PEVERIL IS TAKEN FOR A GHOST
The situation in which the two principal characters of this story were
left at the close of the preceding chapter was so embarrassing to both
that for several seconds they continued to stare at each other in
silent amazement. Mary Darrell, her face alternately flushing and
paling with confusion, seemed fascinated and incapable of motion. In
spite of Peveril's astonishingly disreputable appearance, she at once
recognized him as being the young stranger whom she had seen twice
before, and had even helped out of an awkward predicament. She also
knew that he had in some way aroused her father's enmity. But he had
taken his departure from that vicinity several days earlier, and,
though she had wondered if he would ever come back, she had not really
expected to see him again.
Now to come upon him so suddenly, looking so dreadful, and to realize
that, incredible as it seemed, he must have learned the secret of the
cavern, was all so bewildering and startling as to very nearly take
away her breath. So she simply stared.
It must be confessed that Peveril's present appearance was not so
prepossessing as it had been at other times, and might be again. He
had lost his hat, his hair was uncombed, his hands were bruised and
soiled, while his clothing was torn and covered with dirt from the
underground passages through which he had so recently struggled. But
his face was quite clean, for he had just given it a thorough
scrubbing, and to it the girl's gaze was principally directed.
It was Peveril who first broke the embarrassing silence.
"I am very glad to see you again," he said, "and to find that you are
a real flesh-and-blood girl, instead of only a vision, or a sort of a
rock-nymph, as I imagined you might be from the way you disappeared
that other time."
"What makes you think I am a girl?" asked Mary Darrell, whose face was
the only part of her that Peveril could see.
"Why, because," he began, hesitatingly--"because you are too
good-looking to be anything but a girl, and because--Oh, well, because
I am certain that you are. What else could you be, anyway?"
Mary Darrell's face was crimson, but still she answered, stoutly, "I
might be a boy, you know."
"No, indeed. No boy could blush as you are doing at this moment."
In reply, the girl rose to her feet and stepped out on the ledge in
full view of the young man. She was clad in a golf suit, neat-fitting
and becoming, but masculine in every detail. She had become so
accustomed to dressing in that way that she was perfectly at her ease
in the costume, and even preferred it to her own proper garments.
"I beg your pardon," stammered poor Peveril, as he gazed in
bewilderment at the apparition thus presented. "I'm awfully ashamed to
have made such a stupid mistake, but really, you know--"
"Oh, it's all right," replied the other, "and you needn't apologize. I
have so often been taken for a girl that I am quite used to it. And
now may I ask who you are? why you are here? what you are doing down
there? how you propose to get away? and--"
"Hold on, my dear fellow!" interrupted Peveril. "Don't you think your
list of questions is already long enough without adding any more?"
"I suppose it is," laughed the other, assuming a seat in an expectant
attitude at the base of the stunted cedar.
The novelty of the situation, combined with its absolute safety, so
far as she was concerned, was fascinating to the lonely girl. "Now you
may begin," she added, "and tell me everything you know about
yourself."
"That would be altogether too long a story," replied Peveril, a little
nettled at what he mentally termed the cheek of the youth. "Besides,"
he continued, "I am too nearly starved to do much talking, seeing
that, for more days than I can remember, I have had nothing to eat but
a rat, and--"
"A rat!" cried the other, in a tone of horror. "You didn't really eat
a rat?"
"Indeed I did, and I would gladly eat another at this very minute, I
am so hungry. Don't you think you could get me one? Or if you had any
cold victuals that you could spare--"
At that moment Mary Darrell, without waiting to hear another word,
jumped up and disappeared, leaving Peveril to wonder what had struck
the young fellow, and hoping that he had gone for something in the
shape of food.
"I wish I'd got him to let down that rope again first," he said to
himself, as he paced back and forth across the ledge; "then I could
have pulled myself up and gone with him, thereby saving both time and
trouble. I would have sworn, though, that he was a girl. Never was so
deceived in my life. He must have a sister, and perhaps they are
twins, for it surely was a girl that I saw here the other time. All
the same, I'm rather glad she isn't on hand just now, for I should
hate to have any girl see me in my present disguise. My appearance
must be decidedly tough and tramp-like. Wonder if I can't do something
to improve it? That chap might be just idiot enough to bring his
sister back with him."
Thus thinking, the young man attempted to get a look at himself in the
water-mirror of the lake, and was trying to comb his hair with his
fingers, when a merry laugh from above put an end to his toilet and
caused him to start up in confusion.
His young friend of the golf suit had returned, and was letting down a
small basket attached to a stout cord.
"Why don't you drop the tackle and let me come up there to you?"
suggested Peveril, who was not only very tired of the ledge, but
curious to make a closer acquaintance with his new friend.
"Oh no," said the other, hurriedly, "I can't do that. But look out!
catch the basket. I am sorry not to have brought you a better lunch,
but you seemed in such a hurry that I thought you might not be
particular."
"It's fine," rejoined Peveril, who was already making a ravenous
attack on the bread and cold meat contained in the basket. "You
couldn't have brought me anything that I should have liked better, or
that would have done me more good, and I am a thousand times obliged."
A few minutes of silence ensued after this, while the one in the golf
suit eagerly watched the other satisfy his hunger.
When the last crumb of food had disappeared, Peveril heaved a sigh of
content. "I feel like a new man now," he said, "and if you will only
be so kind as to throw down that tackle--"
"But you haven't answered a single one of my questions," interrupted
the other.
"Can't I do that up there as well as here?"
"No, I want them answered right off, now."
"Well, you are a queer sort of a chap," retorted Peveril; "but, seeing
that you were so kind about the lunch, I don't mind humoring you a
bit. Let me see: What were they? Oh! First--who am I? Well, I am
Richard Peveril; but beyond that I hardly know how to answer.
Second--why am I here? Because I can't get away. Third--what am I
doing? Answering questions. Fourth--how do I propose to get away? By
climbing the rope that you will let down to me, of course, and then
have you show me the same way out of the cavern that you take."
[Illustration: AT SEEING PEVERIL, THE MEN UTTERED A CRY OF TERROR]
"Oh, but I can't do that!"
"Why not?"
"Because I have promised never to show it to any one. But, if you
don't know the way, how did you get into the cavern?"
"If you'll show me your way out, I'll show you mine," replied Peveril,
who was growing impatient.
"I tell you I can't. It is simply impossible."
"Oh, well! I won't urge you, then. Only let down the rope, so that I
can get up to where you are, and I'll manage to find my own way out."
"But I don't dare even to do that," answered the other, in genuine
distress.
"You don't mean to leave me down here forever, do you?"
"No, of course not; but--Oh, I know! I'll send a boat for you. So,
just wait patiently a little while longer and you shall be taken off."
"I say! hold on!" cried Richard; but his words were unheeded, for,
acting on the impulse of the moment, the other had disappeared, and he
was talking to empty space.
"Confound the boy!" he exclaimed, impatiently. "I never heard of
anything so utterly absurd. Why, in the name of common-sense, should
he object to showing me the way out of his old cave? One would think
that ordinary humanity--But boys are such heartless young beggars that
there's no such thing as appealing to their sympathies. If it had only
been his sister now!"
In the meantime Mary Darrell had hastened from the cavern full of her
new plan for rescuing the prisoner without betraying the secret of the
underground passage.
She at first thought of appealing to her father for aid, but,
remembering his bitterness against the young man, decided to act
without him. So she called two miners who were at work about the mouth
of the shaft and bade them follow her. As they did so she led the way
to the basin, and, entering a boat, ordered the men to row her out
into the lake.
They obeyed without hesitation, and, as Mary steered, she soon had the
satisfaction of seeing her prisoner just where she had left him.
He was at the same time relieved of a growing anxiety by the approach
of the boat, in which he finally recognized the young fellow who,
although acting so curiously, had, on the whole, proved himself a
friend.
The boat approached so close to the ledge that Mary had given the
order to cease rowing before the oarsmen turned their heads to see
where they were. As they did so, they uttered a simultaneous cry of
terror, again seized their oars, whirled their light craft around,
and, in spite of Mary Darrell's angry protestations, began to row with
frantic haste back in the direction from which they had come.
Although Peveril was not so much surprised at this proceeding as he
might have been had he not recognized the villain Rothsky in the
bow-oarsman, he was bitterly disappointed, and paced up and down his
narrow prison with restless impatience.
"Oh! If I ever get out of this scrape!" he cried.
Less than an hour afterwards, when Mary Darrell again entered the
cavern, but this time in company with her father, to whom she had
confided the whole story, Peveril had disappeared. There was no boat
to be seen, and they were confident that none had been on the coast
that day. The derrick, with its tackle, was just as Mary had left it,
yet neither in the cavern nor on the ledge was a trace of the young
man to be seen.