That cry was "help!" in its meaning as plainly as if it had come from a
human throat, and with eyes hot and dry, Tom dashed forward with his
worst fears confirmed.
The tree had been blown over by the storm, and he knew it now. It was
the great pine whose roots overhung Pete's cavern, and now the hollow
which formed the entrance was filled up by the roots, the narrow passage
closed, and at the bottom of a new pit formed in the sand, where the
buried roots had been torn out and broken off, there was the dog, with
jaws open, tongue out, and eyes starting, tearing away at the sand,
which kept gliding back as fast as it was thrown out, evidently trying
to rescue its master, who must have been buried there.
"Oh, you good old chap!" cried Tom, as he sprang to the side of the pit;
and the dog, taking the words for encouragement, uttered a loud bark,
and tore away at the sand with its fore feet and kicked it away with its
hind at a tremendous rate, sending it flying in quite a mist.
Tom had grasped the situation thoroughly now, and felt that Pete must
have been sleeping in his cave that night with his dog, when the tree,
only held on one side, had given way, burying him. Then the dog had
contrived to scratch its way out, leaving its master prisoned to lie
there in darkness, while during all the next day and night the faithful
companion for whom he had shown so little kindness had howled, and
howled in vain, for help.
Tom saw it all now, and he sprang down into the hollow from which the
pine roots had been torn, to begin cheering on the dog, and helping with
all his might; till once more he turned cold; but it was with a far more
terrible chill, as he felt that it was all those hours since Pete had
been covered in. Worse, the position of the root indicated that one
side had been driven right into the cave, the old roof, as it were,
sinking down, and only one thing could have happened--the unfortunate
occupant must have been crushed to death.
But the dog was animated by no such ideas. It knew that its master was
below, and it panted, and growled, and snarled as it tore away at the
sand.
Then a fresh idea struck Tom. He could do but little good; he must run
for help, and bring men with shovels, a rope, levers, and an axe, for
they would perhaps have to cut the unhappy prisoner free.
But no; he might be the means of the poor fellow losing his life if a
spark still lingered. If he could only reach his face and uncover that
before going for aid! And so he toiled on, scooping out the sand with
both hands close by where the dog tore, for every now and then it buried
its muzzle, snuffling and blowing, and raised it again to bark
furiously.
"He knows," thought Tom; and he tore away with all his might down there
upon his knees, close at the side of the dog, to whom he uttered a
cheering word of encouragement, accompanied by a pat on the back.
But it was slow work, for every now and then the sand from above
crumbled down, great pats dropped from amongst the roots as soon as that
beneath was taken away, and at the end of half-an-hour a feeling of
despair accompanied the deadly weariness that now attacked his arms and
shoulders, and involuntarily Tom Blount uttered a piteous cry.
It was from the hopelessness of what he was doing that this cry escaped
him, but the dog took it for one of encouragement, and it plunged its
nose into the loose sand again, grew more and more excited as it tore
away, and suddenly, to Tom's astonishment, head and shoulders
disappeared, and it gradually struggled on till even the long thin tail
disappeared.
Reaching down, the boy now found the sand come away more easily, and he
was thrusting his arm in as far as it would go, when he felt the dog's
cold nose against his hand; the dry sand seemed to boil up as he
snatched back his arm, and directly after the dog worked itself out
again, to stand barking with all its might, and then begin scratching
once more.
After working a few minutes longer, Tom reached in again, and found that
his hand moved about freely in one direction, but touched pieces of root
in the other, and then he started back with a cry of horror, for down in
a hollow between two pieces of root he felt a face.
The fear was only momentary. Then he was searching again, and this time
easily touched the face, which was quite clear of sand, the roots above
striding over it, so to speak, and, as he felt upward, proving to be
some inches distant.
But the face was cold and still, and despair crept over the worker
again. He fought it back though, tore away at the sand, and at the end
of a few minutes had cleared an opening like a rabbit burrow, which he
could see led right to the roots and must convey air.
Then with a tremendous burst of barking the dog made a plunge to get in,
half filling the burrow before Tom could hold it back, when the
intelligent beast stood with its tongue out, panting heavily, and
seeming to question him with its eyes.
Tom thought for a moment, then he took off his neckerchief, pulled out
his pocket-book, and tore out a leaf of paper, one side of which was
covered with the names of the moon's craters.
"Come away," he cried to the dog, as he carefully stepped out on to the
firm ground, the dog barking excitedly, but following him.
"Must stop and keep the hole open," thought Tom; and then, laying his
paper on a tree-trunk, he wrote clearly:--
"Follow the dog to the fir-wood. Pete buried in sand. Bring help,
shovels, axes, ropes.
"T.B."
He rolled this in his neckerchief, tied it round the dog's neck, and
then stood pointing homeward.
"Go home!" he shouted; "fetch--fetch! Go home!"
The dog made no sound, but went off at a long loping gallop, Tom
watching it till it was out of sight, and then cautiously creeping back
into the hole to scoop away some of the sand which lay heaped round the
burrow, to keep watch by one who he felt sure was dead.
All Pete's short-comings were forgotten as Tom sat there, feeling that
he dare do no more for fear of loosening the sand, and bringing it
trickling down like so much water; all he could think of then was, that
a fellow-creature lay buried close to him mutely asking for help, and he
wanted to convince himself that he had done everything possible in the
way of giving that aid.
It was a difficult matter to mentally decide, and there were moments
when he felt that he ought not to have trusted to the dog, but should
have gone himself, for a dozen things might prevent help coming, even if
the dog proved to be a trustworthy messenger.
So strong was this idea, that three times over he was on the point of
starting off to run back; but each time just as he was rising, the sand
came trickling down in a way which showed how soon the burrow would be
closed up; and without air, now that the place had been opened, he felt
that the last chance would be gone.
So Tom settled himself down to keep the burrow clear, trembling at times
as he listened, faintly hoping that the words he spoke now and then
might elicit a reply.
But he hearkened in vain, all was solemnly still save the calls of the
birds, and the rustling made by the rabbits as they chased each other in
and out among the pines. By and by a squirrel came racing up, caught
sight of him, sprang to the nearest tree-trunk, dashed up it, and then
out upon the first big horizontal bar, where it sat twitching its
beautiful tail, scolding him angrily for intruding in what it looked
upon as its own private property.
After a time too there was the cheery call of the nuthatch, and the busy
little bird flitted into sight, to alight upon a pine-trunk, and begin
creeping here and there, head up or head down, peering into every crack,
and probing it in search of insects. A flock of jays, too, came jerking
themselves into the tree-tops, displaying their black and white
feathers, the china-blue patches upon their wings, and one in particular
came quite near, setting up its soft loose crest, and showing its
boldly-marked moustachios as it peered with first one light-blue eye,
then with the other, at the motionless object seated in the sand-pit,
wondering whether it was alive.
Tom saw all these things that morning, for in his excited state they
were forced upon him, though all the time he seemed to be following his
messenger through the wood, keeping up its long steady canter; now
diving between two closely-growing trees, now bounding over a clump of
bracken, and now seeming to catch one end of the neckerchief in a strand
of blackberry thorn, at which the dog tugged till the silk was torn and
freed. Again he saw the dog caught in this fashion, and soon after
watched it reach the edge of the wood and bound down into the lane,
where it soon after encountered a gipsy-like party, who caught sight of
the dog's strange collar, and sought to stop it, and steal the letter,
for which the dog fought fiercely, and finally escaped by leaping back
into the wood and disappearing entirely, so that he could trace it no
more.
All imagination, but as real to him as a troubled dream, till he stooped
once more to clear the opening, and gaze in, shuddering, and afraid to
break the awful stillness around.
Then he crouched again upon his knees to listen, and wonder whether the
dog had reached Heatherleigh yet. Next whether it would ever have the
intelligence to make its way there, and if it did, whether it would not
pretty surely be chased away by David, who would for certain be the
first to see it, and begin throwing stones.
"I wish I had thought of that before," muttered Tom despairingly; and as
the time went on he despaired more and more of seeing the
long-looked-for help arrive. For he told himself that he had been mad
ever to dream of the dog proving a successful messenger, since,
according to his calculation at last, there had been ample time for the
journey to have been made thrice over.
It was of no use to shout for help or to whistle, for nobody ever came
through these woods, save a poacher now and then by night, to set wires
or traps for the rabbits; and at last in despair Tom felt that he must
go.
Then hope came once more, as he thought better of the dog, for what
greater intelligence could dumb beast have shown than, after struggling
out of the cave, to have made its way not to its regular home, where it
could only have appealed to the feeble old grandmother, but straight to
one whom, though no friend, it had seen more than once with its master?
"See," he said to himself, "how, in spite of all driving away, the poor
thing kept on coming back to the cottage, and how wonderfully it led me
here, and worked by my side. He'll do it. I'm sure he will, and before
long I shall see uncle coming."
Then the time wore on, till these hopes were dashed again, and a
despairing fit of low spirits attacked the watcher. "It's of no use,"
he said, half aloud; "I must go;" and he bent over the still open hole,
to try and think out some plan of keeping back the sand. But all in
vain; he felt that there was no way. Either he must stop there to keep
on scooping the place free every few minutes, or leave it to take its
chance while he went for help.
"No, I can't," he cried; "it's throwing away the very last hope. I must
stay. Oh, why does not some one come?"
Tom's face darkened now, for his over-strained imagination had painted a
fresh picture--that of the miserable-looking cur somewhere close at
hand, settled down in a hollow to deliberately gnaw the sandy bone. For
it was too much to expect of a dog that, after perhaps starving for
eight-and-forty hours, it would leave the meal for which it hungered,
and go and deliver such a message as that upon which it was sent.
"Oh, how long! how long!" he groaned. "I could have gone there and back
half-a-dozen times."
It was a moderate computation according to Tom's feelings, for it seemed
to him half the day must have glided by in the agony he was suffering.
But it had not. Time had been going steadily on at its customary rate,
in spite of the way in which the lad in his excitement had pushed on the
hands of his mental clock.
"I must go," he cried at last, "or no help will come. That brute is
somewhere close by, I'm sure. Here, hi!" he shouted; but there was no
reply--no dog came bounding up; and after listening for a few minutes he
began to whistle loudly, when his heart seemed suddenly to stop its
beating as he leaned forward listening, for, faint and distant but quite
clear, there came an answering whistle.
He whistled again, and he pressed his hand upon his breast, feeling half
choked with emotion.
The signal was answered, and directly after there was a distant hail,
followed by a joyous barking, and the dog came bounding up, to rush down
into the hollow, thrust its sharp nose into the burrow, take it out,
begin barking again, and then dash off once more among the clustering
pine-trunks.
Tom whistled again, then hailed, was answered, hailed again, and sank
down half choked by the emotion he felt, and hard pressed to keep back a
burst of feeling which tried to unman him.
"This way! ahoy!" he yelled, as he leaped up out of the hole, himself
once more. "Quick! help! ahoy!"
Then the dog tore up barking furiously, half wild with excitement, and
directly after Tom caught sight of the Vicar, closely followed by his
uncle; and then came David with a bundle of tools over his shoulder,
followed at a short distance by the village bricklayer, the carpenter,
and two more men.
At this a peculiar giddy feeling came over the watcher, there was a
strange singing in his ears, and he stood there as if stunned.