Twice Abington circled the pool, pausing often to scan the carvings
and to look up at the place where he had made his unexpected
entrance. A real jump-off, that; more than twice the height of a
tall man, and no possibility of climbing back unless one had a rope.
The water had undoubtedly saved him a nasty fall.
As a means of escape, Abington gave it up and turned his attention
to the places where the walls slanted up into blackness. He was
standing thoughtfully considering his next move--a matter that would
bear thought!--when he was startled by an explosive report, muffled
by distance, but nevertheless unmistakably a gunshot.
Something approaching a spasm of rage at his helplessness shook
Abington and passed, leaving him again calculating and outwardly
calm. The sound could not have come down the fissure from which he
had fallen. He had come too far along a straight passage before he
reached the three forks, for an outside noise to penetrate to him
there.
The sound might have come down the narrow inlet to the pool, but
Abington dismissed that possibility, probably because it was of no
use to him, since he could not very well worm his way through an
eight-inch crevice.
There must be some opening in the roof. If not, then one good
archaeologist was likely to be counted a martyr to science and
finally forgotten--his own bones eventually becoming mere fossilized
relics.
“Cheerful prospect, by Jove!” he grunted as he turned his back on
the inlet and began to examine the walls with the speculative eye of
a steeple jack. Now that he was fairly sure that the surface was
near, Abington did find a place where it looked possible for an
athlete to climb up, at least as far as the light illumined the
walls.
He was resolved that there must be no more carelessness. Before he
left the pool he took the precaution of emptying the carbide lumps
from the can into his handkerchief, and filling the can with water.
The tight-fitting top served to keep the water from leaking into his
pocket, though he stowed the carbide in another for safety’s sake.
He kept out but one lump, which he put into the lamp, leaving
himself in the dark for a minute or two.
With the lamp dry and warm the tiny flint wheel sparked at the first
attempt and the white tongue of flame shot out in a friendly fashion
that brought the ghost of a smile to Abington’s lips. Even then he
waited long enough to refill the lamp with water before rising to
begin the hazardous climb--which, after all, might net him nothing,
unless it were a broken bone or two if he lost his footing and fell
again.
Abington’s work had given him the sureness of a mountain goat. He
took off his necktie, tied it like a bandeau around his head, hooked
the lamp securely in its fabric and began to climb, resolutely
pushing far from him the thought of failure.
How far he went, he did not know. All he was certain of was the
impossibility of going back. There were times when he hung by a
slender foothold and risked his neck while he rested his hands.
There were other times when he was almost ready to give it up,
almost but never wholly beaten.
“By Jove, this is a high mountain!” he gasped once when, having
found a fairly comfortable perch on a knob of rock the size of a
barrel, he very gingerly removed the lamp from his forehead and took
a more comprehensive survey of his immediate surroundings and the
wall above him. “I’ll swear I’ve climbed ten miles!” This was a very
unscientific assertion to make. He capped it at once by another.
“Bet I’ve passed a dozen lateral fissures on the way up.”
* * * * *
Having relieved the tension somewhat by that remark, he slowly
turned himself about and illumined with white light an arched
opening in the wall that half faced him around the curve of the
cavern. “I’ll be damned!” breathed John Abington but what he really
meant was: “Thank God!”
The six feet of sheer wall which stood between his perch and the
mouth of the passageway balked him for a time, until he saw that the
rock immediately above the opening broke smoothly for several feet,
even with the face of the wall. The rock floor of the tunnel
extended outward over the black abyss from which he had just
climbed; it was like a pursed lip thrust out from an open mouth, he
thought.
Upon that narrow platform he fixed his gaze, shrewdly measuring the
width of the extension. He would have to climb above the opening and
drop down to the out-thrust lip, trusting to good fortune to keep
his balance and not pitch headlong into the cavern.
For a long moment he stood face to face with this fresh ordeal, the
lamplight sliding back and forth, halting to contemplate a feasible
niche for his feet, stealing upward to find some splinter or seam
where the fingers could clutch.
Foot by foot he planned it, while he gathered his last reserve of
strength for this supreme effort. Once he started, there could be no
going back. He must work above the smooth stretch, where, at some
time in the past, a huge fragment of wall had fallen away, and then
edge sidewise until he was directly over the lip of the tunnel.
After that he must let go all holds and drop. If he landed on the
lip and stayed there, he would at least have a chance. If not--the
evil death of a certainty would be his; for even if he landed
uninjured in the pool he would never be able to repeat that terrific
climb. He knew that he would not even attempt it.
Doggedly, with that persistence which characterized the man,
Abington began the ascent. He reached the exact point which he had
planned to reach, drew one long breath in the full knowledge that it
might be his last--and dropped. The impact of solid rock upon his
boot soles jarred him as he flung himself forward and fell face
downward on the floor of the passage.