UNDERGROUND WANDERINGS
When Peveril next awoke he was racked with pain, and so stiff in every
joint that an attempt to move caused him to groan aloud. A faint light
dimly revealed his surroundings; but these were so strange and weird
that for several minutes he could not imagine where he was nor what
had happened. Slowly the truth dawned upon him, and one by one the
awful incidents of the past night began to shape themselves in his
mind.
"I have been murdered and drowned," he said to himself. "Now I am
entombed alive, beyond reach of hope or human knowledge. Never again
shall I see the sunlight, never revisit the surface of the earth,
never look upon my fellows nor hear the voice of man. I may live for
several days, but I must live them alone--alone must I bear my
sufferings, and finally I must die alone. What have I done to deserve
such a fate? Is there no escape from it? I shall go mad, and I hope I
may. Better oblivion than a knowledge of such agony as is in store for
me.
"And yet why should I lose faith in the Power that has thus far
miraculously preserved me? I am alive, and in possession of all my
faculties. I shall not suffer from thirst. I even have a certain
amount of food, together with the means for procuring fire. I am not
left in utter darkness, and, above all, I have not yet proved by a
single trial that escape is impossible. How much better off I am in
every respect than thousands of others, who, finding themselves in
desperate straits, have yet had the strength and courage to work out
their own salvation! What an ingrate I have been! What a coward! But,
with God's help, I will no longer be either!"
Having thus brought himself to a happier and more courageous frame of
mind, Peveril stiffly gained his feet, moved his limbs, and rubbed
them until a certain degree of suppleness was restored. He was about
to build a fire, but refrained from so doing upon reflection that his
stock of fuel must be limited, and that a fire might be of infinitely
greater value at some other time.
Now the prisoner began a careful survey of his surroundings by the
feeble light finding its way down the shaft into which he had been
flung. As it did not materially increase, he concluded that full day
had already reached the upper world. It was also brightest in the
middle of the black pool, which showed that the opening through which
it came must be directly above that point, and that the shaft must be
perpendicular.
Peveril called the hole a shaft, because, while he could neither see
to the top nor clearly make out the outlines of the portions nearest
at hand, it still impressed him as being of artificial construction,
while the opening at one side, in which he stood, also seemed very
much like a drift or gallery hewn from the solid rock by human hands.
The impossibility of scaling the sheer, smooth walls of the shaft was
evident at a single glance, and Peveril turned from it with a heavy
heart. At the same moment his attention was attracted by a sharp
squeaking, and, to his dismay, he made out a confused mass of
something in active motion about the precious biscuit that he had left
beside his fireplace. With a loud cry he sprang in that direction,
only to stumble and fall over a small pile of what he took to be rocks
that lay in his path.
Without waiting to regain his feet, he flung several of these at the
animals that had discovered and were devouring his hardtack. A louder
squeak than before showed that at least one of his missiles had taken
effect, and then there was a scampering away of tiny feet. When he
reached the scene of destruction his only biscuit was half eaten,
while beside it lay a huge rat that had been killed by one of his
shots.
"With plenty of rats and plenty of rocks I need not starve, at any
rate," he remarked, grimly. "The idea of eating rats is horrid, of
course, but I don't know why it should be. Certainly many persons have
eaten them, and in an emergency I don't know why I should be any more
squeamish than others.
"What heavy rocks those were, though, and what sharp edges they had! I
expect it will be a good idea to collect a few, and have them ready
for my next rat-hunt."
With this Peveril returned to the pile over which he had stumbled, and
to his amazement found it to be composed of hammers and hatchets,
chisels, knives, and other tools that he was unable to name, all of
quaint shape, and all made of tempered copper. In an instant the
nature of his prison became clear. He was in a prehistoric
copper-mine, opened and worked thousands of years ago by a people so
ancient that even tradition has nought to say concerning them.
The knowledge thus thrust upon him filled the young man with awe, and
he glanced nervously about him, as though expecting to see the ghosts
of long-ago delvers advancing from the inner gloom. The thought that
he was probably the first human being to set foot on that rocky
platform since the prehistoric workmen had flung down their tools on
it for the last time was overpowering.
At the same time, if this were indeed a mine, it must also be a tomb,
for it was not likely to have any exit save the unscalable shaft
glimmering hopelessly above him. Here, then, was the end of all his
hopes, for of what use were strength and courage in a place where
neither could be made available?
But hold! Where had the rats come from? Certainly not from the water,
nor was it probable that they had come down the shaft, for its rocky
sides appeared as straight and smooth as those of a well. Why should
they have come at all to a place that could not contain a crumb of
food, except the scanty supply that he had brought? If that alone had
attracted them, why had they not found it hours before, while he was
asleep? Might it not be possible that they had come from a distance in
search of water after a night of feasting elsewhere? They had, at any
rate, run back into the gallery; and by following the lead thus
presented he might find some place of exit from that terrible
subterranean prison. Even if it were only a rat-hole, he might be able
to enlarge it, now that he had tools with which to work.
At this moment how he blessed the dear old friend at whose insistence
he had provided himself with the matches and candle that now rendered
it possible for him to explore the dark depths of that prehistoric
drift! Before starting on the trip that he was now determined to make,
he ate the portion of biscuit left by the rats. He also so far
overcame his repugnance as to skin and clean the dead rat, which he
placed on a ledge of rock for future use in case he should be driven
to it. Then he lighted his candle and set forth.
For a considerable distance the gallery was open and fairly spacious,
while everywhere the young explorer found scattered on its floor the
ancient and quaintly shaped tools that told of the great number of
workmen employed in its excavation. After a while his way began to be
encumbered by piles of loose rock that seemed to have been collected
for the purpose of removal.
Now his way grew narrower and rougher, until in several places it was
nearly blocked by masses of material that had fallen from the roof or
caved in from the sides. Over some of these he was forced to creep on
hands and knees, flattening himself into the smallest possible
compass.
At length the gallery came to an end, though from it a small "winze,"
or passage, barely wide enough to crawl through, led upward at a sharp
angle. At the bottom of this Peveril hesitated. His precious candle
was half burned out, and would not much more than serve to carry him
back to the place from which he had started. Besides this, the passage
before him was so small that a person entering it could by no
possibility turn around if he should desire to retrace his course. It
was even doubtful if he could back out after having penetrated a short
distance into the winze.
"I don't know why I should care, though," said Peveril, bitterly,
"for, even if I should get stuck in there, it would only be exchanging
a tomb for a grave. At the same time, one does like to have room even
to die in, and I don't believe the risk is worth taking. There isn't
the slightest chance of a hole like that leading anywhere, and, so
long as I can draw a breath at all, I am going to draw it in the
open."
So, with the last spark of hope extinguished, and with a heart like
lead, the poor fellow turned to retrace his steps to the place in
which he proposed to spend his few remaining hours of life, and then
to yield it up as bravely as might be. As he did so a little gusty
draught of air blew the flame from his candle and plunged him into
absolute darkness.
[Illustration: PEVERIL SAT BESIDE THE FIRE IN FORLORN MEDITATION]
Peveril was so startled by this occurrence that for some time he
plunged blindly with outstretched hands back over the way he had come,
forgetting in his bewilderment that he still had matches with which to
relight his candle. Ere this was suggested to him he had retraced
about half the distance, guided solely by the sense of feeling, though
not without innumerable bruises and abrasions.
When he at length reached the end of the gallery and stood once more
beside the black pool into which he had been flung, what little of
daylight found its way into those dim depths was rapidly fading. It
only served while he gathered every stick of drift that some former
high stage of water had deposited on the rocky platform, and then
another night of almost arctic length was begun.
To escape the awful gloom, Peveril lighted a fire and sat beside it in
forlorn meditation, carefully feeding it one stick at a time, and
longing for some sound to break the oppressive silence. Finally, faint
with hunger, he recalled the bit of game that he had stored away ready
for cooking. Fetching this, he quickly had it spitted on a sliver of
wood and broiling with appetizing odor over a tiny bed of coals. It
smelled so good as it sizzled and browned that all his repugnance
vanished, and he was only impatient for it to be cooked. The moment it
was so he began to devour it ravenously, regretting at the same time
that he had not half a dozen rats to eat instead of one.
He felt better after his meal, and a new courage crept into his heavy
heart as he again sat in meditation beside his flickering blaze. Why
he should feel more hopeful he could not imagine, for no glimmer of a
plan for escape had presented itself.
It was not until he had once more stretched himself on his flinty bed,
with a block of wood for a pillow, and was trying to forget his
wretchedness in sleep, that he knew. Then he sprang up with a shout.
"What an idiot I am! What an absolute idiot! Where did the draught
that blew out my light come from? From up that sloping passage, of
course, and a draught can only be caused by an opening of some kind to
the outer air. If I can only find it, I believe I shall also find a
way out of here. So, old man, cheer up and never say die! You'll live
to stand on top of the world again, yet--see if you don't!"