed; but now he found that, though there were no
bed-clothes, he was wearing his own, only upon feeling about with no
little pain they did not seem like his clothes.
That was as far as he could get then, but some time after there came a
gleam of light in his understanding, and he recalled the mists that hung
about the Channel.
Of course he was in one of those thick mists, and he had gone to sleep
on--on--what had he gone to sleep on?
The light died out, and it was a long time before, like a flash, came
the answer.
The deck of the cutter!
He made a movement to start up in horror, for he knew that he must have
gone to steep during his watch, and his pain and stiffness were like a
punishment for doing so disgraceful a thing.
"What will Mr Brough say if he knows?" he thought, and then he groaned,
for the pain caused by the movement was unbearable.
At last his mind began to clear, and he set himself to wonder with more
force. This was not the deck, for he could feel that he was lying on
what was like an old sail, and where his hand lay was not wood, but cold
hard stone, with a big crack full of small scraps.
The lad shook his head and then uttered a low moan, for the pain was
terrible.
It died off though as he lay, still trying hard to think, failing--
trying in a half dreamy way, and finally thrilling all over, for he
remembered everything now--the smugglers--the scene in the darkness of
the room where he was imprisoned--the coming of that boy who jeered at
him till they engaged in a fierce struggle, with the result all plainly
pictured, till he was stunned or had swooned away.
These thoughts were almost enough to stun him again, and he lay there
with a hot sensation of rage against the treacherous young scoundrel who
had lured him on to that struggle, and held him so thoroughly fixed
against the bars till he was secured and bound. Yes, and his eyes were
bandaged. He could recall it now.
"Oh, only wait till I get my chance!" he muttered, and he involuntarily
clenched his fists.
He lay perfectly quiet again though, for he found that any exertion
brought on mental confusion as well as pain, and he wanted to think
about his position.
It came by degrees more and more, and as he was able to think with
greater clearness, he found an explanation of the fancy he had felt,
that he must be ill and sea-sick again, and that somebody had been
giving him brandy.
Part was fevered imagination, part was reality, for there could be no
doubt about that faint odour of spirits. It was brandy, but brandy in
smuggled kegs, and the scoundrels of smugglers had shut him up in the
vault with their kegs.
"Well, they have not killed me," he said to himself with a little laugh.
"They dared not try that, and all I have to do now is to escape, if Mr
Brough does not send the lads to fetch me out."
He went through the whole time now since his landing; thought of what a
disgraceful thing it was for a titled gentleman to mix himself up with
smuggling, and what a revelation he would have for the lieutenant and
the master who had been so easily deluded by Sir Risdon's bearing.
Then he thought of Celia, and how bright and innocent she had seemed;
putting away all thoughts of her, however, directly as his angry feeling
increased against Ram and this treacherous girl.
He must have been for hours thinking, often in a drowsy, half-confused
way, but rousing up from time to time to feel his resentment growing
against Ram, who seemed to him now to be the personification of the
whole smuggling gang.
By degrees he grew conscious of a fresh pain, one that was certainly not
produced by his late struggles, or by stiffness from lying upon an old
sail stretched upon the damp floor of a vault.
As he thought this last, he asked himself why he called it the damp
floor of a vault. For it was not damp, but perfectly dry, and below the
scraps of stone in the seam there was fine dust.
But the said pain was increasing, and there was no mistaking it. He was
hungry, decidedly hungry; and paradoxically, as he grew better he grew
worse, the pain in the head being condensed in a more central region,
where nature carries on a kind of factory of bone, muscle, flesh, blood,
and generally health and strength.
Suddenly Archy recalled that his legs had been bound, and he sat up to
find that they were free now, and if he liked he could rise and go to
the grated window and call for help.
"If I do, they'll come down and stuff a handkerchief in my mouth again,"
he thought, "and it is no use to do that. I may as well wait till I
hear our men's voices, and then I'll soon let them know where I am."
He got on his feet, feeling stiff and uncomfortable, and then tried to
make out where the grated window was, but the darkness was absolute, and
he stretched out one foot and his hands, as he began to move cautiously
along, feeling his way till he kicked against a loose stone.
This arrested him, and he tried in another direction for his foot to
come in contact with what seemed to be round, and proved to be a spar
lying in company with some carefully folded and rope-bound sails.
"The old rascal!" thought Archy, as he mentally pictured the stern, sad
countenance of Sir Risdon.
"Why, he must have a lugger of his own, and keep his stores in here."
A little feeling about convinced him that the window of the vault could
not be behind the pile of boat-gear against which he had stumbled, and
he moved slowly of! Again, to stop at the end of a yard or two, feeling
about with one foot.
"Why, I'm not shut up!" he cried joyously. "I'm out on the ledge. They
must have laid me here to be fetched off by the boat. Suppose the tide
had risen while I was asleep!"
But the joyous feeling went off as he stared about him. It had been
dark enough in a dense fog, but it did not feel dark and cold now, as if
there was a dense fog. Everything seemed dry, and though he listened
attentively, he could not hear the washing of the waves among the rocks,
nor smell the cool, moist, sea-weedy odour of the coast. Instead of
that a most unmistakable smell of brandy came into his nostrils.
And yet he seemed to be standing on that ledge close down to the water,
for as he stooped down now he could trace with his hand one of the huge,
curled-up shell-fish turned to the stone in which it was embedded,
while, as he felt about, there was another and another larger still.
He listened again.
No; he was not on the seashore. He must be in the vault beneath Sir
Risdon's house, and though he had not noticed it, the floor must be
paved with a layer of stones similar to those found where the little
kegs had been left.
He went cautiously on with outstretched hands through the intense
darkness, and his feet traced the flat curls of stone again and again,
but he did not find any wall, and now, as he made up his mind to go back
to where he had been when he first awoke, he found that he had not the
faintest idea as to which direction he ought to take.
As he grew more able to move and act, the sense of confusion which
suddenly arrested him was terrible--almost maddening.
Where was he? What was here on all sides? It could not be the cellar,
as he went in one direction or the other toward the walls, and he stood
at last resting, in the most utter bewilderment of mind and helplessness
of body possible to conceive, while a curious feeling of awe began to
steal over him.
The smugglers had not dared to kill him or throw him into the sea, as he
had heard of them doing on more than one occasion, but as far as he
could make out they had cast him down into some terrible place to die.
The idea was terrible, and unable to contain himself he took a step or
two in one direction, then in another, and stopped short, not daring to
stir for fear some awful chasm such as he had seen among the rocks
should be yawning at his feet, and he should fall headlong down.
He stopped to wipe the cold perspiration away that was gathering on his
brow, and then, trying to keep himself cool, he stood thinking, and
finally, in utter weariness, sat down.
"I wish I wasn't such a coward," said the young midshipman, half aloud.
"It's like being a child to be frightened because it's dark. What's
that!"
He started up.
"_That_" was a gleam of light some distance off, shining on the rugged
walls of a vast chamber or set of chambers. He could only dimly see
this, for the light was but feeble, and the bearer hidden behind the
rugged pillars which supported the roof; but it was evidently coming
nearer, and as it approached he could see that he was in a vast
cavernous, flat-ceiled place, which appeared to have been a quarry, from
which masses of stone had been hewn, the floor here and there being
littered with refuse of all sorts and sizes.
As the light came on, the midshipman made out that quite a store of
spars, ropes, and blocks lay at a short distance, and that more dimly
seen was a large stack of tubs, from which doubtless emanated the odour
of brandy.
Archy's first idea was to go and meet the bearers of the light, but on
second thoughts he decided to stand upon his dignity and let them come
to him, and as the thought occurred to him that the visit might be of an
inimical nature, his hand stole into his breast in search of his dirk.
Vainly though: the weapon was gone.
All this time, as if the bearers were coming very leisurely, the light
slowly approached, and as the midshipman more fully grasped the fact
that he must be either in a stone quarry or a mine, he saw that the
light was an ordinary horn lanthorn, and from the shadows it cast he
could see that there were two people, one of whom was carrying something
weighty on his shoulders.
This soon resolved itself into four kegs, slung two and two, the bearer
panting under their weight, while his companion held the light low down,
so that he could see where to plant his feet and avoid the corners of
the huge square pillars which supported the roof.
Neither of the pair seemed to pay any attention to him; in fact, the
midshipman was doubtful whether he was seen as he stood back waiting
till they had passed him, and then hesitated as to whether he should
make for the entrance and escape.
Through the black darkness, not knowing which way he should go, perhaps
to fall down some shaft such as was sure to be in a place like this?
No; he could not risk the journey without a light, and he stood waiting
and trying to make out the shadowy figures, one of whom looked strangely
uncouth beneath his load, while the other was quite short.
Archy had not long to wait before the pair halted by the stack of kegs,
to which the four carried by the man were added, and this done they
turned and came toward him.
At this moment, after excitedly watching them, the midshipman became
convinced.
The bearer of the lanthorn was his young enemy--the boy.