"To you, who smoak so eesily, no dout it is no good, but I have never
smoaked, and if I took a cigaret and went through with it, it might turn
me off eating for some time."
This was true, but I pointed out a grate danger that Morris had
forgotten.
"That is all right and I will of corse share my cigarets with you, and
as there are twenty, that will be ten each," I said; "but I must
seeriously warn you, Morris, that to a perfect beginer, like you, many
things might happen besides merely a fealing against tongue sandwiches.
You might be absolutely sick and then----"
"All the food in me would be wasted," said Morris in a very tragick
tone.
He turned quite white at this idea. He said it would be madness to do
anything to weaken his system at such a critikal time, and I said so
too. Then he asked me to go and smoak further off, because the very
smell made him feal rather strange after what I had told him.
I smoaked three cigarets bang off and they only made me hungrier than
ever. Then the rain became rather bad and at four o'clock we entered
the cavern. At least I did, but Morris stood at the door ready to run
out and shout if by a lucky chance anybody came in sight on the edge of
the qwarry. But nobody came and the next serious thing was that my
voice began to get husky after so much shouting. Morris said it was the
cigarets, but I told him it was owing to yelling all day every
half-hour, which undoubtedly it was.
At six I went to sleep for some time in the cave and Morris did not wake
me, because he said that I was gaining strength by it. When I woke it
was getting darkish and I thort it would be a good thing to make a fire.
Morris thort so too and we made one reddy with a lot of ded fern that
Freckles had put long ago into the cavern. We took the paper that had
rapped up our lunch, and put it under the fern, and covered it with my
coat to keep it dry; and after dark we lighted it, and it made a good
blaze for a minute but unfortunately went out owing to the rain.
The rain, in fact, began to pour steddily and it was a partickularly
dark evening. Morris became a simple worm after dark. He took a small
bite out of a sandwich and said his prayers from end to end every
half-hour. I had only got my cake left now, and it seemed to me better
to have one good meel and have done with it than keep messing about like
Morris was. So I finished my cake and tried to go to sleep again.
We found that water came through the roof of the cavern in rather large
quantities, and Morris had a new terror. He said--
"If we can't get out of the qwarry, then I don't see how water can get
out, and so, if it rains more than a certain amount, the qwarry will get
full and we shall be drowned."
Which showed what a footling state of mind Morris had got into.
Presently I sneezed and he said of corse that it was the beginning of
pewmonia. Then he asked for a match to see the time and it was six
minutes past ten. Then I shouted again at the cavern entrance without
result.
He kept on asking for matches to see the time until there were only five
left, and I said we must keep these for immergencies, and he said he
supposed we must.
At last he went into a sort of sleep after shedding some teers and
pretending it was a cold in his head. Then I lighted a cigaret and found
much to my supprise that I was beginning to feal queer myself with a new
sort of queerness quite new to me.
I woke Morris and told him that I was sorry to say I was ill; and he
said he was undoubtedly very ill too and had been dreeming of his
mother, which he only did when frightfully ill. He also asked me if I
believed in ghosts and I said I thort I did. And he said he always did.
There were some awfully strange noises happening outside at this time,
and I sakrificed another match and found it was neerly one o'clock.
Then we went to the mouth of the cavern and listened to a peculiar
creepy sound far off. The rain had stopped and a sloppy looking moon
was coming up. Morris shivered.
"That might be the mournful yell of some wretched ghost," he said.
"It's owels," I said, but he did not think so. He thort it was too
miserable for owels.
It came neerer and certainly was not owels.
Then a thort struck me.
"It's a resque party!" I said.
We shouted with all our might and screamed and yelled, and presently
there was an ansering yell and we fealt that with any luck we were now
saved. Soon toarches gleemed through the trees, and there were sounds of
human feet and langwidge.