"Can't be time to get up yet," I thought, and I turned over on my soft
bed. It was too dark, and I was dozing off again when a loud snorting
gasp made me start and throw off the clothes that lay so heavy on me.
Then I stopped short, trembling and puzzled. Where was I? It was very
dark. That was not clothes, but something that slipped and trickled
through my fingers as I grasped at it. My legs felt heavy and numbed,
and this darkness was so strange that I couldn't make it out.
Was I asleep still? I must have been to sleep--heavily asleep, but I
was awake now, and--what did it mean?
A curious feeling of horror was upon me, and I lay perfectly still. I
could not stir for some minutes, and then it all came like a flash, and
I knew that I must have lain listening for some time to Shock breathing
heavily, and then insensibly have fallen asleep, and for how long?
That I could not of course tell, but so long that the sand had gone on
trickling in till it had nearly covered me, as I lay nearest to the
opening. It had been right over my chest, and sloped up and away from,
me, so that my legs were deeply buried, and it required quite a struggle
to get them free, while to my horror as I dragged them out from beneath
the heavy weight more sand came down, and one hard lump rolled down and
up against me sufficiently hard to give me pain.
There was the same terrible silence about me, and it seemed to grow
deeper. A short time before I had heard Shock breathing hard, but now
his breath came softly, and then seemed to cease.
That silence had lasted some time, when all at once it was broken by my
companion as I knelt there in the soft sand.
"Mars Grant! I say. You awake?"
"Yes."
"What yer doing of?"
"I am saying my prayers."
There was another silence here, and then Shock said softly:
"What yer praying for?"
"For help and protection in this terrible place," I cried passionately;
and I crouched down lower as I bowed myself and prayed that I might see
the sunshine and the bright sky once again--that I might live.
Just then a hand was laid upon my shoulder, and I felt Shock's lips
almost touch my ear as he whispered softly:
"I say--I want to say my prayers too."
"Well," I said sternly, "pray."
There was again that silence that seemed so painful, and then a low
hoarse voice at my side said slowly:
"I can't. I 'most forgets how."
"Shock," I cried, as I caught at his hands, which closed tightly and
clung to mine; and for the first time it seemed to come to me that this
poor half-wild boy was only different to myself in that he had been left
neglected to make his way in life almost as he pleased, and that in
spite of his wilful ways and half-savage animal habits it was more the
want of teaching than his fault.
I seemed to feel brighter and more cheerful as we sat together soon
after, discussing whether we should light the candle again, and all at
once Shock exclaimed:
"I say."
"What, Shock?"
"I won't shy nothing at you no more."
"It does not seem as if you will ever have the chance, Shock," I cried
dolefully.
"Oh, I don't know, mate," he said; and at that word "mate" I seemed to
feel a curious shrinking from him; but it passed off directly.
"Shall I light the candle?" he said after a pause.
"Yes, just for one look round," I said. "Perhaps we can find a way
out."
The candle was lit, and I started as I saw how much the sand had crept
in during the time that we had been asleep. It had regularly flowed in
like water, and as we held the candle down there was one place where it
trickled down a slope, just as you see it in an egg-boiler or an
old-fashioned hour-glass.
We looked all round; went to the spot where the hole ended in what was
quite hard sandy rock. Then we looked up at the top, where we could
dimly make out the crack or rift through which the smoke had gone, but
there was no daylight to be seen through it, though of course it
communicated with the outer air.
Then we had a look at the part where we had come in, but there the sand
was loose, and we had learned by bitter experience that to touch it was
only to bring down more.
"I say," said Shock, as we extinguished the scrap of candle left, part
of which had run down on Shock's hand; "we're shut up."
"Shut up!" I said indignantly; "have you just found that out?"
"Well, don't hit a fellow," he cried. "I say, have a bit?"
"Bit of what?" I cried, as I realised how hungry I had grown.
"Taller," he said. "Some on it run down. There ain't much; two or
three little nobbles. I'll give yer a fair whack."
"Why, you don't mean to eat that, you nasty fellow," I cried.
"Don't!" he said; "but I do. Here's your half. I've eat worse things
than that."
"Why, Shock," I cried, as a flash of hope ran through me, "I forgot."
"Forgot what?" he cried. "Way out?"
"No," I said gloomily; "but my sandwiches--bread and meat Mrs Solomon
cut for me."
"Bread and meat!" he shouted. "Where is it?"
"In my jacket. I hung it on a stone in the side somewhere here. Light
a match."
_Crick--crick--crack_ went the match; then there was a flash, and the
sputtering bubbling blue flame of the sulphur, for matches were made
differently in those days, when paraffin had not been dreamed of for
soaking the wood.
Then the light burned up clearly, and Shock held the splint above his
head, and we looked round.
"There ain't no jacket here," said Shock dolefully. "What did yer say
bread and meat for?" he continued, as the match burned out and he threw
it down. "It's made me feel so hungry. I could eat a bit o' you."
"I can't understand it, Shock," I said.
"I wish I'd got some snails or some frogs," he muttered. "I could eat
'em raw."
"Don't," I said with a shudder.
"I knowed a chap once who eat two live frogs. Put 'em on his tongue--
little uns, you know--and swallowed 'em down. He said he could feel 'em
hopping about inside him after. Wasn't he a brute?"
"Don't talk to me," I cried, as I went feeling about the wall, with my
head in a state of confusion. "I know I had the jacket in here."
"Have you got it on?" he said.
"No--no--no! I hung it on a bit of sharp stone that stuck out of the
wall somewhere, and I can't feel the place. It's so puzzling being in
the dark. I don't know which is front and which is back now."
"Front's where the soft sand is," said Shock.
"Of course," I cried, feeling half stupefied all the time. "Then this
is the front here. I hung it on the stone and it was just above my
head."
I walked about on the soft sand, feeling about above my head, and all
over the face of the cave side for a long time in vain; and then with my
head swimming I sank down in despair, and leaned heavily back, to utter
a cry of pain.
"What's matter?" cried Shock, coming to me.
"I've struck the back of my head against a sharp stone," I cried,
turning round to feel for the projecting piece.
"Why, it's here, Shock. This is the piece I hung my jacket on, but it
has sunk down. No, no," I cried; "I forgot; it is the bottom of the
hole that has filled up. The sand has come up all this way. Keep
back."
I had turned on my hands and knees and was tearing out the sand just
below the projecting piece of sand-rock.
"What yer doing?" cried Shock. "You'll make more come down and cover us
up."
"My jacket is buried down here," I cried, and I worked away feeling
certain that I should find it, and at last, in spite of the sand coming
down almost as fast as I tore it out, I scratched and scraped away till,
to my great delight, I got hold of a part of the jacket and dragged it
out.
"Hurrah!" I cried. "I've got it."
"And the bread and meat?" cried Shock. "Oh, give us a bit; I am so
bad."
"No," I said despairingly.
"What! yer won't give me a bit?" he cried fiercely.
"It isn't here," I said. "It was in my pocket, but it's gone. Stop!"
I cried; "it was a big packet and it must have come out."
I plunged my arms into the soft sand again, and worked away for long,
though I was ready to give up again and again, and my fingers were
getting painfully sore, but I worked on, and at last, to my great
delight, as I dug down something slipped slowly down on to the back of
my hands--I had dug down past it, and the sand had brought it out of the
side down to me.
"Here it is!" I cried, standing up and shaking the sand away from the
paper as I tore it open.
Shock uttered a cry like a hungry dog as he heard the paper rustle, and
then I divided the sandwiches in two parts and wrapped one back in the
paper.
"What yer doin'?" cried Shock.
"Saving half for next time," I said. "We mustn't eat all now."
Shock growled, but I paid no heed, and gave him half of what I had in my
hands, and then putting the parcel with the rest right at the end where
the sand did not fall, I sat down and we ate our gritty but welcome
meal.
We tried round the place again and again, using up the candle till the
wick fell over and dropped in the sand; and then first one match and
then another was burned till we were compelled to give up all hope of
escaping by our own efforts.
Refreshed and strengthened by the food, Shock expressed himself ready
for a new trial at digging his way out.
"I can do it," he said. "I'll soon get through."
Soon after he was clinging to me, hot, panting, and trembling in every
limb, after narrowly escaping suffocation, and when I wanted to take up
the task where he had left off, he clung to me more tightly and would
not let me go from his side.
"Yer can't do it," he said hoarsely. "Sand comes down and smothers yer.
Faster yer works, faster it comes. Let Ike bring the shovels."
There was no other chance. I felt that, and sat down beside Shock and
talked and tried to cheer him up; and when I broke down he roused up and
tried to cheer me. Then I talked to him about stories I had read, where
people had been buried alive, and where they were always dug out at
last, and when I was weary he took his turn, showing me that in his
rough way he could talk quickly and in an interesting way about catching
birds and rats. How at times he had caught rats with his hands, and had
been bitten by them.
"But," he added, with a laugh, "I served 'em out for it--I bit them
after I'd skinned and cooked 'em."
"How horrible!" I said.
"Horrible! Why? They'd lived on our fruit and corn till they were fat
as fat, I like rat."
Then we grew tired, and as soon as we ceased talking a curious sensation
of fear came over us. I say us, for more than once I knew that Shock
felt it, by his whispering to me in an awe-stricken tone:
"I never know'd as being in the dark was like this before. It's darker
like, much darker, you know than being in one of the lofts under the
straw."