"They only want to keep me a prisoner," said the midshipman half an hour
after, as he sat with his mouth full, steadily eating away as a boy of
seventeen can eat--"a prisoner till they've got all their stuff safe
away. They dare not hurt me. I'm not afraid of that, and it's a very
strange thing if I can't prove myself as clever as that cunning young
scoundrel who trapped me here. At all events, I'll try. They dare not
starve me: not they. Wait a bit, and I'll show them that I'm not so
stupid as they think. Shut me up here, would they? Well, we'll see!"
He went on munching a little longer, then felt for the bottle, took out
the tight cork, had a good long draught of the milk it contained,
recorked and put it away in the basket with the bread, butter, and ham
he had not consumed, shut down the lid, and laughed.
There was nothing very cheerful about his prison to make him laugh, but
the reaction was so great--he felt so different after his hearty meal--
that he was ready to look any difficulty in the face, and full of wonder
at his despondency of a short time before.
There's a good deal of magic in food to one who is fasting, and is
blessed with health and a good appetite.
"Now then," he said, rising with the basket in his hand, "the first
thing is to find a place to stow you;" and he had no difficulty in
finding ledge after ledge that would have held the basket, but he wanted
one that would be easily found in the darkness.
At last he felt his way to a great mass of rock, upon which, about level
with his head, was a projection upon which the basket stood well enough,
and trusting to being able to find it again by means of the great block,
he turned his attention to the lanthorn.
"If I only had that," he said to himself.
He stood thinking in the darkness, wondering which way he had better
try.
"Any way," he said at last, "for I will have it; and then if I don't
find my way out of this hole, I'm as stupid as that fellow thinks."
Stretching out his hands to save himself from a blow against any
obstacle, he stalked off in as straight a direction as he could go,
feeling his way with his feet, and always making sure of firm foothold
before he moved the one that was safe, for his one great dread in the
vast cavern was lest he should suddenly find himself on the brink of
some yawning shaft.
He knew little about the district, his ideas of the place being
principally confined to what he had seen of the coast-line from the sea,
but rugged piles of stone had been pointed out to him here and there as
being the refuse of the stone that had been ages before dug and
regularly mined by shafts and galleries out of the bowels of the earth;
and a little thinking convinced him that he must be shut up in one of
those old quarries which had been seized upon by the smugglers as a
place to hide their stores.
It was a shrewd guess, and he could not help thinking afterwards that it
was no wonder that so little success attended the efforts of the revenue
cutter's crew to trace cargoes which had been landed when the smugglers
had such lurking places as this.
As he crept slowly on, step by step, these and similar thoughts came
rapidly through the prisoner's brain, and as he slowly mounted what
seemed to be a pile of fragments, he began to wonder where his prison
could be--whether it was close to the shore or some distance inland.
He stopped to listen, hoping to hear the breaking of the waves among the
rocks, which would have proved what he wished to know at once; but
though he listened again and again, he could not distinguish a sound.
The only noises he heard were those he made in stepping on one side of
some piece of stone, which gave forth a musical clink as it struck
another.
He was climbing up now what appeared to be a steep slope, over great
fragments of stone heavier than he would have been able to lift, and he
seemed to creep up and up till he felt assured that the ceiling was just
above him, and raising his hand he touched the roof, his fingers tracing
out again the great cast of one of the old-world shell-fish--one of the
great nautiluses of the geologist.
But fossils were unknown things in Archy Raystoke's day. He was hunting
for a lanthorn, not for specimens.
As he stood on the highest part of this pile of stone, he hesitated
about going farther, and bore off to his left, feeling that in all
probability the object of his search had not come so far.
From time to time he paused to listen, and at last thought of trying to
find the extent of the place by shouting; but he was satisfied with his
first essay, his voice going echoing away apparently for a great
distance, and the peculiar, dying, whispering sound was not pleasant to
one alone in the darkness.
After a while, however, as he felt that he was walking over small
fragments of stone, he picked up a piece and threw it, to try if he were
near the end of the cavern in this direction, for he was growing tired
and longed now to find his way to the sailcloth to lie down and rest.
The piece he held was about a pound weight, and, drawing back his hand
as far as he could reach, he threw it with all his might, to start back
in alarm, for it struck wood with a heavy thud, and dropped down almost
at his feet.
Unknown to himself he had gradually found his way to the pile of kegs,
and these he touched the next moment, thinking that, as he stood facing
them, the place where he had first come to himself must lie off to his
left; and so it proved after a long search, and he sank down so wearied
out, that as he chose by preference to lie down, he was before many
minutes had elapsed in a deep and dreamless sleep, forgetful of the
darkness and any peril that might be ready to assail him next.