Four galleries centred on the rock-chamber, and the confused,
tumultuous rush of feet which followed the blast of the conch-shell like
an ominous echo, proceeded from that particular gallery opposite the
vestibule.
“Seems to be a rare lot of them; but we needn't stop to reckon 'em up,”
said Jack, with a constrained laugh. “Lead the way, old fellow.”
Into the smaller chamber they dashed, to find the exit blocked by the
sentinel with sword drawn. Rapidly reversing his musket, Don bore down
upon him--he, to do him justice, standing his ground bravely,--and with
the butt-end of the weapon dealt the nigger a blow in the stomach that
doubled him up like a broken bulrush.
“Where are the others?” cried Jack, as they rounded the shoulder of rock
separating the antechamber from the passage. “You never came alone!”
“No; I left them just here--told them to wait,” said Don, peering about
in search of the blacks. “They must have gone back; thought they'd save
their skins while they could, I suppose, the chicken-hearted beggars!
Ha, here's Bosin, at any rate.”
Swinging the monkey upon his shoulder, he set off at a run down the
passage, Jack following as close as the weight of the chain would allow
him, to do. They had proceeded only a short distance when a faint,
sepulchral shout brought them to a stand. The sound seemed to proceed
from a gallery on their immediate right. The way out did not lie in that
direction.
“That's Pug's wheeze,” said Don. “They've taken the wrong turning;” and
he drew a deep breath to answer the call.
Jack interposed quickly. “Stop! The natives will be down on us soon
enough without, that. Off with you, old fellow, and fetch' pur party
back. I'll wait here.”
Already Don was racing down the side passage. Presently Jack heard him
jitter a cautious “hullo.” A short silence followed then the echoes told
him that the fugitives were hastily retracing their steps. At the same
moment a confused uproar burst on his ears from the direction of the
chamber in his rear. The pursuing mob had turned the angle of the
passage and were actually in sight. The chain attached to Jack's leg
clanked impatiently. He fairly danced with excitement. That ill-advised
move on the part of the blacks had almost proved fatal to their sole
chance of escape.
But not quite; for now Don and the blacks came up, Jack joined them,
and, with the oncoming thunder of many feet loud in their ears, away
they sped, running as they alone can run who know that death is at their
heels.
Two circumstances favoured them so long as the race was confined to the
cramped limits of the corridors: the smallness of their own number, and
the multitude of their pursuers. Where four could run with ease, forty
wasted their breath in fighting each other for running room.
“We must put the pit between us and-these howling demons while they're
tumbling over each other in the passage here,” cried Don.
It was their only hope. Racing on by Jack's side, close on-the heels of
the blacks, he rapidly explained to his chum--who knew nothing of the
pit, having been brought into the rock by a more circuitous route--the
nature of the contemplated manoeuvre; and gave Spottie and Puggles their
instructions how to act, backed up by a wholesome threat of summary
abandonment to the enemy should they shirk when it came to the crucial
point, the plank. The blacks were to cross first, Jack next; while he,
Don, would cover their retreat as best he could. To this arrangement
Jack could raise no demur. He was too seriously handicapped by the
chain.
A final spurt, and they cleared the tunnel and reached the pit. The
plank lay where they had left it. Across it ran their only road to
safety. At a significant signal from Don Spottie led off, and, when he
had reached the further side in safety, Puggles followed in his tracks.
Doffs threat, coupled with the ominous uproar belched forth by the mouth
of the tunnel, eclipsed all fear of the crocodiles.
“Now, Jack,” cried Don, ere the plank had ceased to vibrate under
Puggles's tread, “after you.”
Jack crossed, and Don was in the act of stepping on the unstable bridge,
when the foremost of the native gang burst from the gallery. One swift
backward glance--a glance that stowed him how alarmingly narrow was
the margin between escape and capture--and with outstretched arms he
balanced himself on the handbreadth of plank--it was scarcely more--and
began the perilous passage. Swift as was this backward glance, it
sufficed to show him, too, that the leader of the pursuit was none
other than the escaped lascar; and ere he had traversed half the plank's
length, he felt it yield and rebound beneath the quick tread of the
fellows feet. At the same instant Jack raised a warning shout.
There are moments when the strongest nerve quails, the steadiest head
swings a little off its balance, the surest foot slips. Such a moment
did this prove for Don. The disconcerting vibration of the plank,
the knowledge that the lascar was at his very back, Jack's sudden
shout--these for an instant conspired against and overcame his natural
cool-headedness. He made a hurried step or two, staggered, and, his foot
catching in the rope where it encircled the plank a short distance from
the end, he stumbled and fell.
Fell! but in falling dislodged the end of the plank which lay behind
him, and on which the lascar stood, from its hold upon the further brink
of the pit. The lascar, throwing up his arms with a despairing shriek,
plunged headlong into the pool, where he was instantly seized upon by
the ravenous crocodiles and torn limb from limb.
[Illustration: 0223]
And now, if ever, did the “Providence that sits up aloft” watch over
Don. Almost miraculously, as it seemed, instead of plunging into the
horrible death-trap below, he fell astride the plank, the hither end
of which still retained its hold upon the rock at an angle of perhaps
sixty-five degrees; and up this steep incline--whither Bosin had already
preceded him--with Jack's assistance he managed to scramble. Then they
laid hold upon the plank and dragged it from the pit, amid the furious
howling of the baffled rabble debouching from the tunnel opposite.
“Safe over, at any rate,” panted Don. “But--good heavens! what's become
of the lascar?” For, suspended as he had been between life and death, he
had neither heard the lascar's shriek nor witnessed the horrible manner
in which he had received his quietus at the jaws of the crocodiles.
Jack pointed out a bright crimson blotch on the surface of the pool.
“We've seen the last of him, poor devil,” said he with a shudder. “Say,
did I tell you--no, of course I didn't--that this fellows not _my_
lascar?”
“What, not the lascar who's been hounding us all this time?”
“The lascar who's been hounding us on the island here--yes; but not the
one who tried to brain me on board the cutter and got the knife for his
pains. _That_ chap kicked the bucket shortly after he got ashore; this
fellow's his brother. They're as like as two peas.”
Don vented his astonishment in a shrill whistle. “Then that accounts for
it,” said he; “for there being no scar on his shoulder, I mean.”
“Precisely; and it came jolly near accounting for yours truly as well,”
said Jack, with a queer little laugh and a significant shrug of the
shoulders. “This fellow, you see--the one who was just now eaten by the
crocodiles--raised a sort of vendetta against us when his brother died,
and of course he wanted to try his hand on me first, since it was I who
gave his brother his death-blow. He'd have done it, too, if it hadn't
been for old Salambo. But the old man put his foot down--I overheard
their talk last night, and that's how I know--and said he wouldn't allow
any violence, lucky for me. He was hoping for overtures from you, I
suppose. But I say, what's this about the scar? How do _you_ know there
was none on the fellow's shoulder?”
“How do I know? Why, you see, it was this way. I was swimming the creek
yesterday morning--you shall hear how that came about later on, by
the way--when the lascar,” indicating the crimson blotch on the pool,
“tried to throttle me. I had to knock him on the head to quiet him. Then
I towed him ashore, and the captain and I----”
“The captain!” cried Jack with a start. “By Jove, we've left him
behind!”
The wild hurry-scurry and excitement of the last half-hour had afforded
Don scant opportunity for speaking of the captain's sad end--had,
indeed, driven all thought of the old sailor from his mind, as it also
had from Jack's. Now that the captain was mentioned, however, Jack,
naturally enough, jumped to the conclusion that he had formed one of
the rescue party, and had been overlooked in their recent precipitate
flight. The time was now come when he must be undeceived; but when Don
attempted to disclose the sad truth emotion choked his utterance, and he
could not. But Jack, gazing into his convulsed face, instinctively read
there what his lips refused to utter.
“When did it happen?” he asked in a hushed, awed whisper. “And how?”
Controlling his voice with an effort, “Only last night,” faltered Don;
“the lascar did it.”
Jack turned away and buried his face in his hands.
“He was strangled,” Don presently resumed, “strangled with that cord
you see tied to the rope there. Afterwards, when the lascar gave me
the slip, as he did in the night, he took the cord with him; but Bosin
somehow recovered it and fetched it back. I little guessed how it would
serve the lascar out when I used it to bridge the pit!”
“Retribution!” cried Jack, flinging his hands impulsively away from his
face. “He's rightly served, the villain. Only”--regretfully--“I wish it
had been me instead of the cord, that's all. But it's done, anyhow, so
let's get out of this.”
And it was time; for during this conversation the natives had not been
idle. At this very moment, indeed, a number of them rushed shouting from
the tunnel, bearing other planks with which to bridge the chasm. Don
and his chum did not wait to see this done. Without further loss of time
they set out for the creek, in which direction the blacks had already
preceded them.
Hardly had they entered the tunnel, however, when they encountered the
blacks, running back full pelt; and before Don could inquire the cause
of their precipitate return, a shout, reverberating up the vaulted
corridor from the semi-darkness ahead, made inquiry unnecessary. While
he and Jack had dallied in fancied security, the natives, skirting the
pit by another route, had cut off their retreat.
And, as if to increase the consternation caused by this discovery, at
the same instant a chorus of yells in their rear announced that the
party in pursuit had succeeded in bridging the pit anew.