"You may not have escaped all the same, becorse you've pulled down the
cliff in your dissent, and that was the only way out of the qwarry, and
now there isn't any way out at all!"
Which was perfectly true and not said to friten Morris. Getting out of
the qwarry was far far worse than getting in and wanted a nerve of iron,
which I hadn't mentioned to Morris till I got him safely in; but now
he'd pulled down the place compleatly and left a naked precipice, and my
nerve of iron was no good. In fact we were evidently going to have a
grate adventure, and so I told Morris.
It certainly spoilt the day for him, becorse you can't very well have a
ripping good picknick if you don't know how the picknick is going to
end.
"It's a fine place for natural history no doubt," he said; "but we can't
pretend we're going to have a good time now."
"We're going to have a long time anyway," I said.
He smiled in rather a gastlie way and said he hoped not, becorse the
weather was changeing and it might rain later on.
Then I told him that wether didn't matter as there was a pretty dry cave
where Freckles used to do his cooking of rabbits on half-holidays.
Morris seemed glad about the cave. He rubbed his ankle and said, so far
as that went, he fealt pretty right. Presently he said--
"There are certainly red admirals here in grate quantities and also
draggon-flies, but somehow I don't feel I've got the heart to kill
annything for the moment, espeshully after what I've just eskaped
myself. Deth is deth."
"You'll be better after food," I said.
But he wouldn't hear of food.
"We must face the possishun," he said. "Here we are in a qwarry and we
can't get out."
"Yes," I said.
"Very well. Then, there being no food in the qwarry except what we have
brort with us, we shall soon be hungry."
"Yes," I said. "I am now."
Morris went on trying to be calm, but I could see the more he explained
the situashun the more fritened he got. His voice shook when he said
the next thing.
"You can't go on being hungry for more than a certain time. After you
reech a certain pich, you die."
"Yes," I said.
"Well, there you are," he said.
He figetted about with his killing-bottle and things, then made a
hopeless sort of a sound like an engine letting off steem.
"We must consider meens of eskape," I said. "People come here sometimes,
no doubt.
"Only boys out of bounds," said Morris faintly. "Oh, what would I give
to see the face of Freckles peep over the top!"
"It's impossible," I told him. "Freckles is spending the holidays with
some cousins in Norfolkshire. But there are often keepers in the woods
to look after the game."
"Then we must shout at intervals, night and day--as long as we've got
the strength to do it, said Morris.
"Before each shout we will eat a sandwich to increese our strength," I
said. But Morris fancied half a sandwich would be safer.
I thort it wasn't much good beginning by starving ourselves. In
adventures nobody begins by starving--they end like that; but Morris,
who has a watch, looked at it and said the time was only half-past ten
and that, even if we were safe and within reach of food, we should not
eat any for two hours and a half. But I said planely I could not waite
that time and it ended by our dividing the food into two heaps of
exactly the same size to a crumb. And I eat a sandwich boldly and
fearlessly, but Morris shook his head and said it was foolhardy.
He took a very hopeless view from the first, and even thort that
perhaps, when my food was all gone and his hardly begun, I should turn
on him with the feerceness of starvashun and tare his food away from
him. But I said, "No, Morris. What ever tortures I may suffer, I am a
gentleman, and I would rather die a hundred times than take as much as
one seed out of your peece of cake."
This comforted him rather. He put his hand on his chin and stared
before him in a very feeble manner.
"Deth is deth," he began again.
"That's the third time you've said that," I told him, "and if you say it
once more, I'll punch your head. Now, I'm going to utter the first
grate shout, and I hope it may bring a keeper--not Thomas or Waxy West,
for they are both very hard and beestly men, and very likely wouldn't
rescue us even if they new we were here; but the under-keeper, Masters.
He will certainly save us, and if he does, I'll give him my packet of
cigarets."
I shouted six times; then I shouted six more times; then I told Morris
to have a shot. But he made such a piffling, feeble squeak that you
could hardly have heard him a quarter of a mile off.
"Lucky I can howl," I said, "or we should both be done for without a
dout. Why, a lamb that has lost its mother would get up more row than
that."
Morris was rather hurt at this. Me explained that he was making an
Australian sound tought him by Freckles.
"It may not be loud," he said, "but it is a well-none sound in Australia
and travel grate distances espeshully over water."
The menshun of water made us go and look at the pond. I was fritefully
thirsty by now and drank some. It was grey in colour but clear when
seen in my india-rubber cup and quite holesome to the taste. Morris
douted, but still he drank. I advised him to catch some draggon-flies
and he said he would after the next time for shouting had come. We
arranged that I should shout every half-hour, and Morris wanted to give
me one sandwich from his store as payment for the exershun of shouting;
but I skorned it and told him I would not think of doing so.
After the second shouting, which did nothing, used my sling a bit and
neerly hit a bird, and Morris cought a draggon-fly and let it go out of
pitty, and then he cought another and kept it to see if the
killing-bottle would kill it. It did. After about half a minute in the
bottle the draggon was gone, and we shook him out and examined his
butiful markings of yellow and black and his transparent wings, that had
the colours of the rainbow on them when the sun fell on them in a
particular manner.
Morris stroaked it in a sorroful way.
"It is out of its missery now. I wish me and you were," he said.
I said we hadn't begun our missery yet. I advised him to eat a sandwich
and he did, but very reluctantly.
He said that water would keep life in the human frame for many weeks.
He also said that he fealt, in a damp place like this, we might eesily
get pewmonia. He wondered if I hadn't better shout every quarter of an
hour. He also thort his watch was going far too slow owing to his fall
down the side of the qwarry. The sun had gone behind some rather dark
clouds and we couldn't be sure where it was.
The only thing that happened during the next hour was that the
draggon-fly came to again, not being ded but merely incensible. It
lifted a paw rather feebly to its forehead and evvidently had a
headacke. Then it took a step or two and shivered a lot. Somehow it
grately cheered Morris the draggon-fly recovering. He sed it had come
out of the jaws of deth and so perhaps we should. He gave it an atom of
tongue out of a sandwich, but it was not up to eating, and turned away
from it. Then Morris got it some water to wet its glittering tail. This
certainly refreshed it and so Morris dashed a few drops on its head
which refreshed it still more. At half-past two it rose and flew
several inches and at three it disappeered.
By this time I had eaten all my sandwiches and drunk tons of water and
was pealing my first hard-boiled egg.
Suddenly Morris had an idea. He had only eaten one sandwich and was of
course famishing with hunger. He said--
"If you was to write a message and tie it round a stone and sling it
into space, it might be found and red. Then a resque party would be
arranged and we should be saved."
It was pretty good for Morris, and I took out my pocket-book instantly
and wrote three messages. And he wrote three. He sed it was like men on
sinking ships, who send off messages in bottles that are found many
years afterwards in Iceland. And I said it was. Of corse we hoped one
at leest of the six messages might be found pretty soon. Years
afterwards was no good to us.