IN THE CAVERN
The passage continued of limited width for a number of rods. The
floor lay almost level, smooth enough to make going easy. The light
from the torch showed only walls of bare rock on either side, and
once, when Margaret turned the rays upward, the narrowing slant to
an apex far above their heads. The two explorers went in silence.
Saxe thought the footing safe enough so that he could content himself
with watching the girl, whose every motion was a delight to him, seen
dimly in the glow that penetrated from without. He was not minded to
waste many glances on barren cliffs, while so much of living beauty
went in buoyant grace there before him. Margaret, however, gave
no apparent attention to aught save the immediate business of the
moment, which was holding her gaze to the path lighted by the torch.
And so they came presently into a spacious chamber within the earth.
As the two entered here, Margaret halted, and Saxe eagerly stepped
to her side. The girl flashed the torch here and there, to reveal the
nature of the place. Saxe guessed that the room had a diameter of
about fifty feet. The walls of ragged rock formed an uneven circle.
They bent inward in the ascent, with a dome-like effect, to a height
of hardly two score feet.
Margaret wasted no time. After one examination of the walls by the
torch, she fixed the light on a portion of the side opposite them, a
little to the left. Saxe, peering intently in this direction, thought
that he detected two patches of shadow, a little denser than the
surrounding dark, which might be the openings into other tunnels. The
girl’s words proved his surmise right.
“There are two passages over there, close together,” she announced.
“As I remember, the one we followed was that on the right. Of course,
the money might be hidden anywhere. But we might go a little way in
that passage first, so that you’ll understand how it runs downward.”
“Yes,” Saxe agreed. “The place in which to search is narrowed by the
statement in the cipher about the bottom of the lake. Does the other
passage, too, run downward?”
The girl shook her head instinctively, although the action was not
visible, since the outdoor light did not penetrate thus far, and the
beam cast by the torch was directed from her.
“I know nothing of the second passage,” she explained. “We didn’t
enter it. Come.”
They set out across the chamber, walking side by side, and so came
to the passage-way of which Margaret had had experience. This proved
to be somewhat broader than that through which they had come. They
had advanced but a very short way, when the floor began to slope
sharply downward. Saxe realized that this rate of descent need not be
continued long to bring them to the level of the lake’s bottom. He
knew that the highest point of the island could have hardly more than
a hundred feet of elevation above the surface of the lake. Indeed, he
was sure that the entrance to the cavern was only a little distance
above the level of the water. They had climbed the bluff that lined
the shore, and had afterward ascended a few slight rises, but the
total vertical height could not have been more than fifty feet.
The inclination of the passage downward was enough to overcome this
speedily, if it should continue. And it did continue, for such a long
way that at last Saxe was sure the waters of the lake lay above them.
The two wayfarers within this secret place of the earth spoke little,
and that for the most part of the things immediately about them. The
floor of this passage-way here was not free from rubble, as the other
had been. It was littered everywhere with fallen fragments, so that
there was need to watch each step with care. Saxe experienced a new
happiness when the difficulties of the path became so serious as to
justify him in taking the hand of Margaret to help her in surmounting
a fallen boulder. As the pulse of her blood touched his, it throbbed
a rapture in his heart. In this dark vault of the earth, he forgot
the first object of the subterranean wandering--forgot in worship of
the woman at his side; Margaret herself sharply recalled him to the
prosaic.
“Do you notice the difference in the light?” she asked. “I’m sure
it’s dying out. It must need recharging. We must hurry back.”
A note of apprehension in the speaker’s voice aroused Saxe to
instant concern. He gave a quick glance toward the circle of light
cast by the torch, and perceived that its radiance had in fact grown
less.
“Yes,” he answered, “it’s failing. We must turn. Anyhow, I’ve seen
enough to understand that this is the likeliest place in which to
hunt for the gold.”
As he spoke, they turned about together, and began the ascent with
hastening steps, for the thought that the torch might die out while
they were still within the cavern was far from pleasant to either of
them. The girl’s anxiety was revealed in the next question:
“Have you matches?”
With a start of dismay, Saxe recalled that he had left his match-safe
in the pocket of his coat, which remained in the canoe. Nevertheless,
he made a perfunctory search.
“No,” he admitted reluctantly; “I left them in the canoe.” He heard
the girl sigh; but she said nothing more, only hastened her steps.
The dimming of the torch was very apparent now.
The two scrambled over the unevennesses of the passage with what
haste they might. Saxe congratulated himself on the fact that there
had been no other passages branching from that in which they had made
the descent, for the turns, while never sharp, had been frequent
enough to breed perilous confusion were there need of choice. In
the next instant, however, he remembered the abstraction of his
thoughts during the traversing of the route, and he was filled with
self-reproach at the realization that, after all, there might have
been such branches. And, just then, the two halted abruptly, arrested
by a sudden consciousness of the truth. They were descending!
For a moment, neither spoke. In that little interval, the feeble glow
of the torch died out altogether.
There came a gasp of dismay from Margaret. Saxe’s clasp on her hand
tightened in the instinct of protection. Then he essayed a cheerful
laugh, albeit there was small merriment in it.
“Now,” he declared briskly, “we must stop right where we are until
we’ve planned a campaign. This is a real adventure.” Even as he
spoke, miserably aware of the serious predicament into which the
going out of the torch had plunged them, he was conscious of the
delicate fragrance of her hair, so near his lips, and the vague, yet
penetrant, perfume that exhaled from her to the ravishing of his
senses. He fought manfully against the temptation to draw her to his
breast, as every fibre of him besought. Under the stress of desire
denied, his voice came with a ring of imperiousness. “I had a lot of
experiences in caves, when I was a boy. This thing will be easy.”
“But we’re going downward,” Margaret faltered. The mystery of the
event had sapped courage.
“Exactly!” Saxe conceded. “Somewhere, we turned off into a branch
passage. Did you know of any branch?”
“No,” came the answer. The inflection of distress gave new strength
to the temptation that beset him.
“I should have noticed it on the way down,” Saxe confessed, in great
bitterness of spirit; “but my mind was wool-gathering.”
The girl ventured no question. Perhaps she guessed the nature of that
distraction.
“Anyhow, we’ve managed to leave the passage in which we came down.
We couldn’t have turned around in it, without knowing the fact. It
seems to me that we’ve only to face about, and make our way upward
again--merely watching out that we don’t get switched off another
time. The ascent will surely take us back by one or the other of the
two corridors into the big room above.”
“But--if it should not!” Margaret stammered. The woe in her voice was
pitiful. “Why, we might--here in the dark--no light--no food--oh!”
Saxe spoke with a manner of authority:
“Stop! Don’t imagine things. Worry wastes strength. Save yours for
this exciting climb through the dark. There’s no danger--that I
know.” The calm confidence with which he contrived to charge his
voice soothed the girl, and restored to her some measure of courage.
From his position on the left side of her, he put out his free hand,
and touched the wall. “Put out your right hand,” he bade her, “until
it reaches the wall. Now, we’ll turn round, and begin the journey
in the right direction. Keep in touch with the wall, please. Move
slowly, using your feet in place of eyes, to avoid stumbling.”
In this fashion, they set forth through the blackness of the cavern.
It was slow and tedious going. It had been tiresome enough when
the torch made plain the obstacles strewn over the floor. Now, the
difficulties were multiplied an hundredfold by the absence of light.
They could only shuffle a foot about cautiously until it secured a
firm place, then by like clumsy feeling choose the next step. Often,
one or the other stumbled, was near to falling, but, since these
mishaps occurred rarely at the same instant, the one still in balance
gave sufficient support. Yet, slow as was their progress, Saxe found
heart to be content with it. Always it was upward, until he dared
believe that they were actually in either the passage by which they
had descended, or in that which opened near it in the big room. He
told his faith to Margaret, and she strove her best to throw off the
gloom bred of this hateful environment, but could not; nevertheless,
despite her fears, they won through at last to the great chamber.
“Hurrah!” cried Saxe. His guiding left hand swept suddenly into
emptiness--another step, and still there had been no contact to
his roving fingers. It was then that he halted, and gave a shout of
triumph. “There’s no wall on your side?” he demanded.
The girl put out her hand, but there was nothing within reach. With
a pang of compunction, she realized that she had been remiss in the
duty appointed her, for she had not felt the wall even once in a long
while. She made admission of her guilt, with charming contrition.
“It’s no matter,” Saxe declared. Profound relief sounded in his
words. “We’ve come safe to the big room, and nothing else counts.” In
sheer exuberance over their escape, he pressed the fingers that lay
so lightly within his.
The girl thrilled in answer to the clasp. The announcement of their
return to the chamber came to her overwrought mind as a reprieve from
fearful doom. With the joy now possessing her, there came relaxation
of the tension that had sustained her. In the warm pressure of his
hand over hers was a comfort that loosed the self-control in which
she had held herself hitherto. Without any warning, she drooped as
she stood; her form grew limp. She would have fallen, had not Saxe,
in terror for her as he felt the yielding of her muscles, drawn her
to his breast. He held her close there. It seemed strange to him, as
she lay motionless within his embrace, the while his lips touched
softly a strand of the wonderful hair, that the glory of those
tresses should not make all things visibly radiant in the blackness
of the cavern, even as the nearness of her made a golden sunlight in
his heart. He did not utter a word or venture aught beyond the kiss
on that lock which kindliest fate had laid across his lips--only
rested motionless, holding her firmly, reverently, what time she
wept softly on his bosom. Surely, there needed no clumsy vehicle of
words between those two embraced in the solitary dark. Twain pulses
throbbed as one. In their rhythm ran a song of heavenly things.