AT SWORDS' POINTS
I entered the tunnel, sword in hand, keeping both arms stretched out to
feel my way. I resolved that I would always keep the left hand in
contact with the wall upon that side, so that, in case the tunnel
should divide, by reversing the process I could ensure my safe return.
I had only proceeded a few steps when the air grew cold and sweet. And
before I had traversed two hundred yards I saw a dim light in the
distance. This was no candle light, but that of day. So I had endured
all those agonies of mind with the open air but a short distance away!
As I advanced I fancied that I heard the soft pattering of feet behind
me.
I halted and listened intently. I crouched against the wall and
waited. But I heard nothing now except the distant roaring of the
cataracts. How sweet they sounded now!
I listened intently, leaning against the wall and facing backward,
holding my sword ready to meet any intruder. But there was no sound
from within, except the soughing which one hears in a tunnel; and
satisfied at last that I had been the victim of an over-wrought
imagination, I pursued my course.
The light grew brighter, but very slowly, until all at once I saw what
seemed to be the gleam of an electric arc-light immediately ahead. It
dazzled and half blinded me.
I started backward; and then the noble morning star disclosed herself,
swinging in the sky like a blazing jewel in a translucent sea.
Before me was a projecting piece of rock, which had shut off the view,
and but for that warning star I must have gone to my death. For my
foot was slipping on ice--and I was clinging to the cliff-wall upon the
other side of the tiny platform, where I had stood with Pierre, and the
Old Angel thundered over me.
And, instead of noon, as I had thought it to be, it was only dawn, and
the distant sky was banded with faint bars of yellow and gold, and the
fresh morning air was in my nostrils.
I picked my way back, inch by inch, across the ice which coated the
rocky floor for a few yards within the tunnel, until I stood in safety
again.
The full purport of this discovery now came to me, and it filled me
with frantic joy. For, since the cave connected with that platform
beneath the cataract, it was evident that by crossing the ledge, a
dangerous but not precarious feat, I should enter the main tunnel again
and come out eventually beyond the hills, even allowing for a
preliminary blunder into the wrong track.
The greatest danger lay in the possibility of Leroux or his aids lying
in wait for me somewhere within the tunnel, and I had not much fear of
that, for I did not believe they suspected that our cave connected with
the main passage. It was more likely that they would wait in
Duchaine's room till hunger drove us out.
So I started back to Jacqueline. But I had not gone six paces before I
heard a scream that still rings in my ears to-day, and a shadow sprang
out of the darkness and rushed at me. It was old Charles Duchaine.
His white hair streamed behind him; his face bore an expression of
indelible horror and rage, and in his hand he held the other sword.
With a madman's proverbial cunning he had pretended to be asleep; then
he must have followed me stealthily as I made my journey of
exploration; and now, doubtless, he ascribed all his wrongs and
sufferings to me and meant to kill me.
His fears had snapped the last frail link that bound him to the world
of sense.
He struck at me, a great sweeping blow which would almost have cut me
in two. I had just time to parry it, and then he was upon me, raining
blows upon my out-stretched sword. He was no swordsman, but slashed
and hewed in frenzy, and the steel rang on steel, and the rust from the
blades filled my nostrils with its sting.
But, though his attack was wild, the vigor of his blows almost beat
down my guard. At last a random blow of mine swept the weapon from his
feeble old hand and sent it whirling down the cataract into the lake
below.
Then he was at my throat, and it was fortunate that there was firm rock
instead of slippery ice beneath us, or we should both have followed the
sword.
He linked his arms around me and wrestled furiously, and his weight and
height so much surpassed my own that they compensated for his weakness.
We swayed backward and forward, and the star dipped and swung over us,
as though we stood upon the deck of a rolling ship.
"Calm yourself, for Heaven's sake, _monsieur_!" I gasped as I gained a
momentary advantage over him. "Don't you know me? I am your friend.
I want to save you!"
But he was at me again, trying to lock his hands about my throat; and,
even after I had controlled him and pinned his arms to his sides, he
fought like a fiend, and never ceased to yell. On either hand the
rocks and tunnel gave back his howls with hideous echoes that rolled
into the distance as though a hundred demons were at strife.
"You shall not take me! I have done nothing! It was years ago! Let
me go! Let me go!" he screamed.
I released him for a moment, hoping that his disordered brain would
calm enough for him to recognize me, and that, when he saw my motives
were peaceful, he would grow quiet.
But suddenly, with a final howl, he sprang past me, Sweeping me against
the wall, and leaped out on the ledge.
I held my breath. I expected to see him stagger to his death below.
But he stood motionless in the middle of the little platform and
stretched out his arms toward the raging torrent, as though in
invocation. Then he leaped across with the agility of a wild sheep and
rushed on into the tunnel beyond.
I drew my breath thickly and leaned against the wall, overcome with
nausea. The physical shock of the struggle was, however, less
appalling than the thought of Jacqueline.
I had no hope that the old man would ever return, or that his crazed
brain remembered the way home to the cave. He would wander on through
the tunnels, either to perish in them miserably, or to emerge at last
into the snow beyond and die there.
Unless Leroux found him.
I started back, keeping this time to the right side of the tunnel,
until I heard the gurgling of the brook. Then I heard Jacqueline's
footstep.
"Who is it?" she called wildly. "M. Hewlett! My father!"
I caught her as she swayed toward me. "He has gone, Jacqueline," I
said. "I went into the tunnel to try to find the way. He had been
feigning sleep, and he crept after me. I tried to stop him. He was so
frightened that I thought it best to let him go. He ran on into the
tunnel----"
"We must find him," she said.
"He will come back, Jacqueline."
"He will never come back!" she answered. "He must have been planning
this and waiting for me to sleep. For years he brooded over his
danger, suspecting everybody, and the shock of last night unhinged his
mind. He may be hiding somewhere. We must search for him."
"Let us go, then, Jacqueline," I answered.
In fact, there seemed to be no use in remaining any longer. If Pierre
were on his way back, we ought to meet him in the tunnel; and if he had
been captured, delay spelled ruin.
So I led her back into the tunnel on what was to be, I hoped, our final
journey. We reached the ledge. The star had faded now, and the whole
sky was bright with the red clouds of dawn.
Very cautiously we picked our way across the platform, clinging to the
wall. It was a hideous journey over the slippery ice, beneath the
thunder of the cataract; and when at length we reached the tunnel on
the other side, I was shaking like a man with a palsy.
But, thank God, that nightmare was past. And with renewed confidence I
went on through the darkness, with Jacqueline at my side, feeling my
way by the deeper depression in the ground along the centre of the
tubular passage.
At length I saw daylight ahead of me--and there was no sound of the
torrents.
Fortune had led us where I had wanted her to lead--into the open space
where the gold was. From there I knew that I could strike the passage
which led into the sleigh road under the hills. Half an hour's travel
ought to bring us to the rocking stone at the entrance, and safety.
But I found that I had entered the mine from a third point, and that
some forty feet away from the place where I had emerged before. This
time we were inside the cave in which Leroux and Lacroix had piled the
sacks of earth.
I was looking out beyond them toward the rivulet, and on my right hand
and on my left the tunnel stretched away, leading respectively toward
the _château_ and to the rocking stone at the entrance.
I left Jacqueline in the cave for a few moments and went into the
smaller one near by, where I had seen the provisions on the preceding
day. I found a small box of hard biscuit, with which I stuffed the
pockets of my coat, and, happier still, a small revolver and some
cartridges, to which I helped myself liberally.
Then I went back to Jacqueline.
We must go on. Half an hour more should see us outside the tunnel
beyond the mountains. And this was the day on which Père Antoine would
be expecting me.
It seemed incredible that so much could have happened in
four-and-twenty hours.
But there was no sign of Charles Duchaine. And I did not intend to
jeopardize our future for the sake of the crazed old man.
"Jacqueline," I said, "let us go on. Perhaps your father is on his way
outside the tunnel."
She shook her head. "We must find him first," she answered.
"But that is impossible," I protested. "How can we go wandering among
these dark passages when we do not know where he has gone? You know he
is invaluable to Leroux, and he will come to no harm with him. If we
get free, we can return with aid and rescue him."
"We cannot go without my father," she answered, shaking her head in
determination.
"But----"
"Oh, don't you see that we _must_ find him?" she cried wildly. "But
_you_ must go. You cannot be burdened with me. Give up your hopeless
mission to rescue us, _monsieur_, and save yourself!"
At that my hopes, which had been so high, went crashing down.
"Jacqueline," I said, "if we can find your father you will come with
me? Because it has occurred to me," I went on, "that if he had come
this way, his footprints would be in the mud beside the stream. It
would take an hour or two for them to fill up again. So, perhaps, he
did not come this far, but is hiding in some cave in the tunnel through
which we came. Will you wait for me here while I go back and search?"
She nodded, and I went back into that interminable tunnel again.